At Zimbowties we're all about inspiring creativity in the next generation. Experimentation is a big part of this and we try to practice what we preach wherever we can. Recently we've been testing out a couple of new ideas for creativity awards.

Last year I visited NZEVE Deaf Children’s Centre to see if we could maybe partner with them to help promote creative thinking with the youth they’re working with. I ran a design thinking workshop there to share some of the skills I’d picked up while studying in Scotland

And we also got them to make us some prototype bags in their workshop while we still trying to figure out what our packaging might look like

The Centre is mainly attended by kids in pre-school and youth who have finished high school. They also work with deaf kids in junior and high school but most of this work happens in those kids’ schools. So we wanted to see if we could create creativity awards for the people at the Centre: the pre-school kids and the youth.

Working with Selina Mlambo, NZEVE’s Head of Programs and Training Coordinator we identified two youths and one child-mother pairing.

The Youths

The two youths we gave creativity awards to, Talent and Nyasha are both creatives who are using their hands to start their own small businesses. Read Selina’s write-up of their amazing stories here.

We awarded both of them some seed funding to support their businesses and their creativity. We look forward to seeing where they take their skills and where their skills take them.

The Sooner The Better

We also worked with NZEVE to identify a child in their pre-school class to give an award to which would cover the child’s school fees for the next term. They picked Rolan and his mother for their progress through play and participation in NZEVE’s classes. Sometimes, when things are difficult, just showing up can be a challenge and their teamwork and persistence have been an inspiration to those around them. We believe these qualities will help them overcome more of the challenges that life brings their way.

You can learn more about Rolan and his mother’s story in Selina’s blog post about them.

What’s Next?

We’d like to continue working with NZEVE and we’re currently exploring the idea of getting volunteers from local Tech Colleges and Universities to run design and entrepreneurial workshops with the deaf youth that NZEVE are connected with in the community.