CASE STUDY: CO-DESIGNING A COMMUNITY SCHOOL
CO-DESIGNING A COMMUNITY SCHOOL
I believe in the high value design thinking plays in early education and in building strong communities. In 2015 I co-founded the Bay Area Turkish Society, a nonprofit community organization in Berkeley, California, where we co-designed educational, cultural, social and recreational programming through arts, dance, music, and cuisine.
CHALLENGE:
How can we empower the Bay Area Turkish Community through our programming so that we learn together with our children’s curious minds, strengthen our empathy, and to engage in a changing world as world citizens.
SOLUTION:
After series of co-design sessions with our educators, our board, and parenting community we transformed the programming of the nonprofit organization from a school to a community organization. The new mission of Bay Area Turkish Society 501(c)(3), is to sponsor a nonpartisan forum through which individuals and institutions of Turkish, Anatolian, and Levantine heritage, can collectively support their shared pursuits in the arts, sciences and humanities. You can check HERE on the expanded programming implementation results HERE.
IMPACTS:
Together with our volunteers, we co-designed valuable partnerships and provided services to its extended community through design workshops, parenting seminars, university engagement programs. One of these important programs is the partnership between my Industrial Design students with the BTS community to design educational products that focus on teaching culture through creativity.
As a direct result of the co-design strategies, Bay Area Turkish Society continues to provide modern educational, cultural, social, and recreational programs for exploring, performing, presenting, and sharing Turkish, Anatolian, and Levantine heritage.
WHAT PEOPLE SAY
“Basak is a true leader in my opinion, as she did not hesitate to fill a big gap we had for the Turkish community by taking charge and starting BTS with the help of a couple of close friends. She is very resourceful in finding great tools and programs that improve the experience for the kids and the parents. Last year, I was very impressed how her students in Industrial Design got involved with the BTS and brought great educational activities into the classrooms in a short time. You can see that everything she does, she does with great passion, stemming from her deep love for the Turkish community in the Bay Area and her cultural heritage. While she understands that the parents are all busy, she is eager to grow the community and what the school can offer by welcoming everyone to get involved as much as they can.
I am truly impressed with how much she was able to accomplish with very little resources and support in a such short time. I believe her creative mind, strong interpersonal skills, resourcefulness, and perseverance have been a gift to the Turkish community in the Bay Area.”
-Irem Radzik- Parent At BTS & Head Of Product Marketing At Striim
”I’ve had the pleasure of working with Basak for the last 3 years in founding, developing and running The Berkeley Turkish School. Basak is a true visionary and is highly skilled in and passionate about thinking outside the box, maintaining integrity both personally and for the school while taking steps to develop the school further and push things to its limits to see what can be achieved and how. She’s very hard-working, and goes above beyond all expectations to stretch the boundaries of what is possible, while also holding her team responsible and accountable for their expected contributions. So, things are never idle and the energy always remains strong.
Basak has great critical thinking capacity – she constantly evaluates the state of things, cause and effect of decisions made, how improvements can be made, who we can bring in for expertise, how we can better address the needs of our community and continue developing our programs.
And finally, I think Basak is an excellent leader and has the crucial traits necessary to run a developing and strong organization: the ability to hold her ground for what she’s passionate about, being a good listener, being a strong researcher and synthesizer, encouraging collaboration and contribution, energizing others, appreciating and acknowledging deserving efforts, and always thinking big.”
Basak Cakici- Co Founder of BTS, Architect & Realtor