As told
to David Wygant
The Sweet Taste of Success RECIPE
What do creative thinkers do? They explore and experiment in
what they can see around them, and inside the spaces of thought and
thinking. Pedro is such a person. Supported by his experience managing
international social and business projects, he has found a natural outlet for
his social innovation passion in his leadership of Design for Change (DFC) -
Spain. Following his education and
experience as an industrial engineer and EMBA (Comillas), he has travelled the
globe to find programs in strategic intuition (Columbia), social
entrepreneurship (Stanford) and NGO leadership (ESADE).
Listen to how Pedro describes his introduction to
DFC.
"It was in the summer of 2010. I was in
London when I heard about DFC through the HUB Network. I contacted my friend Adrian who was leading
DFC in the UK. He put me in touch with Kiran. In the meantime, unknown to me, he also
contacted Kiran about my interest in DFC.
Adrian and I would later have dinner together in Madrid where he
confessed that he had told Kiran she could expect great things from DFC
Spain. Now, that was my challenge."
"Now everything in my life seemed to
align. I had recently reflected on and
studied social enterprises. I had
developed a passion to become a social entrepreneur. I had met and experienced Kiran's charisma
and dedication. I had seen the
opportunity to improve and reform the education system in Spain. I was ready to make the leap from an
international corporation where I had been an industrial engineer for eight
years to the social field that was my passion.”
INGREDIENTS (What to Know)
Listen to your own convictions. Your experiences over time
are the echoes of truth.
Go deeper into an understanding of any problem by listening to the experiences
of others. Don’t solve the wrong
problem.
Personalize, collaborate and experiment by adding your voice and energy.
Lead toward meaningful change through student I CAN initiatives.
Align cross sector collaborations. Through our
efforts in Spain, we hope to become a relevant innovator in education.
Offer something different to students and the education program by demonstrating the
effectiveness of design thinking through DFC projects.
Put it together. “Take one idea. Choose one week and put it into
practice. Then reflect on your action.”
Align participation and cause with efficiency and impact.
Combine the best attributes of business and social organizations.
Match volunteer skills and passions with the needs of the organization.
There is always money for good ideas and
committed teams.
In Spain, we have developed a funding method for the implementation of
Design For Change projects at schools.
Now we are focused on the core organization "Yo diseño el Cambio"
Project.
COOKING INSTRUCTIONS (How to be a protagonist
who changes the world)
First steps to forming a team. At first I used my own
contacts to publicize the initiative, and the HUB Madrid Network to meet new
people interested in the project. We formed a couple of teams and collaborated
with a couple of design thinking organizations.
Then we decided to launch our own association that is called Yo diseño el cambio. Today there are six team
members in DFC-Spain (Miguel, Mónica, Natxo, Natalia, Nuria y Pedro). In addition, there are
several practitioners who help us with creative processes for schools and
teachers, and a few other technology and creative partners.
Spreading the design thinking virus. Currently, the team is
considering a program in which kids would experiment with the basics of social
entrepreneurship. Whether this fits into an existing module, or stands alone
within a school program, hasn’t been determined. It might fit differently in different schools
and classrooms. In these schools and
classrooms, new tools for teamwork and leadership become available, and empathy
and collaboration become natural ingredients in the student learning
process. The students will take their
lessons learned outside the school to their communities and their lives.
"Who’s going to tell this?" I needed someone to transform these experiences into amazing stories
that could infect others. Miguel, who is
a “Waker of Dreams” was that person.
"Where might we carry out the first pilot
project?" Everything looked great. The next step
was to build a first prototype. As the
first step, we wanted to take DFC to the schools. So we created our first prototype for
children and teachers. We knew we needed
to give project ownership to the children.
Children should feel complete ownership of the project and the
process. Then they would make the right
decisions, and they would freely give the needed energy. The prototype also needed to help teachers
understand how to facilitate this result.
“We wanted to reach out for best practices.” What were the
other countries doing? How had they
launched their project(s)? On one side,
there was India and Mexico working with very large numbers, and on the other
side countries like the UK where the focus was on one or several schools in the
beginning. As it turns out, the major
challenges to implementing DFC in schools were similar to those faced by the
children in their projects.
"This is not about my idea.” This is the most
common learning in children after their first DFC experience and one of the
biggest challenges we (adults) face today.
We are not used to teamwork.
SERVING
THE FOOD (Feeding the Many)
Our first experience was in 2011 at The Quercus, a concerted school of Boadilla del Monte in the
surroundings of Madrid, where Ana was a teacher in primary and secondary. There
we held our first DFC program with almost 50 children. We launched the project telling the story of
Kiran as a mother and how she started Riverside school.
During 2011, we sought to understand the DFC process and what it could bring to the educational world. We
set out to perform five pilot projects with different centers of
education. Our aim was to explore how to
offer the opportunity to the largest possible number of children in Spain. To
do this we explored variety of schools and different levels of support to
teachers, and conducted the following experiences: Three formal schools (Madrid, Tenerife and
San Sebastian), Cañada Real (Madrid) with a Social NGO as a Partner, and Casa
San Cristobal, partnering with a cultural organization, as an extracurricular
activity and facilitated entirely by our DFC Team.
From the beginning, we’ve thought that teacher
support in the DFC process was key to success.
So, we’ve designed three key elements:
A
toolkit or teachers guide to facilitate DFC projects.
The I CAN LAB where
teachers can explore and experiment one and a half days about how to facilitate
projects with children.
A group of experts in the methodology to support schools that request our services.
Empathy (with teachers
and children) is the central pillar of a project. Knowing that both “learning by exploring”
and “learning by doing” are critical, we set up laboratory
experiences. We don't teach. As practitioners we seek to build
communities of teachers and sustainably expand the movement at the same
time. In the future, we see an online
platform that will support and facilitate the creation of a sustainable DFC
Community.
Coffee and Conversation
There have been many high points during this
first stage. However, the personal
growth of the team has been the highest point of the project. Lessons have sometimes been “hard earned and well learned.”
What have been the important lessons learned?
The project gives the leading role to
children. They take responsibility for
their education. Their commitment to
their community increases. They become
different points from which the “virus” can spread. They become CONTAGIOUS. Their teachers are renewed and become
refreshed as both the children and teachers gain diverse and multi-cultural
viewpoints. Teachers set the example of how to “BE THE
CHANGE.”
Optimism grows and so does the trust children have
in themselves and their teams. Real life
problems become solvable. As they become
confident they become CONTAGIOUS. In
turn, they set the example of how to “BE THE CHANGE.”
The quality of the projects, and their
sustainability over time, depends on the level of support teachers receive. I CAN LABs for learning help teachers learn
to better facilitate and sustain DFC in schools. Center stage is visual documentation. It is key to generating stories and holding
attention in an exciting way. What
they can see in their imaginations they can become in real life.
What do we in Spain aspire to do in the future?
We want to be there, and do our share with DFC
World, in support of accelerating innovation and quality growth of the world
movement. Create new models that teachers
and parents can use to facilitate DFC projects with Kids. Start doing design thinking in schools on a
permanent basis.
Using DFC, create activities between schools that
foster learning and collaboration among their students. Promote and support "DFCx" in
Schools. Through better storytelling
(sharing) of DFC projects to increase the amount and quality of SHARING.
Find a way to bring the "I CAN bug" to
the employment sector to help create new jobs.
Offer people a process and program whereby they can reinvent themselves. DFC and the I CAN Lab have inspired us to design a “new Lab” that is aimed
at those who are unemployed in Spain, or those who are in a process of
professional change. A safe place where
they can find support among their peers, and tools to help them explore new
possibilities. A process that allows
them to experience a different way of innovating while pushing them to reinvent
themselves professionally. We want to create opportunities for those who
would like to make a difference in their lives.
We’d like to help them build their creative confidence, and come up with new
creative strategies.
