Humanities
The Justice Project
Project Description:
At the beginning of this project we were asked “What Is Justice?” to be honest I don’t think any of us could even start to fathom the depth of this question. There are so many layers to constructs, especially justice because in a way it's rather subjective depending on what your preconceived biases are. In order to explore this question, we started researching the philosophies of justice, exploring various texts and case studies along with some writing assignments to deepen our beliefs of what justice is. Some of the texts we analyzed were Bryan Stevenson’s “True Justice”, Terry Tempest Williams “The Pall Of Our Unrest”, “Law and Justice” from the Zinn Reader, and the Dalai Lama’s “Compassion as Justice''. After taking all of these texts in, we could write two different monologues encapsulating our developing philosophical views of justice.
After all of this, we could then start the final project. For this project, the requirements were to create/do something that you believe helps an organization or issue work towards justice. The project could be an individual one or a group project depending on your interest and the size of the project. For mine, I worked with two of my classmates Marisa and Alaina at a local organization called 4 The Children. As I will talk about in the below paragraphs they work with high custody cases to provide a safe space for exchanges or support to the families that are going through a hard time. To the three of us, this was the best way we could continue bringing justice to these difficult situations.
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Below you can view both of my monologues, my project defense, my final project and my reflection.
Justice Monologues:
Project Defense:
What did you end up doing for your project?
If you worked with a group, first explain the group project, THEN explain your individual contributions. Provide images and explanations of your individual contributions. (Prove you completed 2 weeks worth of work)
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completing this room to the best of our abilities, there was an open house the day our project was due. This meant that we got to hear so many people's appreciation for what we did to the space making the project feel even more important because we got to see people utilizing the space we designed. It is nice to see the work you do pay off, especially when it impacts others so deelpy.
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How did your project reflect your personal philosophy of justice?
Please go into depth here. Draw on earlier coursework/texts/philosophies/ethics that we studied and provide a comprehensive explanation of what your philosophy is as it relates to your project and how your project reflects that philosophy.
Why was your project a just way to address your issue of injustice?
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Through all of the coursework we have studied I believe that my idea of justice is this complicated construct that I can’t define as one thing but more a web of supports and balances that need to be worked towards. This project reflected my personal philosophy because 4 The Children is one of those supports. They are working on helping children heal from unjust actions and supporting parents to reconnect with their children in a safe environment that will promote healing for everyone. Similar to the Dalai Lama’s “Compassion as Justice” my philosophy of justice resides in rewriting the wrongs people have done to each other and the environment while creating this new sense of balance between everyone and everything. In simpler terms it is integrating more kindness into the world. We do not live in an anthropocentric world, we live on our beautiful mother earth, alongside all other living things. I believe that we must treat each other with kindness and respect as much as we should but don’t always treat our earth and her animals. Because without any efforts towards this harmonious balance there will only be constant fighting for the top, fighting for the most money and that is not a healthy way to live our precious lives. This project is one way that I can help bring more kindness into the world by developing those supports and working towards this balance. These families have already experienced great distress so creating a space in an organization that is there to help heal felt really good. It felt like I was actually a part of this slow change to bring more kindness into the world.
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Having the honor to transform this room felt like the most just way to continue creating this balance. As I mentioned before this organization works with children and families that have been subjected to unjust experiences while providing them a space to slowly heal from those experiences. Since I can’t erase their experiences, creating a space to heal from them felt like the most just way to go about redirecting those unjust actions. After working with this organization I also believe that towns and cities should have more places like 4 The Children. Because if there were more supports such as this organizations then maybe children in unsafe households and currently unfit parents would have overall less traumatic experiences.
Did you do sufficient research and background work to pull off your project, take an informed stance or succeed in your endeavors? Explain!
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Since the room that my classmates and I worked on had to be designed through a trauma-informed lens I did have to give myself a crash course on what the main components of trauma-informed design are. After knowing that this design style is rooted in creating spaces that feel safe and comforting I could help my group mates develop the room through this lens making it feel even more appropriate for their space than if I didn’t do the basic research. The main components of trauma-informed design that we decided to focus on were: the room's colors, its biophilic atmosphere, and having appropriate artwork. These additions helped the room feel a lot safer while still being professional enough for their needs.
Final Project
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I worked in a group with two of my classmates Marisa and Alaina at an organization called 4 The Children. This place works with high custody cases to provide safe exchanges between guardians, suuport the families they work with, and supervise visits when they are allowed. They are also working towards being a Child Advocacy Center taking on potential sexual abuse cases with the development of another room in their building designated for medical screenings. This way the potential victim only has to tell their story once and doesn’t have to go to the hospital.
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The role that my classmates and I played was to renovate one of their rooms into a trauma-informed culturally appropriate space that would be used for multiple things. We had to design through this trauma-informed lens while keeping in mind that the space would be used by both their clients and professionals such as police officers during a potential sexual abuse case once their medical room is built. My contributions to this room were helping pick out the colors for the wall paint, and help actually paint, collaborating with my classmates especially on which rug we wanted in the room, printing and framing some of my photos for decoration, helping decide on the placement of the plants, and assist in the overall layout of furniture. At this link, you can see some photos of the room and me working. Along with
Before
After
Slideshow Progression Of The Room
Project Reflection:
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I would say that overall we did a pretty good job meeting our goals and being successful, especially for how big this project was. We managed to pick out the perfect cool-toned colors and paint the entire room by ourselves. We also picked out a pretty rug to mask the old-looking carpet, decorated it with some of my photos, and bought loads of plants to bring a more biophilic feel to the room. We also did some organization of everything that was currently in there, making the book look neater and moving chairs to the sides of the room so that the space would open up more. These things might not seem to be of great significance however, to us and to the people working at 4 The Children it made a huge difference in the feel of the room.
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I would say that we didn’t necessarily have failures, just things that we weren’t able to complete due to our time constraints. For instance, we wanted to get the TV they had mounted onto the wall but that, unfortunately, didn’t happen before our deadline, however, it will still happen because their IT guy will be mounting it very soon.
In what ways were you successful in meeting the goals you established in your project proposal? What contributed to your successes?
In what way were you unsuccessful in meeting the goals you established in your proposal? What contributed to your failures? What did you do to try to overcome the obstacles? What should you have done differently?
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Another thing that we wanted to get done was get new tables and chairs, however, again we ran out of time for half of this goal since they want to commission a woodworker to custom-build the tables for that room. But we were able to get some new chairs in that room for when the tables do get built. Because of the scenario for these constraints, I wouldn’t say that these things were unsuccessful just not applicable for our time constraints.
To what extent did you SHOW UP for this project? How engaged/committed/involved were you in the work? How much did you strive to create beautiful work worth doing? To what extent were you accountable to yourself and others if relevant?
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This question has already been answered from everything that I have already covered above, I believe it is evident that I showed up for this project to the fullest extent. Every humanities class that we could leave to go work in the room my group mates and I left to do just that. I always had my mind focused on what we needed to get done that day and what we would need to work on the next day in order to complete the project on time. I’m incredibly grateful to have had Marisa and Alaina as my group mates because all of us are highly accountable individuals that worked really well together which helped me show up even more for this project. I was excited every time we got to collaborate with each other designing a room that I believe to be an exemplary project.
What TWO key lessons did you learn from this project that you can apply to senior project? Think about how a senior project involves choosing a project you’re passionate about that is viable in the time provided, completing multiple steps over the course of a semester, potentially collaborating with other organizations or people, fundraising, spreading the word, and so much more! The Justice Project was like practice for the big game, rehearsal for the broadway show, an appetizer to the 5-course meal!
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A lesson that I was able to uncover was that I’m very grateful to have had the opportunity to do this project because I was able to solidify my interest in learning more about how trauma-informed design impacts the people using that space. I care deeply about helping people and a way that I can do that is through one of my passions, design. For my senior project, I want to specifically explore more about the health effects that trauma-informed design can have on a person who has experienced traumatic event(s).
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I also rediscovered my love for physical projects that someone else will benefit from. Through the intensity of online school during the pandemic lockdowns, the only real projects that I could do were digitized or written. I forgot the satisfactory thrill that comes with creating for another. The mechanics of carefully planning and adding intentional details such as choosing specific paint colors and where to place the plants made me remember how much I love to create. This was further accentuated when I got to see how grateful everyone at 4 The Children were for the renovated space along with all of the community members that came to their open house. It made my heart smile to have been a part of creating this space that everyone appreciated so much. I want to have that same feeling about my senior project. I want to accomplish something bigger, some sort of physical project that others will benefit from. Because I believe that warm feeling should always be felt after a meaningful project.
