Dear DJN Members, Signatories, and Friends,

Staff and the Steering Committee return from their seasonal pause prepared to support an abundance of activity and growth for the Design Justice Network. New Nodes across the world are taking their first steps in meeting and organizing around the Design Justice Principles, established Nodes and Working Groups meet regularly for discussion and direct action – and new signatories and members continue to join the movement as our impact expands.

Are you one of our new readers joining us this past month? Check the next section for Upcoming Events that may be near you or available virtually. Updates for DJN facilitators, Nodes and Working Group organizers follow that, offering great insight into how our community shares work and advances the mission of design justice in action. We also include articles, videos and other happenings from the wider world of design justice in What We’re Sharing…

Dear DJN Members, Signatories, and Friends,

This past winter we celebrated the launch of the Design Justice Network's Mission and Vision, as well as the Intentions of the Staff and Steering Committee (M/V/I). The energy cultivated from that experience continues to ground us. Cultivating a deeply interconnected network, advancing and embodying the DJN principles in practice, and amplifying experiences of joy throughout the network are our driving forces, as we move into a new season.

This past year we brought on new Steering Committee members Nour Arafat, Boaz Sender, Elena Silvestrini, and Marta Delatte (to learn more about them please click here). Currently, the DJN Steering Committee is an all-volunteer body that sets high-level strategy, determines the overall network structure, approves the budget, maintains information about the DJN’s structure, and reviews and approves new Local Nodes and Working Groups…. continue reading

This past year we brought on new Steering Committee members Nour Arafat, Boaz Sender, Elena Silvestrini, and Marta Delatte (to learn more about them please click here). Currently, the DJN Steering Committee is an all-volunteer body that sets high-level strategy, determines the overall network structure, approves the budget, maintains information about the DJN’s structure, and reviews and approves new Local Nodes and Working Groups.

On April 29th and May 11th, 2022, we had the most recent DJN SC retreat, including the new SC members and staff. This took place virtually over two sessions. Our goal here is to give you a sense of what happened and share some of our key takeaways and next moves.

Dear DJN Members, Signatories, and Friends,

This last month held a lot. As we continue to move forward with a shared alignment of design justice we encourage all members to make space for restoration. In whatever way that makes sense for you. Our collective mission is rooted in a sense of abundance, possibility, and joy. This sits in relation to providing connection, care, and community for others and ourselves. There has been both a lot to grieve and celebrate this month. So we offer this as a reminder to pause, process, and pour into yourself, when you can.

We have some important updates this month.

Taylor Simone and Victoria Barnett, International Network Coordinators, Design Justice Network, and the DJN Communications team!

Email: designjusticenetwork@gmail.com

Instagram: @designjusticenetwork

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/designjusticenetwork

Twitter: @design__justice (double underscore)

Web: designjustice.org

Dear DJN Members, Signatories, and Friends,

This month we are excited to introduce and welcome a new working group to the network. You can learn a little more about the instructional design working group below and be sure to stay tuned for ways to get involved. We can't wait to see how things flourish. We also held an amazing Member Story Session with members Rene Benavides and Rachael Dietkus. The session began with presentations, flowed into a period of reflection and ended with a Q&A. A recording of this session can be found here and the prompts we moved through are included.

We have an exciting DJN connection this month. Victoria had a chance to travel to Colombia and along the way met some amazing communities, organizations and people that align with design justice work.

Remember that you can email us with pictures and stories about connecting with members. Whether you are meeting with your node members, co-facilitating workshops, or just gathering for fun we would love to share. Another exciting thing to check out is Member Story with David Thomas. This interview touches on the artistic approach to inclusive design, cognitive bias and some of the principles that he is sitting with.

The last thing we would like to share is that our principles are now available to view in Romanian. Here is a link to this link. We thank all of those that volunteered on these translations and those that have volunteered on past translations.

Principle Contributors: Irina Niculescu, Louisiana Stoica, Alexandra Bușilă, Andrei Gabriel Nicolae

We would love to hear everyone's reflections on social media using the hashtag #designjusticespotlight and/or on the member slack channel. Interested in translating the principles? The guidelines are posted here.

Taylor Simone and Victoria Barnett, International Network Coordinators, Design Justice Network, and the DJN Communications team!

Email: designjusticenetwork@gmail.com

Instagram: @designjusticenetwork

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/designjusticenetwork

Twitter: @design__justice (double underscore)

Web: designjustice.org

Spring (in the north-American context) opens new beginnings and growth. We also find opportunities in taking inspired action on the winter possibilities that excite and offer joy! What seeds might you be planting for the upcoming seasons?

Read more…