DYVÓ Design Marathons - Learning by Doing - Creative Activism
The Marathon is a series of activities and workshops with open calls for youngsters in the creative and social fields. The aim is to come up with prototypes of innovative and practical ideas that could be the impetus for developing innovation and a circular economy in Kosovo. The Marathon engages and empowers young and creative professionals/students. The targeted category of youngsters to participate in the Marathon are those who want to join the mission of eliminating plastic pollution.
National
Kosovo
The workshop was held in Prishtina, Kosovo. Students who participated and applied are from different Municipalities across such as Peja, Mitrovica, Ferizaj, Prizren etc.
Mainly urban
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
Yes
European Endowment for Democracy
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): DYVÓ Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Nikki Last name of representative: Murseli Gender: Female Nationality: Kosovo If relevant, please select your other nationality: Kosovo Function: Program Director and Executive Director Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Rr. Mehmet Kacurri nr. 40 Town: Prishtina Postal code: 10000 Country: Kosovo Direct Tel:+383 49 211 289 E-mail:info@dyvolab.com Website:http://dyvolab.com
URL:http://instagram.com/dyvolab Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): creative activism, upcycling, innovation, community
URL:https://www.facebook.com/dyvolab Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): creative activism, upcycling, innovation, community
Yes
many of our community members sent us the link to apply
There is a lack of common programs for creatives and environmental activists to gather, analyze, advocate and apply their creative ideas of plastic & waste reduction in the environment. Many environmental initiatives and organizations have identified key problems to waste, but without mobilizing key constituencies to advocate and provide solutions to the main issues that Kosovo faces with environmental degradation. The action's main objective is to strengthen a community of solution-driven activists that will work together to minimize the presence of waste in the environment and advocate for these solutions with local and national institutions.
Design Marathons are a series of activities and workshops with an open call for youngsters in the creative and social fields. The aimed result is to come up with innovative concepts and practical prototypes within 48 hours, which could be the impetus for developing impact-driven initiatives in Kosovo. The outlined action bases its overall objective on increasing knowledge and opportunities for Design-Driven Innovation to address climate change emergencies and social challenges.
The action’s capacity-building and expertise development subthemes seek to redefine “the meaning of success” in our societies through consolidating gender-mainstreaming, reconnection and the sense of belonging with nature, people and other beings as overarching criteria integrated within the work of our target audiences.
Informal education
Distributed Design
Problem Framing
Innovation & Circularity
Prototyping
The key objectives of providing sustainability of the action are:
1 Challenge-based-learning: providing an open, supportive and inclusive environment that engages relevant community members in investigative and applied research for transitioning (circular supply chains, sustainable materials, reuse, recycle, emission reduction, regeneration, well-being improvement);
2 Capacity Building: exploratory and design thinking for generating innovative product-based solutions (led by young women, men, and disadvantaged communities);
3 Learning-by-doing: emphasizing practical and collaborative skills in prototyping processes in the young generation.
The action’s activities (key objective 1) and the engagement of relevant local communities and municipal authorities specifically seek to provide a robust evidence-based body of research which will lead to improved solutions related to local environmental and wellbeing issues. Combined with activities (key objective 2) focusing on consolidating mental abilities, the action creates the necessary pre-conditions for generating impact-driven initiatives. Additionally, learning by doing (key objective 3) emphasises the applicability of theoretical knowledge and testing phases by witnessing and learning firsthand to adapt, mitigate and improve(errors, ideas, concepts etc).
Through its intervention across a number of thematic areas the action influences the target groups on various levels (personal, collective, systemic) enabling a process of awakening a new audience. In the long term the experience imprints, equips and enables the participants to think differently and undertake their own initiatives or activism in the future. It has been exemplary in influencing the participants to internalize environmental sustainability in their university projects and careers.
In terms of aesthetics and quality of experience, the main key objective of the action is to integrate new social values. Within our human nature we constantly seek social recognition and one of the most validating achievements is to become a successful member of society. At wide, success can mean anything depending on circumstances and cultural traditions, however, what we witness across the global mainstream culture is the perception of success only as a profit-driven achievement. With this in our minds, profit-making becomes above any other value and consequence, it unequivocally defines the magnitude of success. The driving force of industry-specific R&D is also influenced by profit-driven innovation above all. There are innumerable training, conferences, get-togethers and media promoting success stories of figures with immense money count, however, the process of how “the success” has been achieved not often is evaluated through a social justice and environmental lens.
Our learning question has been “How to redefine the meaning of success in our societies?”.This hypothesis enables us to target the conditioning of our feelings and actions, which are prone to the current meanings of the system and what the system often makes us believe. Putting it through a fair and environmental lens breaks our belief system, understanding that value redefinition is mandatory in order to have new outcomes as just and sustainable communities.
“Wellbeing is success” is what we aim to integrate within our target audiences throughout this process. We believe that redefining the meaning of success from economy-driven gains to health-driven outcomes will ultimately affect the way we act and feel. Well-being is of the present term, whereas economic growth seeks a future that can be exclusive. Putting Well-being first accentuates the need to be present and whereby valuing our own health will deliberately change our ways of treating ecosystems, fellow humans and the planet.
Accessibility (location, space & free access) - Regarding the physical accessibility the workshop was organized in a known Community Space, which is easily accessible via foot or private/public transport and accessible by disabled groups as well. In terms of providing a welcoming and supportive environment regardless of background or identity, the organisation has a Code of Conduct in place. The CoC ensures that the participants know beforehand and have a specific guide to ensure inclusivity and other aspects for the good implementation of the project. Last but not least, the workshop is FREE and OPEN to all interested and willing individuals. Kosovo is the fourth most poor country after Moldova, Ukraine and Armenia. Posing entrance fees, especially for youth is crucially limiting the development of their abilities and education opportunities.
The democratisation of Know-how transfer & usage of tools and machinery - the workshop guarantees to transfer the knowledge (theoretical & practical) from all participating mentors and lecturers equally throughout the process without discrimination and the gained skills can be used outside the workshop anywhere and at any time.
Gender mainstreaming - 80% of women are unemplued in Kosovo and 34.2% of young women are neither employed nor in education or training, which implies that besides not being employed, they are not developing the skills which would help their employment in the future. The labour market in kosovo is characterized by a large gender imbalance and differences . Therefor, the evaluating staf prioritizes gender-mainstreaming as criteria in the selection of participants in the Design Marathons. Gender equality is one of the main objectives of the intervention, and this Action is a Gender Marker 1 Project.
When it comes to understanding how Creative Industries can influence innovation and transition to healthier economies, little do the people of Kosovo know about it. Studies show that more than 60% of the public has no idea about Circular Economy, 72% believe that the main barrier to the development of CE in Kosovo is the lack of general knowledge and almost 50% believe it comes from the lack of local initiatives in the respective area. Based on the data our workshop seeks to balance the missing gap between theoretical and practical, emphasizing the “learning by doing” approach. During the whole workshop, the participation of citizens as observers in lectures and prototyping is allowed in order to enhance interaction, awareness raising and setting concrete physical examples. The citizens participated in the final presentation sessions of the prototyping ideas as well, which we believe contributes actively to inspiring people around us to a broader view of opportunities and enhancing the perception of the quality of life. The instalment of the projects with public character conceptualized during the Design Marathon will contribute to directly diminishing glocal problems which the students addressed with their design concepts. (Ex. Creative Poles project addresses the lack of security in public spaces etc)
Qualities of innovative nature are essential for tackling economic, social and environmental challenges. The creative industry requires new and rapidly changing skills and it requires a completely new approach to education in which collaborative learning and mutual respect between the traditional disciplines of arts, science and technology are crucial.
The project staff and the consultants of the organisation come from an academic background lecturing and assisting in different Colleges and at the University of Prishtina, with more than 10 years of experience. The initiative started as an observation of the situation and desire for improvement in an informal and grassroots setting. Although some global countries are world leaders in design-driven innovation, others lack a strong design infrastructure. In our country, there's a lack of Knowledge and Advocacy among stakeholders in understanding Design-Driven innovation for environmental solutions. Kosovar Colleges, Universities and VET training emphasis is given to the development of traditional skills and tools and little to no importance is given to soft skills, such as critical thinking or problem-framing that could potentially lead to innovation. Kosovar society has much to do to reach the pace compared to what global communities are developing in new industries and jobs, disrupting traditional businesses, creating social innovation and impacting the urban economic and physical landscape. This is an attempt to join the global movement from a small country such as Kosovo.
The team has researched and consulted different institutional stakeholders (Ministry of Culture Youth and Sports, Directorate of Culture and Education in the Municipality of Prishtina) as well as numerous research papers and policies throughout building the program and purpose of the Design Marathons.
The program was evenly distributed so the participants had time to digest all the information before going on for 48h to resolve an issue through designing a specific product. in the first session, the program is opened by interactive lectures rooted in understanding and embracing Sustainability Values: Global Environmental Challenges, Cricularity, New industry trends etc.
Consequent lectures treat the complexity of sustainability and focused on developing soft skills of critical thinking, problem-framing and problem-solving.
The third part of lectures and mentoring is focused on imagining sustainable futures through speculative design methodologies. After the lectures, the students are required to work in a multidisciplinary randomly selected team to build their concepts within 48 hours working on simultaneously prototyping their ideas with different mentors and equipment available.
The participants were encouraged to apply from different fields of study (not necessarily from creative industries) in order to create a multidisciplinary and multicultural studio environment.
Main activities implemented for awareness raising & education on Environment & Circular Transition are rather sporadic and formal(conferences, seminars), characterized by a theoretical approach. These types of activities pose accessibility issues, as most of them are being organized in hotel conferences, far and unreachable locations from the city mainly inviting only public officials. On the other hand Kosovo's landscape is heavily invested in ICT sector, because of a sterile thinking that only ICT can bring about innovation. Our initiative is unique and the first in Kosovo that promotes understanding on the impact of design on innovation with specific objectives of :
-Advocating the role of design in innovation for policymakers throughout Kosovo;
- Applying and advocating on how design-driven innovation develops new approaches that protect natural resources and advance society;
- Applying and advocating on how design-driven innovation enhances public service efficiency and impacts business culture and ideas;
- Applying Design methods to research and innovation addressing complex challenges.
Design Marathons have been the one and only Workshops with such a character of marrying Creative industries with Climate Emergency in Kosovo and the Region.
All of the workshop modules can be replicated in other places and contexts without any specific problem. Except for the prototyping phase where tools and machinery are needed, however, even this module can be adapted and replicated depending on the circumstances of the context where it is being applied.
The action is in direct synergy with Kosovar National Strategy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and other strategies and thus seeks to address some of the main challenges noted across these documents such as the creation and access to tools for R&D in addressing environmental challenges through solution-driven initiatives. The action overall supports the National Strategy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship by colliding with its specific objectives (improving public policies for initiating and developing innovations with a focus on increasing the competitiveness of Kosovo; increasing the participation of the private sector and academia as well as cooperation in general investments in research and development; establish strong coordination mechanisms for innovation and entrepreneurship at the national level; capacity building and human competencies for research, development and innovation), and all the Regulation and Strategy of the EU.
The added-value elements of the action lie in the integration of gender mainstreaming and environmental sustainability as key cross-cutting elements. The general framework of the action encompasses the EU Green Deal Guidelines for incorporation and sustainable development through accentuating innovation as a tool for environmental protection. The importance of the action stands in the project team's close collaboration with the Directorate of Education and Culture within the Municipality of Prishtina and the sustainable and long-term cooperation with the grass-root network, public and private sector which support policy making and advocacy.
Climate change, plastic pollution, waste reduction, consumption, awareness raising, public space safety etc.
Design Marathons are pre-projects for establishing a Creative Common Space in Kosovo, Prishtina. We have started these workshops in order to test the situation of establishing such a space which will have a FabLab node integrated into it. The Design Marathon workshop has been organized twice in 2019 and 2022 (2020 and 2021 had to be disrupted because of the pandemic), in both editions youth have shown interest and capacity to develop world-class worthy projects proving our team that establishing such a space is an immediate need. The Creative Common Spaces' overall impact will be to Facilitate the growth of innovative product-based initiatives and community-led initiatives through an inclusive approach aimed at consolidating Kosovo’s solution-driven cadres for mitigation and adaptation to climate change challenges; with specific objectives of:
Specific Objective 1 (SO1): Initiate & facilitate the development of a self-reliant Creative Community Space (Fab Lab) to address real local/global challenges through sustainable design, testing & prototyping methodologies.
Specific Objective 2 (SO2): Increase knowledge of Creative Community Spaces (CCS) as credible tools for achieving sustainable social and environmental impact to mitigate or adapt to climate challenges.
Specific Objective 3 (SO3): Enhance awareness of innovative product-based and community-led initiatives that support circular economic growth, inclusion and environmental sustainability.
Specific Objective 4 (SO4): Strengthen conditions and capacities for the support and sustainability of inclusive, impact-oriented initiatives and innovative solutions led by young women, men and disadvantaged groups.
We envision that in the next 2 years what we call a Design Marathon Workshop will be evolved into a multifunctional well-equipped space to provide experimentation and exploration in creative industries throughout all the year.
The NGO DYVÓ Strategy as well as the component of Design Marathon Workshops directly contributes to the Four Pillars of European Competence Framework on sustainability. We are in line and believe that a healthy way of fostering sustainability in future generations is working on the defined 4 values of the European Competence Framework on Sustainability such as embodying sustainability values, embracing complexity in sustainability, envisioning sustainable futures and acting for sustainability. All the modules of the workshop unfold these values one by one, at the end of the workshop whether the participants feel more like starting a community initiative, becoming an environmental activist or a green entrepreneur, it's all up to their choices. Our job is to imprint these values in their know-how so we make sure whatever their actions in the future will be environmentally inclusive and sustainable.
