DFI Futures for Disabled Youth Program
We are raising money for the Design Futures Initiative Youth Futures Program for Kids with Chronic Conditions & Disabilities. Any donation will help make an impact. Thanks in advance for your contribution to this cause that means so much to us.
For companies & organizations: Can your organization offer support (financial or in-kind donation)? Reach out to Phil Balagtas for more details.
Can't donate at this time? Please share with your friends, family, and social networks to help spread the word!
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How might we use Futures Frameworks to help youth imagine & design better life pathways for themselves & their communities as they move into adulthood?
Our first version of the DFI Youth Futures Program launched in 2018, when we piloted the approach with the Boys & Girls Club of San Francisco to help them identify and solve social challenges as they move into adulthood. We conducted a series of workshops that traversed various Design Thinking and Futures Thinking principles, exposing our middle schoolers to real-world topics and challenges to help them think more critically about history and the world around them so they can make more positive choices about their life paths.
In the last year, we have been reframing the program to support kids with other challenges such as disabilities and chronic illnesses, for whom in-person workshops may not be an option. Together with virtual reality startup Fanaticus, we have been developing a VR game to help children immerse themselves in a fantastic cosmos to help them think strategically about life and develop an empowered mindset and attitude, to support them through the difficulties of living with a disability or illness.
Who are we serving?
Kids with chronic illnesses often experience long or frequent hospitalization or isolation periods long and frequent. Some of these children associate themselves and their lives predominantly with their illnesses. The Futures Framework will help provide necessary skills to help them imagine alternative futures and provide the foundation for understanding how learning about futures thinking early could transform the lives of kids.
What is the goal?
Our goal is to turn the Futures Framework workshops into an interactive, immersive digital distribution through an interactive game experience compatible with mobile devices, computers, or VR headsets. This adapts the in-person experience to a digital-first world through more meaningful interactions than videoconferencing alone and expands the program’s reach to introduce more kids to the Futures Framework. The structure of the program is built around vision, collaboration, and critical thinking.
$50K will help us fund the build efforts through Fanaticus, adapting materials, support other volunteers and components of the program so that we can work with other hospitals and nonprofit healthcare organizations to bring futures thinking to more kids. We're looking to run our first pilot workshops this fall and continue to build on & improve the experience after that.
Volunteer opportunities: Fill out this form if you're interested in volunteering!
More information about Design Futures Initiative:
The Design Futures Initiative is a 501c3 nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, CA, USA. Our mission is to bring together designers, strategists, artists, scientists, and futurists to facilitate and advance responsible design and strategy practices that consider the ethical, cultural, environmental, political and economic challenges and opportunities of future products, services, and systems.
We do this in service of investigating what futures we want, what we want to avoid, and how we might ultimately create the necessary agendas which critically consider our impact on all human-kind and life on our planet.
Visit our website
Visit Fanaticus website
Image credits from video:
Boys & Girls Club San Francisco - Basketball court, Recreation Room, Don Fisher Clubhouse
Chronic Disease - Health Day
Sickle Cell patients - New York Times
FanaticusXR VR demos provided by Fanaticus
