Picture Justice Australia: Designing for youth engagement in community, citizenry, and processes of democracy

The Picture Justice Australia program is a pilot research project that includes an intensive, multidisciplinary workshop series for senior high schools students in regional Australia. Picture Justice was originally created by the New York non-profit organisation, PROOF: Media for Social Justice to teach New York secondary students about issues related to social justice and human rights. Picture Justice Australia is adapting the program under the theme of 'community, citizenry, and processes of democracy', and with an underlying design thinking methodology, asks whether it can increase the participants sense of agency as citizens within their community, and seeks to understand how young people are engaging in democratic processes. In this paper, we discuss some of the findings of the research, which help us to understand the collaborative nature of this program, and the value of design in fostering citizenship and democratic participation.