This is an archive of projects completed and housed with the permission of clients or partners. the portfolio includes internal projects and consultations. this archived portfolio is not a collection of all works, but selected pieces to capture the range of work produced.
Social + Emotional Health for school staff
equity design for staff wellness
The leadership team reached out to Urban Fireworks to explore professional development seminars focuses on improved communication and teamwork as a response to wane in employee morale and outcomes. We designed a design team of staff members from different backgrounds, experiences, and internal teams. The design process birth the development of leadership-facing and team building resources and training sessions, including a social and emotional health ‘toolbox.’
Abbreviated version of toolkit.
Equity x design for queer women in business
QWB+A 2nd annual conference guest speaker
(Summary of project) Crafted specialised equity-centered design training session for QWB+ annual conference participants to consider ways to embed equity as a central force in designing projects and services. Participants engaged in a 90-minute session including pieces from understanding implicit bias, introducing intersectionality, communities as collaborators, rapid-prototyping, and pitching for sponsorship, in line with the QWB mission to equip African queer womn in business with skills and resources to excel as professionals and entrepreneurs.
“The five step process is empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test. In order to ensure that the innovation that is being designed in the process is focused and targeting communities that represent multiple forms of oppression and marginalisation, then we use these additional two steps — notice and reflect.”
InCLUSIon next steps resources
Team examined and reviewed organisational DEI framework, identified gaps in implementation, and designed resources for leaders and teams to enhance ability to ensure that all team-members and employees are represented and valued in policy and culture.
social ENTREPRENEURSHIP & Design Thinking, summer youth program
4-week Intro to social entrepreneurship & human-centered design curriculum
Designed pilot-model of an introduction to social entrepreneurship and human-centered design for a four-week summer explorative learning program. Explored previously developed curriculum and merged project-based learning outcomes with explorative design for a partner organisation. Curriculum offers learners an opportunity to grow as designers, entrepreneurs and change-agents.
FREEDOM FOODS
food-love-life with adolescent mothers
(Food as a revolutionary act of self-love) The project produced in two, 6-week sessions, over a three-month period, worked in partnership with an adolescent mothers home to offer an in-home ‘food-love-life’ course. Bridging calls for greater accessibility to food for Washington DC’s East of the River community with improved knowledge of healthier meal options, the program was about food and love. The course utilised partnerships with organisations like American Heart Association and direct donors to subsidise the cost of food + resources for the group home and the mothers themselves. The mothers would be invited to participate in the meal preparation, and all were left with ‘leftovers’ or a meal-prep for 2 to 3 days. Additionally, the facilitation team and the mothers would engage in thoughtful conversation about the challenges they faced as mothers and within a cycle of systemic poverty. These conversations would inform guest speakers (a birthing counselor/doula), off-site opportunities (community trip to the grocery store), and partnerships for resources.
