Nickolas Collinet, Apprentice, Resilient & Diverse Communities By Design
Capacity Canada’s Apprenticeship Program, Resilient and Diverse Communities By Design, has been developed with the support of Suncor Energy Foundation (SEF). The Suncor Energy Foundation helps spark change and propel progress for generations ahead through partnerships and relationships with those who are courageously seeking solutions. Capacity Canada is grateful to the Suncor Energy Foundation for generously providing the resources to build resilient communities across the country through its Apprenticeship Program.
The nine-month Program is intended for individuals who want to learn the foundational elements of human-centred design to bring professional skills back to their communities to drive meaningful change toward more regenerative approaches.
Nickolas Collinet has been working with the Create Vancouver Society since 2016. With a mission to connect people through music in re-imagined urban spaces, a new brand called Public Disco was launched. Since then, Nickolas has worked with several different organizations, including Vancouver Pride Society, New Forms Media Society, the Downtown Vancouver BIA, Lumière Festival Vancouver Society and FACTOR Canada, to bring free music events to streets, plazas and laneways around Vancouver.
Nickolas is one of the four apprentices selected as part of Capacity Canada’s nine-month paid Apprenticeship Program – Resilient and Diverse Communities By Design. The program is generously supported by Suncor Energy Foundation. The SEF believes in sharing power and co-creating sustainable solutions to complex challenges, and contributing to the development of the social innovation sector to develop programs.
In March this year, Capacity Canada invited young changemakers from diverse communities across Canada to apply for its program. “We encouraged people from under-represented groups to apply as we feel the spirit of human-centred design is well suited to addressing many of the challenges faced by our diverse communities,” said Cathy Brothers, CEO of Capacity Canada.
Human-centred design is an approach to problem-solving that begins with a deep understanding of and empathy with the people you’re trying to reach — and then designing and testing solutions from their perspective. By including key stakeholders throughout the process, the solutions generated are more likely to be accepted and embraced.
“Everyone can benefit from bits and pieces of design thinking, and we should be approaching all complex issues in work and personal life with more design thinking. Those who serve communities should have these skills and tools so their work can have the most impact,” says Nickolas.
Nickolas and his team members learned about the Apprenticeship Program right when they started working on a large-scale public art transformation project – City Centre Motel Project – at a closed-down motel. “The Apprenticeship Project aligned with our goal to be more intentional with our work as placemakers and placekeepers, learning new skills to approach these projects for the maximum benefit of involved stakeholders. We were excited to apply and learn new skills,” he added.
While Nickolas says he has learned a lot through Capacity Canada’s program, including the importance of both convergent and divergent thinking, there’s one key learning that he says will benefit him for life. “We all contribute to group thinking in different ways, and I have learned the impact of bringing a group of people together for thoughtful discussions with tips and tricks to go through this in a way that makes everyone feel heard and engaged.”
Create Vancouver Society is an organization that works with stakeholders that often seem on opposite ends of the spectrum. Nickolas and his team work as the middle person between those with the resources and the artists deserving of them. “These two stakeholders don’t always see eye to eye, but there is so much crossover between the impact they want to see. Design thinking helps provide a process to work through these challenges and find commonalities so that we can accomplish real action while showing real engagement with those impacted by the work,” says Nickolas.
Nickolas has already started implementing learnings from the Apprenticeship Project into his work. He and his team believe that the learnings from the program are directly applicable to their continued work at the City Centre Motel project. “It was extremely valuable to go through a sprint exercise with my team as we engaged stakeholders to learn their thoughts and needs. This insight, and the process we went through to get to it, is already showing its impact on how we approach the next stage of our work at the motel,” says Nickolas. He added that his team has incorporated tools from the sprint and brought them to group meetings on other topics the organization is exploring.
“The relevance of these design-thinking tools to our work as changemakers producing community-centric programs is endless,” he added.
The Apprenticeship Program builds on the work of both Capacity Canada and the Suncor Energy Foundation to build and support resilient individuals, organizations and communities across Canada. In the next phase, apprentices will work on a design project related to their connected communities. The project will be completed in the next few months with coaching and mentoring support from the Capacity Canada Design Team.
In the coming months, Capacity Canada will be inviting a new cohort of individuals who would like to learn about design thinking and apply it to a real challenge faced by their non-profit or charitable organization. This supports the broader purpose of the Capacity by Design program to grow the number of individuals in the sector who use human-centred design to develop innovative approaches to complex challenges.
Learn more about the Apprenticeship Program on Capacity Canada’s website.
