Social Research & Development
Field Guide
Resources
This is a collection of resources that were used during the creation of River Stone Recovery Centre and the Phoenix Learning Centre.
The Workbook is a collaborative online document that collects the activities we carried out in the development of Phoenix Learning Centre. Its format allowed us to share the intention of each activity, determine who would carry it out, and communicate the insights learned with the team members who were not present on site.
This version of the Workbook includes templates of activities we carried out and that helped us better understand and include people in the design of things that impact them. Be mindful that the activities inside this Workbook were designed specifically for the Phoenix Learning Centre. Feel free to use them as inspiration and please re-design them to better serve the people and locality that you serve.
"What comes with physical distance, is an acceptance that there is no possible chance that I'm responsible for this person's plight.
Whereas, if you work on problems that are in your own back yard, it is much harder to have that cleanliness - to keep your hands clean - there's a lot more likelihood that your hands will be complicitly stained, for the predicament that you are trying to solve for.
Working on things that are closer to home, is directly challenging one's notion of what is good and bad. It directly challenges, who gets to be saved and who doesn't, and it directly challenges your own sense of "I'm a good person and other people are somehow unfortunate? Unworthy? Or didn't work hard enough?"
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There are so many things tangled in those narratives, like spaghetti. It becomes much easier and simpler. If you just go somewhere far away.
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Our hands are stained."
- George Aye, Co-Founder of Greater Good Studio