AN IATL PROJECT
Gratitude makes one feel safe and loved. It is easier to take creative risks and step outside the comfort zone once one is coming from a place of safety, security and self-esteem. However, gratitude as a concept is not included in western education. Even when it is, it is based on the premise of constantly looking for something, bigger, better, bolder, that we think will be more gratifying to us. Once we have found that, we think that all our problems will be magically solved and then we will finally be happy. We thus start by trying to search for the base of the iceberg, and then try to work our way upwards towards the tip. We think that because the tip is visible and accessible to all, it is basic, boring and bleak. We miss what’s in front of us, the tip, the cherry on the cake.
The project uses the power of storytelling and practical tools embedded in a children’s book to foster creative confidence through gratitude in young people aged 7-8 years. The project is an attempt to break the illusion of the inverted pyramid by looking at how we can convert the 3Bs-basic, boring and bleak- into 3Cs: Creative, Colourful and Content, thereby helping young people to build extraordinary from the ordinary, instead of rejecting it.
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We believe that as natural masters of imagination and intuition, who have not been exposed to stereotypes and rigid ways of thinking, young people are positioned to easily grasp and absorb the fluid interactive and dynamic approach to solving problems that design thinking offers.
WHERE IT ALL STARTED FROM
"How cool would it be if this cake would never get over?"
Words said out loud at a cafe in Stonehenge on 22nd January 2022 during my 22nd birthday trip
WHY YOU SHOULD JOIN?
What's in it for you?
FLEXIBILITY
The role will be paid. You can decide how much time you can commit with the possibility of role sharing as well. You don't need to have any experience in writing or publishing and will have the opportunity and the space the build the plane as we fly it, so to speak, as the role can take different forms depending on your availability and interests.
CREATIVITY
The role could take many directions- say for example social media marketing of the book through posts and reels on insta/tiktok, helping out with editing the manuscript, designing illustrations, or school outreach and liaison.
OUTREACH
You get an opportunity to visit schools and libraries, and facilitate conversations on gratitude and mental health with children, thereby promoting an immersive two-way exchange rather than a one-sided educational model focused on telling children this is how they ought to act or behave.
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ENGAGEMENT
This role is for you if you like creating building new relationships and collaborations, based on trust and creative agency. This project is based on a multi-stakeholder model, from authors and illustrators, to parents and teachers, to educators and policy makers in the higher education space!