Storytelling methods have served as a source of inspiration for engaging youth and women in collaborative art and interventions. The Youth Empowerment installation was created with the UFISA project and the RLabs youth in Namibia during the Participatory Design Conference (PDC14), held at the Safari Court Conference Centre in Windhoek from October 6-10, 2014. Vikki du Preez and other lecturers from the UFISA network participated in this project. The UFISA project brought together students and lecturers from the University of Botswana, the University of Namibia, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Aalto University, and the University of Lapland, focusing on themes of service design, usability, and empowerment. The aim of the installation was to discuss and identify themes and topics significant to the youth and to create empowering stories around these themes.In the initial discussions, the youth highlighted important themes, and they then crafted stories using keywords derived from these discussions. The stories were represented through pieces of string or yarn, which were connected together into an installation using additional yarn, bamboo sticks, rubber bands, and paper. This project fostered a collaborative understanding of the challenges faced by the youth and facilitated the processing of these themes. In a similar approach, I worked with groups of women in the autumn of 2017. I engaged with Penduka women in Katutura, Namibia, to discuss their dreams and challenges, identify keywords, and create empowering actions based on their experiences.

Installation for Youth Empowerment at Participatory Design Conference in Safari Court Conference Centre in Windhoek 6.-10.10.2014

Related research: Du Preez, V., Cilliers, R., Cheung-Nainby, P. and Miettinen, S. (2015). Envisioning Dreams with the Youth in Southern Africa. NORDES Nordic Design Research  conference Design Ecologies. Challenging anthropocentrism in the design of sustainable future. Konstfack – University College of Arts, Crafts and Design. Stockholm, Sweden 7.-10.6.2015. No 6 (2015): NORDES 2015: Design Ecologies, ISSN: 1604-9705

Related research: Satu Miettinen, Vikki Du Preez, Shilumbe Chivuno-Kuria, and Hedvig Mendonca Ipito. 2014. My dream world 2: constructing the service prototype with Namibian youth. In Proceedings of the 13th Participatory Design Conference: Short Papers, Industry Cases, Workshop Descriptions, Doctoral Consortium papers, and Keynote abstracts – Volume 2 (PDC ’14). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 201–202.