Playing Eco Design Detectives
Over the last couple of months we’ve been happily busy at a very interesting project. It’s been the first of it’s kind for everyone involved and I believe I can speak for all and say that it’s been enlightening!
In preparation for the Fresh Talent Challenge in March 2012, the Eco Design Initiative set out to investigate the real life situation of the children of Sakumlandela Primary School in Khayelitsha. In collaboration with the Earth Child Project, we designed an “investigative toolkit” for the kids to be our eyes, ears, voices, storytellers… The exercises included interactive, creative “assignments” which played out over a series of weeks, during kids’ time with the Earth Child Project.
(Earth Child Project: who we love working with by the way because they’re making school the way we wish for! To compliment kids aged 6 – 13 academic learning, Earth Child Project teaches yoga, food gardening, worm farming, hiking clubs, living classrooms, holiday programs, to connect the children and their communities to nature, healthy living and each other. )
Keep in mind part of the team participating in the social design intervention in March are based in Sweden. Some have not yet been to South Africa. The rest are obviously in love with our country! But the truth is for many of our South African participants (team included), township life is unknown and probably grossly misunderstood.
We’re a curious bunch of “social designers”. We wondered what the children have to say and how they view their world. If we’re to conceptualize and suggestion designs to improve the quality of the kids’ lives we cannot make only assumptions. And so began what we can only really call The Beginning of a continued partnership with Sakumlandela’s earth children…
We’ll be sharing a lot of this information and what the kids have documented as part of the Sustainable Design Showcase – our exhibition of sustainable design innovation launching at Cape Town City Hall on 7 March 2012 (Mark the date, dear friends!) – and through other communication channels in the build-up to the event.
For now, I’d like to share a sneak peak…
Circle of earth Children that played “Eco Design Detectives”:
Lisa & Nokuphiwo (Noxi, we call her) introducing the story-telling theater. The easy to clip-together theater came with a set of backgrounds depicting various interpretations of “home” – as in “Home is where the heart is”, our theme for 11″12.
The kids really got into this… Wait till you hear their stories and see them present.
Precious.
Here’s the cover to the booklet. Diary of my Day and the other assignment instructions included.
Looking good, Sisi!
During the Diary of my Day exercise, the kids documented what happened every hour for one whole day, starting 6am until 9pm:
I have a feeling that the Photo assignment was the all round favourite… Armed with disposable cameras, the kids were given a few prompts for their photographs, like “This is my best friend” and “This is where I do my homework”. For the rest, creative freedom… Cannot wait to see the pictures!
Click Click Click:
…
We’re thrilled at how enthusiastically the kids and our friends at Earth Child Project engaged and participated in this exercise. Good grounds for more, I say! We’re really, really grateful to be working closely with you. This is part of our that delivers such great joy to us. Thanks for playing with us!
Thank you to Orli Setton, our Eco Design Initiative intern responsible for designing the Eco Design Detective Toolkit:
Thank you to Gary Hirson for documenting the Investigation. All the pictures (save the last of Orli, taken at my kitchen table in Malmö) in the post are Gary’s work.
