OE Global 2019

Since 2018, Karisma Foundation with the support of the Inclusive Design Research Center (OCAD University) has worked with K12 students and teachers in Fresno, a small town in the mountainous region of Colombia. With an inclusive and open approach, Karisma has developed the project named "The Planet is the school". The project aim is to explore the relationship between youth, territory and technology. To reach that goal, we designed an open methodology based on a storytelling approach and using low-tech infrastructure.

In different historical moments, Fresno has been a territory in dispute between different illegal armed forces, in the middle of the armed conflict that Colombia has lived for 60 years. This reality has meant displacements of people from the countryside to the cities, lack of opportunities in the territory, low levels of schooling and little technological development.

Regarding that situation, the project seek to invite the students to ask questions about their future (their future in the countryside or the possibilities of going to the cities) and to know better their own territory. In that sence, the methodology mix artistic spaces, visits to local entrepreneurs and the use of digital tools, to amplify those questions and find possible ways to solve them in collaborative dynamics with a high sense of the local.

An important part of "The Planet is the school" project is the implementation of the Kimera Local Network, since access to the Internet is very limited (or none) and this tool allows students and the teachers can share content.

We want to share this practical experience that set a lot of question about open, equity, inclusion and the stories of the people behind this big concepts.