Boston, MA
Amount granted: $25,000
Grant year: 2023
Grant category: Human Services
$25,000 to support Year Two of the Human Centered Design pilot program.
Sparkshare was created to bring together high school youth to address the problems that they choose to solve and things that mattered to them. Through the power of its Network’s convenings, connections, and learning, SparkShare youth teams share challenges and ideas, develop skills and confidence as problem-solvers, and make connections that enable them to drive positive change in their communities. Its youth teams are focused on issues such as mental wellness, substance use, economic empowerment, and racial justice.
The objective for Design Thinking is to give young people a structured system where they learn how to understand the population they are trying to impact, challenge assumptions, redefine problems, and create and test innovative solutions to address the problems they see in their communities. SparkShare began with the idea that by bringing people together across the boundaries that divide them, they could begin to solve society’s most intractable problems. Through Human Centered Design, the aim is to provide young people with the tool kit they need to do that.