This upcoming summer, Naina Qayyum ’15 will spend her break in Islamabad, Pakistan, the capital of her home country. A recipient of a $10,000 Project for Peace Grant through the Davis United World Scholars Program, Qayyum will run a program called Creative Youth for Community Leadership Enhancement.
The program will center on fostering the concept of design thinking, a mindset shift that, at its most basic level, helps people think critically and embrace challenges. Qayyum, an economics major and global health minor, ran a similar but smaller grant program through the Center for Social Entrepreneurship last summer in Pakistan that targeted women and shared the same focus of design thinking.
This summer, Qayyum hopes to reach both girls and boys with her program. In a culture marked by minimal social mobility, specifically for women, design thinking is one of the best tools someone can have. Through design thinking, Qayyum hopes to uncover the vast amount of talent among the youth population in Pakistan that otherwise would go unknown.
Crediting her experience at MiddCORE as an inspiration, Qayyum believes, “Design thinking is very powerful in enhancing the creative self of an individual. Most importantly, it can work for people who have not really had a high level of education.”
The ultimate goal for Qayyum would be “to create a permanent platform with a name for designed thinking.” She chose her home country of Pakistan for the site of her work because she feels her efforts can make a tangible difference in the country, which has a host of political and economic issues. Creating a platform for design thinking will “engage the Pakistani youth in positive exercises, develop new skills, and push them to think creatively.”
Pakistan has very little government intervention in education, and the youth is a large part of the population. By teaching children to think creatively and collaborate with each other to solve problems, Qayyum hopes to give children in Pakistan the tools to become a better and more productive person.
“Just providing a single individual with the mentality of designed thinking is an achievement in itself,” she said.
Qayyum is grateful to both the mentors at MiddCORE, specifically the design firm IDEO, and the Center for Entrepreneurship at the College for their support and encouragement as she embarks on her journey this summer.
The utility of design thinking as a tool for individual growth provides a positive and productive path for the youth of Pakistan to go down.
