I am looking for 5-8 designers to volunteer for the event, which will take place on March 2, 2013 at Pie Bird on Person Street. The role/responsibility of the designers would be to meet with me once before the workshop to talk about how it will be facilitated, and then to participate and help lead small groups in discussion and field work on the day of the event. I’m hoping to find design moms and dads / design parents who have kids, but all are welcome to help out. It should be really fun and an experiment in DFG!

If you are interested in getting involved in this project, please send me an email.

Workshop name: CHAT (Childrens Health Assessment Talk) + CHOMP (Childrens Health Opportunities Made Public)

Audience: local officials, purveyors and residents of North Person Street in Raleigh, North Carolina

Medium: collage make-tools, social sculpture (paper, mixed media, video documentation)

>> T H E   S C O P E <<
This investigation seeks to engage everyday citizens on Person Street in Raleigh, North Carolina in a discussion about the social health conditions of childhood obesity. The “CHAT” workshop will begin with brief public health talks with experts. This helps everyone from parents to convenience store owners understand the issue on a community level. Borrowing from a recent social innovation summit hosted by AIGA New York, I hope to develop three mini-explorations for workshop participants. In small groups of three to five, citizens will assume pre-determined Person Street personas. They will develop future scenarios around the issue. To test their scenarios, the small groups will activate Person Street by engaging with store owners, children’s museum employees, and pedestrians etc. to capture a human-centered perspective. This will develop “what if” opportunities around the health motivations and food relationships of the next generation. Lastly, citizens will make a visual representation of their best ideas and share them with the community in a store front window as a “CHOMP!” social sculpture.

>> D E S I R E D  O U T C O M E S <<
The main goal of the workshop is to help people bond with their neighbors and see value of their collaborative efforts. The ideal outcome is that citizens are empowered to sustain the small group conversations after the workshop is over. The social sculpture is a critical component because it creates awareness and delight in the street scape. It informs neighbors and the local government about the sentiments and ideas residents have around an important topic. Most importantly, CHAT and CHOMP! are meant to infuse meaning and fun into the everyday lives of citizens, and encourage them to participate in civic activities because of their social value.