In this picture, I see a group of youth giving back to their community and helping to build a playground that improves society. It also shows how youth can work with each other to create their own designs and ideas for building innovative things. This project looks like it took up a lot of time but I think the time was used productively and it's benefiting the children that live in this area. The group that built this playground was DownCity Design which is an organization that involves young people in designing and building solutions for their communities. What drew me to this work was seeing the youth give back to the community and really do something to make a difference. This wasn't in the neighborhood before and now thanks to the youth in the community for helping, these children now have a play pavilion.
I currently work at the YMCA for their after school program so i feel like I get the opportunity to play everyday. Being around youth at work, I feel like I'm a little kid again and although I'm there watching them, I make sure they have fun and I'm having fun. I recall this past week, I played in many different ways. I played football with a few of the kids and a lot of the kids at the Y, like to play with stuffed animals and littlest pet shops, so I made sure that I played along with their animals and the story line they had going. I probably hadn't played with stuffed animals or little dolls since I was maybe 10, so it brought me back to being that age and I felt like a little kid, with no worries in the world. Following with Jenkins "6 Ps," I think this followed the first rule which is, permission. Before playing, I had to give myself permission to play with dolls. This isn't an activity I would normally engage in while I was at home, but I ...

Thanks for this post. One thing that stuck out to me in your description is the idea of youth creating their own designs and SOLUTIONS. I wonder if/how the experience for young people of solving design problems and creating solutions through architecture and building impacts the way they think about making change and creating solutions in other parts of their lives and communities.
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