Dream big. Take calculated risks. Be innovative and creative. Work collaboratively. Be open to learn from other countries and other communities and support the global to local connections. Dare to be labeled woo-woo. Remember nurse power!
Those are the lessons I have been learning—or relearning lately as I help launch the Doorway Project, a campus-community interprofessional innovative collaborative project aimed at reducing if not ending youth homelessness in the University District of Seattle. It is a form of public scholarship and includes creative data-gathering and design modalities including participatory community mapping, photo voice, and participatory digital storytelling videos. It’s final product will be a youth-centric human/community designed community cafe modeled after the amazing Merge Cafe in Auckland, New Zealand. It is ambitious and audacious and it just might work.
We have our kick-off and first pop-up community cafe and community participatory design activities this Sunday, December 3rd, noon-4pm at the lovely community center University Heights in the U District of Seattle. Here is an edited down 4-minute version of a longer interview I did today with our local U District public radio station KUOW 94.9 FM. Many thanks to them and especially to Producer Andy Hurst whose mother happens to be a nurse.
JOSEPHINE ENSIGN 