The program is free for schools and run individually at the country-level. DFC conducts design thinking workshops for teachers, provides technical support with websites and the online community, and selects and shares inspiring stories from participants. DFC won a Rockefeller Foundation Innovation Award in 2012. Design for Change gives students tools and strategies to transform their empathy into social action through innovative and collaborative experiences. The process uses a simple four step framework; feel, imagine, do, and share. The feel stage creates empathy for a situation or issue. Imagine is the brainstorming phase. Research and brainstorming together, the students come up with innovative ideas to improve a challenge in their community or world-wide. Do is the make it happen stage. The group’s plan is initiated. The plan is either action or education. The share stage is the reflection and report about the Do stage. The projects are aligned to the 17 Global Goals put forth by the United Nations to guide their projects and focus on high impact issues in their community.
The process is as follows:
As a part of the DFC program, children have chosen to tackle a number of issues plaguing their communities, such as waste management, school infrastructure, health awareness, special needs, personal hygiene, learning aids, and gender equality. As the students work through the process, they upload their work for each step. At the end of the submission, the work uploaded is made into a video that is submitted for a world-wide competition.
- Feel: Students identify problems in their classrooms, schools, and communities. Students observe problems and try to engage with those who are affected, discuss their thoughts in groups, and vote on an idea.
- Imagine: Students envision and develop creative solutions that can be replicated easily, reach the maximum number of people, generate long-lasting change, and make a quick impact.
- Do: Students develop a plan of action to effect change. This includes planning, implementing, and later recording the process.
- Share: Students submit their stories to DFC through text, photos, video, or slideshows and are encouraged to to do so with other schools in the community and local media, as well.
As a part of the DFC program, children have chosen to tackle a number of issues plaguing their communities, such as waste management, school infrastructure, health awareness, special needs, personal hygiene, learning aids, and gender equality. As the students work through the process, they upload their work for each step. At the end of the submission, the work uploaded is made into a video that is submitted for a world-wide competition.
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- This plaform makes it easy to introduce your students to social action.
- Design for Change turns empathy into a learning experince.
- The collaboration activities are well planned.
- The activities are quick and interactive.
- The projects keep students highly engaged.
- Student driven reserach and collaboration.
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- It can be difficult to navigate at first.
- Getting through your first project may take longer than the estimated projection.
