Outpost to Colombia
The scope of this year’s course and the outpost has been to design for children’s right to play. They were warmly welcomed by our very own Colombian student Camilo Ibañez and the students and teachers from our partner university Universidad De Los Andes, Angelica Lascar and Sol Trejos. Ties and friendships were made as knowledge was created.
Before traveling to Colombia, the Play students developed child-centred design methods together with children from the International School of Billund. Once in Colombia, they were shown the wonders of this land with care and got to experience amazing connections with children from the coffee region around Marsella, a rural town.
Some might wonder how such intense connections could have been made without the use of a common language. Taïs Holzhauer, student ambassador for Design for Play pointed out: “We are so used to communicate with words, we forget how much our bodies have to say. How much our smile means to someone else. This experience and these connections were all about how our hearts connected beyond the limits of words.”
During their time in Colombia, our Play Design team had the honor of visiting the Danish Embassy of Colombia in Bogota to share insights about our outpost and collaboration with Universidad De Los Andes. We are grateful for the opportunity to strengthen partnerships and foster collaboration.
As our students come back to Denmark, they will reflect on their growth and learnings. They will refine the methods they have come up with before the trip and will transform their insights into exciting designs to look forward to.
Design School Kolding would like to thank our partner Universidad De Los Andes for their great hospitality, the children from the International School of Billund for their invaluable input, the children from Marsella for making this trip truly unforgettable, and a special thank you to the LEGO Foundation for making this outpost possible.
