AHRC Refugee Transition Network Activity
In October and November 2023, the Refugee Transition Network conducted two ‘Envision the Transition’ co-creative workshops with displaced people in the UK and Indonesia, involving over 30 participants.
Additionally, a ‘Training the Trainers’ workshop was held to build the capacity of eight displaced youth in Indonesia, who then became facilitators of the ‘Envision the Transition’ workshop.
These workshops were in collaboration with third-sector organisations: TERN in the UK and Archipelago Collective in Indonesia.
Envision the Transition: UK with TERN
In October 2023, in collaboration with TERN, we engaged five refugee women from Croatia, Chad, Syria, Ukraine, and Sudan in a one-day co-creative envisioning workshop with the Design School at London College of Communication.
The initiative served as a pilot for the Transition Living Lab, a model for training displaced people interested in becoming changemakers and agents of transition within their communities, utilising creative methods in a learning-by-doing approach.
‘Envision the Transition’ was conceived as the introductory session of a longer programme of activities that would serve as building blocks for the Transition Living Lab.
The workshop employed a methodology design that brought together elements of Transition Design, the Systemic Design Framework (extended double diamond), Utopia as Method, and Pluriversal Design.
The goal was to test assumptions and activities, receive feedback, and learn from the experiences of displaced people – identifying their main needs and drivers.
The workshop activities relied on Traditional Ecological Knowledge artefacts that participants brought, to develop utopian and pluriversal visions of the transitions they aimed to lead, understanding transition in terms of ecological and social justice.
Envision the Transition: training the trainers workshop
In November 2023, we collaborated with the Archipelago Collective in Jakarta, Indonesia, to prepare eight displaced youths to become facilitators of the two-day version of the ‘Envision the Transition’ workshop in Indonesia.
We introduced the trainers to the main key concepts and frameworks that informed the design of the workshop. Additionally, we covered skills in creative facilitation, group management, relational leadership, and a response-able pedagogy for change-making, encompassing its three principles:
- Art thinking,
- Meaningful engagement,
- Ethical anticipation.
Envision the Transition: Indonesia with the Archipelago Collective
The third iteration of the Transition Living Lab method took place in Jakarta, Indonesia, involving 25 displaced youth as well as youth from the local communities.
The workshop was delivered by the core research team in Jakarta and co-facilitated by the eight displaced youth who were previously trained. This extended version of the workshop aimed to test assumptions and learn from the displaced youths’ experiences of living in Indonesia as a transit country.
