dodolab

The goal of the DodoLab program in Greater Sudbury is to encourage young people to become active, engaged participants in their city. Not only do we want to bring them into conversations about the future of their city, we also want to provide them with tools and models for effecting change. This program is being designed to get more young people involved in positively impacting the future of Sudbury by identifying potentials and barriers and developing concrete proposals and projects to be shared publicly and within official circles. The program employs applied design methods to encourage real outcomes and is being developed to enhance the Musagetes Youth Café (September 2010).

Oftentimes young people (especially those at risk) are not given a voice to share their stories, ideas and opinions. We want young people to participate in their communities, to feel as though they are an essential part of it and to have the capacity to shape its future. The first task of DodoLab is to enhance the opportunities to articulate these visions of the city and its future through the Musagetes Youth Café. The second task of DodoLab, working through a series of focused labs, is to give young people tools and methods for instigating the changes they want to see happen. By being able to bring about change themselves, the hope is that young people will begin to see a future for themselves in Greater Sudbury, a community they contribute to shaping. Our goal is to encourage a transformation from a passive state of observation to a state of active attention, critical thought, engagement and production.

Within Greater Sudbury, DodoLab has chosen to focus on very specific sites of exploration, to address macro issues by considering sample micro situations. Key issues within this program that have emerged out of research and community consultation concern the future of the urban core balanced with the status of outlying communities, sprawl and a road-based infrastructure that dominates public policy decisions, opportunities for (and the retention of) young people, the challenges of extending the success of the re-greening of Sudbury and a prioritizing of a resilient and environmentally sound future. The specific sites of consideration that will allow us to explore these broader concerns in a focused way are: Sudburys original downtown, remnants of industrial/city infrastructure, the Paris Street link between the core and the university, and one historic community. Each offers very specific challenges that can be extrapolated to inform the wider community. In each instance, DodoLab is identifying strategic groups/organizations to partner with and has prioritized encompassing the rich cultural diversity of the region with an emphasis on supporting the perspectives and ambitions of marginalized individuals and groups.

Our work in Greater Sudbury is linked to our program in Rijeka, Croatia (also connected with a Musagetes Café) and we are currently developing projects that will establish conversations between these communites in order to create opportunities for knowledge sharing between similarly challenged communities in very different situations.