May 19 2017 - Partners Meeting - Social Justice Repair Kit (SJRK)
Vidyo recording https://files.inclusivedesign.ca/index.php/s/oirD9kBzwAr6V2f
Attendees
Juliana - Colombia -- Karisma
Dana - IDRC designer
Alan - IDRC developer
James - expert youth with disabilities, disability rights; advisor for A frican youth disability network
Michael - TakingITGlobal
Liam - TakingITGlobal
Colin - IDRC lead software architect
Silvia - Cartegena
Michelle - IDRC developer
not present - Jutta (sends regrets)
not present - Catalina (connection troubles)
Notes
Started with a go-around to answer these questions:
How do you consider inclusion in your work with youth now?
What are your main challenges in considering inclusion / engaging youth?
How do you want to engage youth in this project? Activities/events/actions?
What does your engagement process look like for youth not already connected to your organisation?
Are there specific things you want the IDRC to help with? Do you have ideas for projects around inclusion (building tools and resources or organising events, etc) that we could work on together?
Michael -- goal (they do both online and in person (hackathon and camps)) reach and serve youth w/ multiple barriers (cost, cog., e.g.) biggest challenge for them is a marketing challenge -- how do you reach the folks who need it the most?
Juliana -- karisma does not work directly with youth communities -- want to identify groups who work with youth as a first step -- identification phase.
Made a plan to start with that -- survey or interviews -- opening conversations with the various groups in regions around Colombia, not just in Bogota. To understand the local context.
James -- african youth with disabilities; rwanda and sierra leon -- inclusive participation is one of the challenges of including youth with disabilities. Each country chapter is meant to include diverse youth; in some countries some of people who are meant to be part are still at the margins. Invisible disabilities, youth are unable to be a part of and participate -- excluded though they are supposed to be included. The environment does not allow them to participate -- the way they set things up… in summary: participation/empowerment/environment
Silvia -- higher ed institution -- 13K students; also related to other higher ed institutions across Colombia. Big problem is institutions have ignored inclusive practices and resources used by teachers are not inclusive at all; youth with disabilities don’t have access to higher ed as a result. Big challenge to make sure they reach higher ed. Teachers need ways to reach these youth -- technology seen as a way to bridge that gap. Inclusive OER is seen as a way to bridge the gap. Indigenous young in one particular city -- have barriers to education -- the process does not adjust to their needs. Want to bridge gap to indigenous communities…Environmental care -- Cartegena has a problem with a lot of industry being there -- need to balance with environmental issues. Want to provide OER to support learning about this.
Michael -- connecting 19 comm and 21 schools in most remote parts of Canada -- growing awareness and responsibility to acknowledge indigenous communities. Schools now do acknowledgements at the beginning of every school day. 7 guides to actions that are all CC -- guides to action on reconciliation (recommendation -- develop this) Gord Downey -- foundation his brother is leading -- legacy project to support acts of reconciliation -- create a guide to help make sure those efforts are sensitive to issues and effective
Alan -- one of our challenges will be how to support you; and figure out how to bring communities in together to work with us on this -- real focus on inclusive co-design. There seem to be shared pieces, CO-DESIGN is one of those
Dana -- let’s explore what that looks like -- co-design -- how can we do this in the different contexts. What has worked in the past and how can we support that?
James -- building capacity and empowering youth organizations; increase their capacity to include others -- help them create inclusive approaches -- how we design the activities, budgets, etc. within the environment and context what is the best way to organise the spaces to (mobile, digital devices, etc.) help their voices be heard? Building communities of support -- helps create sustainability; a support system; the network that surrounds the youth (parents, teachers, service providers etc.) engage all of them -- the broader community. Community leaders -- those who are decision makers and budgetary deciders; schools; healthcare -- the whole network. Change the negative attitude. Service providers too! Then they know the services exist and can demand them.
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Juliana -- how they’ve done co-design in the past -- SW Cauca region? Want a clear communication plan with / Work directly with teachers -- weekly frequency helped. Not monthly -- more direct interaction -- So, for the groups that we want to have involved for this project, we want to help them understand that maybe they are missing an opportunity -- that they are losing people and not reaching people because they aren’t using inclusive tools or methodologies. 5 regions in Colombia.
Silvia -- improve methodologies of co-creation -- will be good to work together on that; standardized education processes -- difference is not considered a value, but rather a problem to be solved -- something that makes standardization hard. Want to sensitize people to diversity. OERs using aContent and ATutor -- have had success working with teachers in creating content. Use UIO in websites -- have studied and applied the guidelines from the wiki and fluid project.
METHODOLOGIES FOR CO-DESIGN
We want to document how we’ve used various methods to engage different populations and within various contexts and try to tease out some ways to iterate on them and try them out in the contexts with youth and getting input from youth to iterate the methods.
Colin -- tailored toolkit for youth; we’ve been experimenting with co-creation methods that could be useful here to engage youth—create-a-thon with toys and legos as a proxy for imagining accessible software—techniques for inclusion and design. These could be grown into a toolkit of resources for codesign in youth movements.
Silvia -- evaluation is an important piece too -- want to share and explore and research how we do evaluation of these things, co-evaluation, co-design methodologies
Jess -- micro, meso, macro -- easier to see if we’ve created inclusive OERs e.g., but harder to measure how we’ve had a cultural impact on inclusion or diversity as an asset.
EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT
Colin -- we need to consider who evaluates and assesses? It’s important to give youth movements, and youth themselves, the tools and power to create their own measures and criteria for assessment
Alan -- how do we keep the influence going outside of the usual suspect or smaller community of people tuned into this -- dissemination and capacity building -- negotiating with larger power structures.
Silvia -- metrics -- explore how we use metrics
James -- policy makers and those with power -- the attitudes they currently have and how to influence them. Best way to engage those structures (e.g. youth wd and education) do not have capacity even though they have ratified need for this -- depending on goals and what we want to achieve -- need to identify key players with power and then engage them -- develop and action plan (COULD BE A FOCUS -- POWER/POLICY ACTION PLAN) to establish ownership and follow-up on commitments made. Customize according to context. Provide guidelines?
POWER/POLICY ACTION PLAN
Juliana -- agree that this is important -- advocacy; if you don’t have political opportunity or a space in the agenda, it’s hard to have the impact -- need to learn how to read the way the political “campaigns” are launched and figure out how to similarly launch a strong message.
Work with grassroots communities and then you have the knowledge, the context, and the “way” to contribute to the messaging.
Michael -- Youth Effect -- toolkit -- 15 diff co-authors sharing best practices and youth -- useful to build on that model and make it even more global and inclusive -- folks are often looking for a guide or resources or perspectives
OPEN TOOLKIT TO CONTRIBUTE A CHAPTER!!
Colin -- we may create our own resources but how do we give youth and movements the ability to disseminate their resources -- can we provide tools and resources so that they too can get their ideas and messages out, too?
James -- want sustainable resources -- youth grow up, it’s transitaional -- need a mixed approach. Youth-led groups but also schools YMCAs and other orgs that persist. Meet young people where they are. What age do we define as ‘youth’ -- it varies from place to place.
Dana -- MyL3 --a toolkit for self-assessment -- something we’ve been working on -- a concrete tool that might be applicable in the self-assessment piece -- the assessment question above.
FIRST-PERSON STORYTELLING
Storytelling keeps coming up in our conversation -- look at the document (https://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/Storytelling+and+Story-gathering+Resources%2C+Tools+and+Examples) - Could that be a useful tool -- something that allows for gathering stories? As well as learning skills at same time. Have youth create these stories --
James -- a common practice in many platforms -- many youth orgs. Use stories of children in different ways -- need to make them accessible themselves! How do we keep principles of inclusivity and inclusive design in this particular content creation effort.
Silvia -- need to create really open educational resources -- many efforts to develop resources, methodologies, tools, and then they aren’t available to be adapted or reused and so it’s a lost opportunity.
Juliana -- storytelling -- 2 weeks ago i talked about the radio projects that i work with (la Radio Vallena) -- So I think is a good idea to use radio collectives and podcasts -- to gather the stories of the Colombian projects -- can do this with Silvia -- transcript and audio (audio is easy, but also engaging and participatory) can have the stories. Etc.
NEED TO HELP CLARIFY CC LICENSES FOR VARIOUS CONTENT
Dana -- can we meet every 2 weeks? Is this a good time? Dana to create a Doodle poll to get schedule the next call…
Juliana -- share a first draft plan to get comments and suggestions
Michael -- at what point are we hoping for partners to finalize plan?
3 years and aiming to roll out funding in a phases approach so partners can be responsive to forming partnerships and changes in focus
Silvia -- can help with webpage or graphic design, etc.
TO DO -- get a partner list together for skype and such
Alan -- IRC channels is where most of the Floe and Fluid teams hang out. It’s a good way to make regular contact with us.
Colin -- could fire up Slack or whatever resource folks prefer. Will email George to check in re: Slack a11y
Michael -- Slack -- let’s do it
James -- wondering about timeline
To do -- get drafts or “work-plans” together for the meeting in 2 weeks; and IDRC will get in the position to fund those and get the financials moving