Co-designing tools to empower further, independent co-design:Collaborating with diverse individuals with lived experience of food poverty

Coupe, Gemma and Whitham, Roger and Cruickshank, Leon and Perez Ojeda, David and Pearson, Ben (2020) Co-designing tools to empower further, independent co-design:Collaborating with diverse individuals with lived experience of food poverty. In: Proceedings of the Design Research Society Conference 2020. Proceedings of the Design Research Society Conference 2020 . Design Research Society, Brisbane, pp. 992-1008. ISBN 9781912294374

Abstract

Food poverty is an acute, growing and highly impactful social, political and practical challenge for the UK in 2019. This paper describes collaborative design undertaken by researchers from the Leapfrog project and practitioners from Food Power, a national network tackling food poverty. In this paper we describe 3 elements of a substantial co-design research project. We describe how co-designers from very difference constituencies (in age and location) developed tools and resources that helped the voice of people in food poverty be more clearly heard. The aim of this project is for the clear articulation of the impacts of food poverty to effect policy and policy maker. Helping in the long term to remove the need for food banks and other tactical responses to systemic food poverty challenges. The case studies presented have wider implications for the creation of tools and resources to help co-design, mass creativity and engagement at scale.