@Home in transition
Turning vulnerability to capability
Sunnas rehabilitation hospital
Sunnaas rehabilitation hospital is in a renovation process of their physical environment and their interest is to offer the best patient experience and maintain and strengthen their role as being among the leading rehabilitation hospitals.
They expect that after this project they can have a clear understanding of their needs
in terms of:
How to facilitate for their patients?
How should the staff work around the patient?
What is the impact on need for capacity?
Introduction
This project is focusing on the context of Transition, such as asylum reception centers where it is important for asylum seekers to consider integration measures.Together with involved humanitarian stakeholders and asylum seekers, the project aims to create a different state of mind and motivate the asylum seekers to recall their competences and dreams towards self-efficacy and self-actualization.
Result
We encouraged asylum seekers towards more self-driven approaches to navigate the unknown they are surrounded by but facilitating discussion and co-designing actions in transition. Also, a design kit has been developed which is the physical translation of our actions .
Details
It is in collaboration with Niloufar Gharavi as our Design diploma project at AHO.
Duration : 6month
Process
Process
I'M AN ORIGINAL CATCHPHRASE
Scope of the project
If we start from the occasion of Europe so-called refugee crisis, then we placed this first pilot in Norway as the target society and regulations, Oslo as the first arrival spot for asylum seekers. and in Oslo, the Refstad transit reception center for implementing the pilot. Also, other practical limitations that we faced throughout the process, like language, resources, interests, etc.
They all brought us to this central point and we wish that it could continue to reach the broader context someday!
Asylum seekers journey to Norway
Here is the asylum journey map which is the outcome of pushing away lots of different layers and purifying the regulated stages. This stage of the journey, where it is only the first week of the so-called asylum seekers' arrival to Norway and they have to stay here waiting for their interviews attracted our attention. This waiting period is supposed to take up until 6 weeks but frankly takes longer up to several months.
Describe your image
Context of implementation
This diploma project is meant to be the first pilot of the concept which happened in Norway at the Refstad Transit reception center in Oslo. The reception consists of bright fine buildings with a capacity of 350 residents. At the time of this project, there were 179 refugees with 23 languages in reception.
Due to the constraints in the transit reception centers and their “military protection atmosphere”, (Balasubramaniam Venkatasamy - Refstad camp manager), as well as asylum regulations, inhabitants’ lifestyle is limited to daily basic needs and a long frustrating waiting period which increases the likelihood for issues with psychosocial health and tension. (Based on our field studies & resources)
Actors map
If we locate the transit center in the whole humanitarian context, we can observe 3 main layers of actor's involvement.
- Inside the center, we have asylum seekers, social workers, and staff.
- To the border layer, we have collaborators of the center like UDI, red cross, hero,
iIMDI
- And outside we have umbrella organizations, NGOs, projects, such as PRIO, NRC, NAV, etc.
and we got in touch or met with all these mentioned actors on this map!
Findings
- Activities that are happing inside the reception centers could be more user-oriented.
- It could be more focused on universal skills development.
- It could come earlier in the journey of asylum seekers.
- There is a huge potential for proper collaboration among the involved stakeholders around this field.
- Also big capacity for more of long term self-development strategies.
But it was not only one! Among the main overtakes of those meetings and our explorations we found that:
Concept
The project is following the concept of Co-designing Actions and Facilitating Discussions In Transition which intends to learn through changing the system by its own footprint. It aims to create a different state of mind within the context and influence the social system with participatory approaches as a fundamental element of dignified reception. By capacity building and raising self-awareness, the project is meant to bring collaborations among different relevant stakeholders in this field as well as motivating the asylum seekers to recall their competences and wishes towards self-efficacy, which affects every area of human endeavor by determining the beliefs a person holds regarding his or her power to affect situations.
Despite our similar goals which are not really profit based in this field, we somehow end up competing instead of collaborating!
(A common saying among the stakeholders)
Today, 70.8 million people are displaced and yet nearly 1 person is forcibly displaced every two seconds as a result of conflict or persecution.
(“UNHCR - Figures at a Glance,” n.d.)
Process
The process didn’t follow a traditional linear design sequence where research happens first and interventions come later. Instead, change began the moment we entered the reception center. This reflects second-order cybernetics, where the observer immediately becomes part of the system (Glanville, 2002).
We worked with an action design research mindset and drew on Soft Systems Methodology, allowing strategies to emerge and evolve naturally throughout the project (Checkland & Poulter, 2006).
The process unfolded like an ongoing narrative, moving both inside and outside the reception center — continuously tracking and connecting resources, stakeholders, needs, and activities to co-design possible interventions.
First round discussion
Therefore, we wanted to respond to that and started preparing a round discussion session among them and started inviting.
Our method was Group Workshop and we prepared discussion as well as collaborative business tools for the 2hour session,
They were designed to build trust among them and help the participants, including us, to learn about each other´s experiences and knowledge.We also wanted to see how their efforts could be adjusted to our concept to team up with some of them for actual interventions inside Refstad.
Fortunate failure
It seemed that we had more less everything under control, but then the reality slapped us in the face when we found about the notion of competing with the priorities of busy people.
Out of over 100 invitations and 40 confirmation, only 2 showed up while we were prepared for 8 groups with 8 facilitators.
But we survived the session by improvisation and making use of the designed materials.
strategic change
After then, we changed our approaches and strategy:
- In order to onboard the stakeholders outside Refstad, we organized and designed individual workshops with them selectively.
- and as you just saw the format of our photos, we outsourced all of our process in detail on social media to keep them updated, make a virtual community of all the actors and facilitate discussions in that space too.
- We also reimplemented the round discussion with a combination of very relevant actors towards our concept like NAV, Oslo Kommune, UIO. Luckily this was not a failure anymore.
- And we literally moved in Refstad.
Workshop with Arab and Farsi and Afghan speakers
we Co-created ideas of some concrete doable activities and learning courses for co-development in transition.
Scenarios
After the 2 big sessions we had both outside and inside Refstad, In order to implement the concept, we aimed for facilitating 3 main - “OUT-IN Scenarios” where relevant stakeholders adjust their activities towards the asylum seekers’ needs and implement their actions inside Refstad.
- “IN-IN Scenarios” where asylum seekers take action for the centre and learn from each other.
- Or “IN-OUT Scenarios” where asylum seekers would become sources for outside stakeholders.
IN-IN Scenarios
Sarah_ a doctor from Somalia had a first aid course in reception for residence.
OUT-IN Scenarios
Mohammad_ former refugee_ had a course about hope and inclusion.
IN-OUT Scenarios
Yonatan, programmer guy from Eritrea, he initiated the design of an app and a website for the project.
Sara full storyline as an example and our role as designer to help her to implement her course:
1
Sara, an asylum seeker from Sudan, was at Refstad reception center when we first met her. She participated in our first competence workshop with Arab speakers. She was very negative in the beginning, questioning us a lot about why we are taking people’s time to do something which has no future.
3
She came several times to school and together we designed the course (based on Red cross standards) and actually implemented it.
2
But, suddenly, after our discussions and activity, she said: I was a doctor and can teach First Aid here at Refstad. So people can learn this essential skill for anywhere they go … And this was the start of her collaboration with us.
4
This activity by Sara (which is documented), would work as her representation (part of her CV) for the next steps of her process (anywhere, anytime). That she has used her abilities for developing others as well as herself, while she was not officially expected to do anything with her time but waiting.
Design outcome
The outcome of this project is not about one thing, but the orchestration of many things which we have been doing and creating since the beginning.
Resource package
This package is a prototype and always will be as any other designers or interested persons could translate it based on their context specifications. We have designed it for Refstad and Norway. But in general, it contains different elements which are elaborated throughout the next pages. Each item of the package is designed to facilitate an activity which together would orchestrate a respond towards our concept.
It contains:
- A pen for them to write (as they do not have enough resources to take this extra effort for buying one)
- A welcoming letter from us talking about the project and inviting them to the path of recalling their abilities.
- The booklet (elaborated later)
- Story cards and the card for a wall of fame (elaborated later)
- The game which is a tool to provide self-awareness and trigger actions
User testing
We made the prototypes for different iterations of the game and package and went to different context for testing. So we could observe the function of the game for these 2 different groups and how they reflect on it.
For more information about the project in please follow this link: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1P_bXlyeSzEFyeY9S-7flihV6X97obHfc