An awful lot has been said and written about disconnection and isolation in the digital age. But although the causes and potential impact of these social phenomena have been well-discussed, less covered is the array of potential solutions at hand. Paco’s new tool book is designed for action and change. It is both an account of our PARTY project and a practical manual for designers and facilitators. Read on!
Isolation seems a jarring concept in today’s global and digitalised world. On one hand, we can spot convergent movements which are fostered by technology and seem likely to eliminate distances among individuals, by creating new forms of aggregation which are aimed -more or less deliberately-at bringing people together.
On the other, the same technology is feeding a widespread divergent thrust of the individual from their own communities. It would be tempting to explain such detachment as a simple reaction of re-appropriation of our privacy and intimacy, in an environment which is roaring with information and where our personal lives undergo continuous public scrutiny.
However, this trend roots deeply in the economic, politic, social and cultural undercurrents of our time. This entanglement is so complex, and affects so many areas of our lives, that design, with its potential to understand the bigger picture, is more important than ever before.
👉 👉Design for change in marginalised communities is our contribution to this crucial discourse. 👈👈
Drawing on our eye-opener experience with San communities in Namibia and South Africa, (which we’ve covered in a previous post!), the book aims at providing practical support to organise, run and facilitate workshops with marginalised communities, particularly involving young people.
Why you should read this book?
_You want to foster co-design and co-creation. This guide will help you understand not only what a community is really about, but also how everybody in a community can become an agent for wider change;
_You’d love to master facilitation, and experiment with different facilitation styles and methods, in workshops with culturally and demographic diverse attendees;
_Your immediate audiences is the youth, above all in local, marginalised communities, and you look for ways to engage and generate new ideas, as well as to spot those members of the communities.
_You aim to explore service design approach and techniques, to deliver bottom-up solutions to collective issues;
_And most of all, you want contribute to improving life in excluded communities.
A huge thank you goes to all our partners, that made the PARTY — PARTicipatory development with the Youth — project possible:
- University of Lapland in Rovaniemi, Finland;
- University of Leeds, UK;
- South African San Institute (SASI), Kimberley, South Africa;
- Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST), Windhoek, Namibia
- Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), Cape Town, South Africa.
The project itself has been funded by the European Union.
Thanks to all the PACOers who participated into the project: Nicola De Franceschi, fabrizio pierandrei, Stefano Anfossi, Silvia Remotti, Júlia Bertoncello, Federico Fred Fumagalli, Adrian Larripa Artieda, Bilge Özkan Porro, emanuela delfino, Francesco Brutto, Lucrezia Fratto, Sara Alonso Barandiaran, Valentina Salvi, ValentinaVezzani.
