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IPek’s projects are inclusive, ecologically sustainable, gender-sensitive, and participation-based.
During her weekly activities as a social worker, she developed her own method for community creation through creative tools.
This method is built on the following ten pillars.
1. Outreach for balance
Visiting and contacting the target group at places where they are at home or feel at home. This way, workshop leaders are also in a guest position, which automatically balances the relation between them and the target group.
2. Common goal for exchange
Activity-based groups provide optimal settings to bring together people from various social and cultural backgrounds. When there is a common goal or a shared activity, knowledge exchange happens organically.
3. Design and craft for empowerment
In temporary groups created around a design activity, members receive their roles based on their skills and on what the group needs. This has strong potential for reframing and empowerment.
4. Whole processes to awaken responsibility
When people are involved in the whole process of an activity, they are more likely to feel responsible for the space and for how they spend their time there. Building up and dismantling the setting together creates affiliation and therefore responsibility.
5. Welcoming design and flexible stability
A welcoming process and setting must include a certain flexibility. A variable process and set-up invite people to shape and use them as they want, while proven elements provide stability and a practical structure.
6. Clear rules and respected boundaries
The rules should be clearly communicated and explained with reasons that participants can understand. Attention should also be given to additional guidelines needed to ensure a safe and respectful environment, such as acknowledging and respecting each other’s boundaries—this is essential for supportive and collaborative group work.
7. Creative activity - creative communication
When working creatively with the hands, creativity often spreads into the whole space and into communication. While the common goal creates exchange, the creative use of body language and humour creates access across (language) barriers.
8. Creativity to turn errors into serendipity
Temporary groups provide an ideal setting to relearn our coping mechanisms around failure. A creative approach can turn a workflow that is constantly challenged by misunderstandings or mistakes into a process of fun and serendipity.
9. Learning from each other
Although those organising the workshop usually have an advantage in most shared skills, new patterns, methods, and tricks always arise on the spot. Pointing these out creates a “learning-from-each-other” feeling and empowers participants to use their creative freedom to reshape processes and results.
10. Reframing outcomes to maintain creativity
During activities, participants experience the joy of doing something that is constantly changing. To support them in keeping this creative flow after the event, results are treated as one stop: they may stay untouched for a while, but changes in their surroundings constantly reframe them.
Do you have questions about whether IPek’s method is adaptable to your community’s activity?
Contact IPek here
Visiting and contacting the target group at places where they are at home or feel at home. This way, workshop leaders are also in a guest position, which automatically balances the relation between them and the target group.
Activity-based groups provide optimal settings to bring together people from various social and cultural backgrounds. When there is a common goal or a shared activity, knowledge exchange happens organically.
In temporary groups created around a design activity, members receive their roles based on their skills and on what the group needs. This has strong potential for reframing and empowerment.
When people are involved in the whole process of an activity, they are more likely to feel responsible for the space and for how they spend their time there. Building up and dismantling the setting together creates affiliation and therefore responsibility.
A welcoming process and setting must include a certain flexibility. A variable process and set-up invite people to shape and use them as they want, while proven elements provide stability and a practical structure.
The rules should be clearly communicated and explained with reasons that participants can understand. Attention should also be given to additional guidelines needed to ensure a safe and respectful environment, such as acknowledging and respecting each other’s boundaries—this is essential for supportive and collaborative group work.
When working creatively with the hands, creativity often spreads into the whole space and into communication. While the common goal creates exchange, the creative use of body language and humour creates access across (language) barriers.
Temporary groups provide an ideal setting to relearn our coping mechanisms around failure. A creative approach can turn a workflow that is constantly challenged by misunderstandings or mistakes into a process of fun and serendipity.
Although those organising the workshop usually have an advantage in most shared skills, new patterns, methods, and tricks always arise on the spot. Pointing these out creates a “learning-from-each-other” feeling and empowers participants to use their creative freedom to reshape processes and results.
During activities, participants experience the joy of doing something that is constantly changing. To support them in keeping this creative flow after the event, results are treated as one stop: they may stay untouched for a while, but changes in their surroundings constantly reframe them.