by Andrew G.
(Andrew is a Year 9 student currently volunteering for CFS as part of his Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award)
The Sydney Design Thinking and SECNA (Social Enterprise Council NSW & ACT) initiated with about 50 minutes of refreshments of pizza and drinks such as alcohol and soft drinks. After the welcome, the co-organiser Zoe Gibson began the presentation, making references to the Gadigal Country and the White Australia policy as well as joking around the fact that Elon Musk bought Twitter and screwed it over.
The first speaker Lee Cooper (Executive Design Manager) introduced the concept of Community-based Design as a philosophy, rather than an approach. He introduced Walgett, an Aboriginal town full of negative social circumstances such as boarded up windows and high rates of crime. His organisation brought up a challenge to pool social connections as this social degradation was due to a lack of community groups to connect people. His team took to making a Place-Based approach to build social connections through a hub with the idea of “owned by no one, known by everyone”. Despite the increasing claims of need for mentors and mentoring, Walgett already had mentors but needed space and opportunity to work.
Towards the north of Australia in Singapore, a hierarchical society is present as millions of common jobs such as labourers and security guard roles are considered to be normal. The government worked with the Alliance for Action organisation including Bill Bannear (General Manager for Consortia, Coalitions and Ecosystems), to offer help to these lower ranking people in society. Major positions such as the Minister of Labour were present in these gatherings.
conducted in Singapore.
Our other neighbour Papua New Guinea has an autonomous region called Bougainville, set to gain independence in 2027, but is a long way from becoming fully independent. Rohan Doherty (General Manager for International Development for the United Nation Development Program) led the team to make the Bougainville residents good entrepreneurs. One example is a local woman who redeemed aluminium cans for a few cents each and saved up enough money to buy a sewing machine and made clothes for friends and family. She realised that she could teach the girls to sew clothes and began making a small profit to live off of. She was one person who was already a good entrepreneur but did not know and did not want to have a formal business. So far 300 people have graduated, with 81% being female, around 30% being self-employed, and about 20% already being formally employed.
Towards the end of the presentation, the speakers answered a few questions while Bibi and I quietly left at 8:10 pm.
Looking back on this event, I can confirm that CFS is heading in the right direction through introducing a community-based design principle in our programs and involving young members to participate. These programs are able to lead a path for these young members to develop themselves and their potential.