Elon University's Director of Design Thinking Danielle Lake supports International Day of Peace via a keynote address and design thinking workshop for international changemakers.
Elon University’s Director of Design Thinking Danielle Lake supported this year’s International Day of Peace via an international design thinking workshop and a keynote talk at the International Conference on Jane Addams.
The workshop, entitled “Prototyping Plural Pathways towards Peace: Situating, Storying, & Slipping”, brought together over fifty youth and community leaders from across countries to share research on effective social systems changemaking, highlighting powerful stories and promising strategies from visionary changemakers.
Both sessions were sponsored by The Jane Addams Center for Civic Engagement and the University of Warsaw.
“We must take seriously the belief that there are multiple pathways to redesign our lives and communities towards peace,” Lake said during her virtual session.
Both sessions highlighted design thinking strategies, stories from the center’s long-term partnership with the Power+Place Collaborative, and the book “Relationality: An Emergent Politics of Life Beyond the Human.” Participants were asked to think about their own communities and how conflict impacts them, visualizing how they can bring their own skills and passions towards cultivating connections across divides.
Multiple participants joined in from war-torn countries, like Ukraine.
“When I hear the word ‘peace,’ I immediately think about the absence of war,” said one particpant. “That people can live calmly, without fear. Peace is when you can plan your future, study, travel, and not be afraid.”
Jane Addam’s own social justice storytelling initiatives have inspired Lake and catalyzed many of the initiatives the Center for Design Thinking has undertaken. Lake has built the center to explore potential challenges of emergent, relational, place-based design for addressing wicked problems and transforming social systems in the Elon community, but also all over the world.
If you’re interested in consulting with with the center or reviewing it’s latest research, please visit their website or reach by email at elonbydesign@elon.edu.