A new toolkit from the Global Food Institute at George Washington University and Swipe Out Hunger offers a practical approach for putting people with lived experience at the center of food-system problem-solving. Designing With, Not For uses human-centered design to help practitioners move from identifying unmet needs to generating, prioritizing and developing solutions alongside the people most affected.
The toolkit provides a step-by-step workshop that can be adapted to different food-system challenges and completed in about two hours. Rather than treating community members as research subjects or recipients of programs, the process positions them as co-designers and experts in their own experiences. Participants generate ideas, identify the most promising concepts and develop solutions that can move toward implementation. Ready-to-use planning tools and templates are included.