Behind the Scenes: Design to Better [Our Community] + TRIO Upward Bound — East Saint Louis
Last week, we wrapped up an abbreviated version of the Design to Better [Our Community] program in partnership with TRIO Upward Bound in East St. Louis, where we met once a week with East St. Louis High School students and with Cahokia High School students, respectively. Throughout the four-week program, we practiced teamwork, leaned into discomfort, engaged in critical conversations about systems of power, examined community assets, and conducted some of the fastest design sprints imaginable. Here are some of the highlights from the program.
Many students who participated in the program weren’t quite sure what the Design to Better [Our Community] was about when they first joined — they had simply been assigned to attend the program. After brief introductions, we dove right into the first design challenge: designing a backpack for a student from Mars. With construction paper, markers, pipe cleaners, and a few other craft supplies in hand, the youth jumped right into their missions, offering each other critique and encouragement along the way.
We then switched gears with a new challenge: designing ideal neighborhoods. Working individually and in groups, youth identified core characteristics they’d include in their ideal neighborhoods, which ranged from sidewalks and trees to recreation centers where young people could hang out. In designing their ideal neighborhoods, youth also shared where they see limitations, issues, and challenges within their own neighborhoods, like feeling unsafe and feeling unheard.
After warming up our design mindsets and warming up to each other, we moved into language setting, specifically around diversity, inclusion, equality, and equity. We examined what these key terms might mean, and students shared their perspectives.
“Nothing is equality to me. Everything is inequality,” one student said.
“They don’t give us the same opportunities as students in Belleville. They assume we don’t want to do anything,” said another.
As we continued to explore the meanings and manifestations of diversity, inclusion, equality, and equity — or the lack thereof — we expanded our topics of discussion to include social innovation, civic engagement, and design. These topics led to vibrant conversations around different ways to be civically engaged, the perpetuation of stereotypes by mainstream media, how gender identity is a non-binary spectrum, and the challenges of using positive approaches to navigate centuries of racism and other forms of systemic oppression that are designed into the world we experience.
We then began to explore Equity-Centered Community Design (ECCD.) As the youth examined the components, flow, and guiding principles of ECCD, they noted some of the key differences between ECCD and other design methods we’d examined, like the fact that ECCD included History and Healing, or that it included Building Empathy and Humility. Youth also noted that there isn’t a clear starting step for ECCD, and that instead, one can approach ECCD from any part of the process, depending on the needs of the scenario.
In the final session, youth ideated by first brainstorming words they associate with “racism,” and with their high schools. While youth were not given specifics about the types of words to brainstorm for their schools, their maps were largely filled with words that they identified as negative — words that represented problems they see and experience.
Then, it was time to ideate and prototype. In teams, youth identified issues on the word map that they wanted to address through design, quickly brainstormed creative approaches for addressing the issues. Each team then selected one approach and prototyped by developing concept maps to expand on their ideas.
Groups tackled issues like the lack of emphasis on academics, to the “royal rumbles” (the series of fights that sometimes break out at school). In just a matter of minutes, the youth built out plans to increase extracurricular tutoring programs available to students, to create spaces where students could navigate conflict through conversation and teambuilding, and to advocate for administrative hiring processes that included student input.
Over 80 percent of participants reported at the end of the program that they see themselves as both designers and as community leaders.
“It was very interesting [and] made me look at life differently,” said one student.
“I learned about civic engagement and how designs would help make it easier,” said another.
“It was most interesting because it helps us get a feel of what we want,” said another student.
With our first official graduates of Design to Better [Our Community,] it is our hope that these Equity-Centered Community Designers feel more confident in their power and expertise as agents of positive change in their schools and communities. It is our hope that they’ve inspired themselves and each other to advocate for equity through collaborative design, continuous learning, and civic activism. Here at Creative Reaction Lab, we’re certainly walking away with humility and hope in the power of youth-led creative problem solving and youth-led design, and we’re excited to continue working with young people across the St. Louis area and beyond.
A major thank you to our program partner: SIUE’s Trio/Upward Bound East St. Louis Center. Additionally, we would like to thank our Design to Better [Our Community] sponsors: 4.0 Schools, Arts and Education Council, Wells Fargo, and Deaconess Foundation.
Interested in our work? Follow us at www.creativereactionlab.com, join our social media, or contact us regarding us working together at http://www.creativereactionlab.com/contact/. We have plenty of exciting things coming up in the new year!
