The NID Project — The chronicle of a social enterpreneurship
How to design a social aimed project?What tools to use?Here is a description of the NID project by Dare to Challenge workshop step by step…
As Dare-to-Challengers, our goal was to design and act as social innovators and solution givers, not just simple students of the course ‘Social Issues and Corporate Responsability’. Along with the guidance and mentoring of our prof. Betty Tsakarestou we managed to find the social circumstance that we wanted to heal. So the NID, (need in depth) project aims to the feeding (cooked food) of refuggees and immigrants that Athens host these difficult times. But lets go back, to the very beginning…What does someone need for the preparation of such a project?
[watch out!This article is not an outline of the NID Project..for more details press for this link]
So, I will try to list the steps our team followed as inspiring tips:
- Form your team. Choose your colleagues wisely; your team must be consisted by passionate, hard-working and innovative young leaders. I had the privilege to work with Diony Kon and Sinekoglou Konstantina.
2. Collect information and the proper guideline. Our basic tool was OpenIDEO, which helped us schematize first our idea and then the whole project.
- brainstorm toolkit
- user experience map
- prototype
3. Decide your idea and share it!It s very important that you communicate your idea as soon as you ve formed it.The ‘baptising’ feedback you will get may be useful. Our team experienced this during the Dare to Challenge sessions. Betty Tsakarestou insisted that all teams should be eager for dialogue with the other classmates.
4. Look for similar organisations and movements. Your idea may have been applied by someone else differently, before you, it’s ok. Search for the weaknesses and obstacles others had. Talk to experts, make the difference and move on! In our case, we had to change the core of our project twice.
5. Plan, get feedback from the target group and present your solution. As long as you have your project ready, you test it to see if it’s sustainable. What matters most is not to be a gesture of philanthropy but to give a solution and cover a gap in the social space.
6. Always treat your subjects with the respect they deserve and be kind. Unfortunately,The NID project could not be applied because of the obstacles we came up against, but the lesson the team gained by the prossedure was life changing. We got into roles in real life aspects and experienced the impact ourselves! So finally i will add, always tell the truth, learn from your mistakes and share your experience!
Ioanna Vassiliki Pante, Konstantina Sinekoglou, Dionysia Konstantakopoulou
students at Communication, Media and Culture department
