Pedro-DFC Spain: DFC Global Catalyst

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.

Story of Deki Choden, DFC Bhutan

The Coveted Global Catalyst Series

The proud DFC Bhutan team. 

It had been a year since I visited The Riverside School, and came back incredibly inspired by the many citizenship programs that its students engaged with. It was on this visit that I got to know about Design for Change. I was awe-amazed when I heard Kiran talk about the grand plan for DFC. It was to run in hundreds of schools. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around the size this idea would, and indeed has taken over. And then I heard Riverside’s 8^th grades talk about some stories of change, and I knew it was possible, and my confidence grew. I was hooked!

Charity begins at home. Especially when it is the most obvious choice to begin with. I knew that if these ideas empowered children at Riverside, they were surely to work with my children at Early Learning Centre. The first pilot project was entirely the students’ idea: “ELC says NO to packaged food” Of the many problems that the children brainstormed into existence, TRASH was what bothered them the most, and they were not afraid to give up their favorite snacks to rid our school of it. We went to work immediately by taking three steps. First, we formed the DFC Core Team from among the teaching staff at ELC.  Second, we introduced the idea to my students in grades three-through-six.  Third, we commenced the DFC process with the seventeen students who volunteered to “make a change.” We were fired up, enthused, and challenged to begin the process -- even though we weren’t quite sure how we would take DFC beyond the ELC!  Nonetheless, that first year, 2010, we recruited nine schools.

From then on, there has been no going back. We have worked hard to increase the rate of DFC participation in Bhutan.  Most recently, our count has reached eighteen schools!

Design For Change serves to bring mindfulness to our school and our country by aligning with the pillars of GNH in the most natural way. As a case in point, take our DFC Story of “Saying NO to Packaged Food”. Young children leading the way in refusing packaged food aligns with Good Governance or Good Leadership from a young age; when children replace packaged food with indigenous food alternatives, cultural promotion is ascertained; when children refuse to eat imported packaged food from neighbouring countries, and instead promote their own farmers’ local produce, sustainable economic development is secured.  It goes without saying that environmental conservation was on the minds of the children when they decided to get rid of trash or non-biodegradable waste in the first place!

YAC, or Young Ambassadors of Change, ELC’s rural-urban school partnership was established as an offshoot of Design For Change when our rural schools began to show greater interest in DFC. These partnerships, through the pure and true intention of making a difference, have allowed the ELC to experience the joy of giving, and the satisfaction of creating “magical moments” for others. 

The healing power of these moments means that there is no turning back for us. In addition to myself, there has been only one other adult working on DFC.  Her name is Sylive Wolraven.  As a part-time DFC Coordinator, her efforts with others schools in Bhutan, the Ministry of Education and DFC World Headquarters in Ahmedabad have been key to our success.  Sylive is from the Netherlands and recently returned home.  She came to the ELC in 2011 and taught kindness and compassion as a volunteer.  Now, Ivor Hanson serves as our DFC Coordinator (along with teaching part time).  Ivor comes to us from America.  So there are still two of us working on DFC-Bhutan and we feel overwhelmed on a regular basis, but we know DFC is here to stay.

Overcoming fund raising challenges remains our biggest hurdle to date.  We have a key endorsement from the Ministry of Education, and we receive contributions from various corporations and organizations, as well from personal friends and well-wishers. Nonetheless, these contributions are small. We need to build on our fundraising strategies.  We are confident in our ability to overcome these challenges as we have in the past. We recently secured generous funding from The Bhutan-India Foundation, which will help us attend the 2014 “Be the Change” Conference.

The DFC journey has been a remarkable one. There is such gravity in the program, that good things are bound to follow those who are willing to brave the challenges, even at the face of rejection, confusion and uncertainty. The biggest learning through DFC has been my own ability to say, ‘I can’. After all, how could I stay away from the power of self-belief DFC instills in children? ‘I can’ make the world a better place, just like children in Bhutan, as well as all over the world, are doing today!

______________________________________________________________

Bio of the Global Catalyst: 

Deki lives in Thimphu, Bhutan where she is Principal and Proprietor of the Early Learning Centre (ELC) which she founded in 1997.  In 2009, 2010, and 2013, the ELC was declared a top ten school in Bhutan. She has received a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University in New York and a Master of Arts (TEFL) from Reading University in the United Kingdom.  

Beyond her founding of the ELC, she has demonstrated educational leadership by establishing partnerships with schools in Australia and the United States.  Beginning in 2001, Deki has continued to train and mentor new teachers through programs of her own creation. She has education and child development connections in thirty plus countries as Country Partner with Design for Change.

Getting Crazy with DFC

http://www.dfcworld.com/

The Crazy Horse School in South Dakota participates regularly in the DFC challenge. Their two main teachers helping to implement DFC are Jay Quarantello, the history teacher, and Tara Harrington, a Teach for America fellow.

When Tara learnt about DFC, she was “really excited, because it takes a really complex process that could feel overwhelming, and created it in a framework that is very simplistic in the framing, without it taking away from the complexity of the actual process.”

“Students have witnessed a lot of people trying to create change, and then that not coming to fruition, or there being a ton of barriers – those barriers being so huge, that change does not happen,” she says. “So it is critical that students in the FEEL stage feel empowered that change is possible.”

When Jay met the students for the first DFC meeting, they went to a retreat. Why a retreat? “We wanted something that definitely felt outside of school. I wanted to provide something different and a little disconnected from school. The second reason was that there are a lot of parts of their own community that we wanted to explore, and I think removing ourselves from our comfort zone, and taking a step back would’ve been interesting.”

However, there have been challenges. “There are thousands of different solutions. They have to critique their own solutions to understand what the potential change would be’. They have to understand and be aware of different solutions – whether change will be long term, or we’re dealing with a symptom and we may see change, but it has to be sustained every year,” says Tara. “Further, at the DO stage, teachers and students both need support in really knowing how to create an action plan that will guide their action, and then to hold them accountable for taking that action.”

When asked how it had affected the students, Jay says, “I think its definitely leading to students taking charge. The shift is visible from the moment they begin the process”.

“I am excited about how this exciting journey will turn my students into leaders!” says Jay as a we close the interview.

These young, enthusiastic change makers have a tough time in their community. Hopefully, through DFC, they can make their lives much, much better. Best of luck to the Crazy Horse School!

Sanjli Gidwaney-USA: Design for Change Global Catalyst

As told to David Wygant

It was a gorgeous January day, 2009. I was gathered in one of the Riverside School,  in Ahmedabad, India, classrooms with many of the students. I remember how excited the kids were. Kiran had just returned from Mexico and everyone knew she would have stories to tell.  

I’ll never forget the detail of my conversation with Kiran.  Through Design for Change, she has managed to combine education, social change, and design.  These were all things that burned like fires for me.  They ignited me.  So, when she said, “Sanjli, you know I need a partner in the USA.”  I said, “Well you have me!”  

At the time, it seemed like I was living my life waypoint to waypoint.  I had conducted creativity workshops in Kenya and the Dominican Republic, but never would I have imagined that some of my contacts at Design Continuum in Boston would have placed me in front of Kiran at that moment in time.  I was at Riverside School teaching students from the 6^th grade, MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) inspired creativity workshops.  Yes, I was really at Riverside School, I was talking to Kiran, and I had just committed to bringing DFC to America. 

What to do?  The first thing I did was find a few people to join the team. We wanted to understand the educational environment in the USA.  We wanted to understand the unique needs of American educators so that we could respond in a way that helped.  Soon we piloted our first DFC project in a school so we could learn and fail quickly.  We knew that if we learned as much as possible in the beginning we would succeed later. Two schools entered the Challenge that first year.

Our first school was Pearl River Middle School in New York.  Their project was to reduce negative messaging in the media.  Their goal was to add positive ideas and messages.  The project’s link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_yfrZh9kS0

We started by approaching individual schools where we saw opportunity.  We quickly learned that it was hard to get schools onboard with little credibility and backing.  We didn’t have an educator on the DFC USA team at the time to help us better appreciate the challenges teachers experienced when implementing such a program in terms of time and other resources.  On the teacher side, they didn’t fully comprehend the value that DFC could bring to their schools – the idea of “design thinking” was new.  Touching all of these pieces was the fact we were a team of volunteers.  There were limits to the amount of time we could give individually, but we were very committed nonetheless. We are partnering with colleges and universities through our ‘Change Agent Initiative’ to recruit students who act as mentors tasked to support projects in their communities.

  

We drew energy from our belief in what DFC had to offer the schools and students who participated.  For example, the Share component gives students who are already changemakers a way to Share their accomplishments.  Then inexperienced change makers could see the lessons already learned and move ahead more quickly with their projects.  Share is a virtuous circle of support.  

Through the DFC curriculum, classrooms and schools can once again focus on service learning while they also work on and meet the required educational standards.  The DFC curriculum is flexible and it easily overlays the core education content like reading, writing, math and many others.   We created tools that can be used to document the academic accomplishments as the service project is implemented.

There have been high points and low points.  Without a doubt, the high point thus far has been watching a team from a very resource constrained community, work its way through the DFC framework to design and implement a project they are passionate about; and then go on to win the DFC-USA challenge.  Look for them at the BTC Conference.  They’ll be there!  I’m not sure if it is a low point, but certainly one of our greatest challenges has been meeting the demands of all the schools and organizations we are working with – at a certain point, it becomes very difficult to customize our programs, given the limited size of our team – especially since we’re all volunteers.

Another highlight going for us is the hosting of two major celebrations in Dallas and Boston in May, ’14. We are also piloting a DFC USA Online portal for teachers/ mentors/ students can fully engage with DFC resources and lesson plans. The feather in the hat has really been the fundraising of $150,000 for the DFC USA operations and hiring permanent staff; while simultaneously and rapidly growing our reach through partnerships with Ashoka, Teach for America, United Way and many others. 

I think we’re learning our lessons.  

Now we know building a team and organization is a continuing effort.  So we continue to enlarge the DFC-USA team as our work requires, or, as we find dedicated people who bring a strong work ethic, a passion for the DFC mission, and a desire to do what is necessary to provide our students with the support they need. It is essential to recognize and appreciate the challenge faced by teachers in their daily lives, and how we can offset those challenges through DFC. Find the right partners, whether they are schools or other organizations.  As examples, we are currently working with Ashoka and Teach For America.

Also, build a network of supporters who understand that you are a new, growing organization and are still learning and perfecting your model. Know that there are a gazillion people out there who believe and support you – that’s what we realized through our fundraiser!

We are learning how to ask for money.  Recently, we raised $15,000 in eight weeks so that we could send the DFC team to India.  As part of that effort, we conducted our first fundraising event.  Next we are developing a compelling case to approach wealthy funders and granting organizations. 

We have learnt that visibility is important to inspire, and thus, lead change by inspiring others.  With this in mind, we are creating our own DFC USA promotional film. Also, we are redesigning our website for launch in May ’14.

 We have a lot to look forward to.  I am most looking forward to how DFC USA is going to grow and how the “I CAN” bug will continue to catch on here! We can already feel it, change is in the air and our students are going to lead that change across the country, and in the world!

Sanjli Gidwaney - Co-Director, DFC USA
Sanjli recently graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, with a focus on curriculum design and non-profit management.  As Co-Director of Design for Change USA, she manages a national team of designers, educators and technologists.  Under her leadership, DFC has forged partnerships with notable organizations such as Teach for America, Strong Women Strong Girls, Ashoka, Harvard’s Good Work Team and Stanford Design School. Sanjli has also collaborated with research groups at MIT’s Media Lab, industrial design firms and various NGOs to develop and conduct several hands on creativity workshops for children around the world including India, Kenya and the Dominican Republic. She believes in a pedagogy embedded in experiential learning and cross-curricular approaches.