Social Justice Workshop
ROLE: Lead creator & designer
What if activism didn’t stop at work?
The Situation
In the midst of the growing Black Lives Matter movement, I began hearing a lot of the same questions from friends, colleagues, family, and acquaintances:
What can I do? How can I help?
Alongside my grossly overdue personal education, I felt an acute call: I have to do something. I wanted to uplift and share social justice strategies from people of color to my various networks, one of the largest being my workplace. Having never created or facilitated a workshop on this scale, especially entirely remotely, I knew there would be challenges along the way.
If each of us knew and understood our role as a social change agent, it would lead to lifelong, sustainable involvement in activism.
The Approach
Over the course of 2 months, I lead the conceptualization, creation, and facilitation of a self-guided workshop to provide space for my colleagues and I to reflect on and commit to our roles in social justice. Full credit for the referenced roles framework goes to Deepa Iyer, an incredible activism thinker and writer.
In the case of this workshop, content and activity design was more important than visual design. However, I wanted the workshop’s look and feel to be bold, memorable, and invigorating. I also wanted the imagery to look hand-crafted and rough; we’re not striving for perfection, but actions unique to each of us.
PRIMARY SKILLS:
Workshop design
Concepting
Empathy
Facilitation
Visual design
‘Facilitating’ Remotely
Because the workshop is self-led, clear instructions and pacing was crucial. To keep participants actively engaged and support learning, I varied the activities to include sticky note brainstorming, reading examples, and independent reflection prompts.
How Did it Do?
After testing the workshop with over 50 participants, feedback included feeling more self-aware, confidence in next steps, and commitment to continuing the conversation.
Some participants did the workshop with family, friends, and colleagues, which led to further engagement and commitment to the content.
Up Next…
36 Days of Type →
Premiere Film Festival →
Scrapbook →