Social Labs in Medellin

DESCRIPTION: Our Social Labs follow the premise that within conflict-ridden contexts, violent or not, people design repertoires of transformation that include sophisticated technologies, methods, and practices, that are constantly used in order to make living possible. Our Social Labs are designed to identify these repertories, understand them, and collectively enhance them for the service of communities. This is done in a participatory way by constructing a team of stakeholders, representative of the social life of such context, and by engaging in a pluri-perspective synthesis, diagnosis, and possible transformation, of a shared social issue. One of our Social Labs in Medellin is guided by the question, “What strategies can we design and set in motion to systemically transform the dynamics that nourish youth violence in Medellin, Colombia?”

OUTCOMES: To create a citywide conversation around the issue of youth violence where representatives of most sectors of Medellin's society, i.e., government, academia, civil society, grassroot leadership, social activists, artists, etc., come together to find innovative tools to transform this matter.