HEY is a B2B&B2C platform. Collaborating with primary schools, migrant students can explore local culture through a monthly HEY-Magazine and HEY-Community with social support and backing from teachers and primary schools.
I wanted to understand migrant perspectives with my earliest prototype. For this, I created Social media-GOGOGO and tested migrant childrens topics. Simultaneously, I discovered different stakeholders from different backgrounds. After interviews and surveys of migrant children, there were two insights. First, to live with their parents, migrant children are usually second or third grade, and have less access to social support to have a good social adaptation. Secondly, a school is a powerful educational and social touchpoint. Because migrant children arrive in new places, a school is often the first new environment and social group that migrant children connect with. It helps them shape their identity and allows them to learn, meet new people, learn new skills, and build a sense of wellbeing. It means this interaction is at the intersection of kids and family, kids and teachers, community and social groups. So how might we help migrant children in 2nd-3rd grades in primary school socially adapt to improve their well-being with the social support and backing from teachers and primary schools?
HEY is an inclusive, entertaining, open and fun platform for migrant children in primary school from 2nd to 3rd grades. HEY-service is a monthly recurring service and runs in collaboration with activities classes in primary school. Firstly, HEY runs workshops and develops HEY magazine (a monthly popular science of local culture + Monthly activities + Review works from last month's HEY magazine). We will invite experts, psychologists, designers and themed guests (such as local businesses from food to cultural centers…）to collaborate with the HEY-Workshop toolkit. Secondly, HEY delivers popular science and related fun activities about local culture for all students and teachers via a monthly online or physical magazine. After the new learning and activities, teachers, parents, and children can share their experiences in the HEY Community, through group chats and posting their experiences on the forum HEY-Connection.
Reframing the User Journey, the Hey-Campaign raises awareness of children, parents, and teachers to discover HEY by Advertising, Stickers + Posters...Then, people go to HEY-Website to use free, useful resources designed for engagement and fun. This includes magazines, group chats, forums, and activities. Next, with teachers' guidance and social support, students can explore local culture through interviews, painting, handicrafts to develop self-awareness, build a connection with local places, and sometimes enhance parent-child relationships from parent-child activities. Then, they can return to school sharing and collaborating with knowledge to develop better peer relationships, build new friendships and confidence, and enhance positive emotions. The activities help migrant children carry out friendly social networking.One month later, they can reuse the magazine with new topics and new activities every edition, such as exploring local dialects and exploring stories of local migrants. After finishing these activities, they can share experiences with others in the HEY-Community. With time, they will build Hey-Connection within the community and build a relationship on and off the platform.
HEY collaborated with three primary schools in China. With teachers and local businesses offering to help, we ran workshops and outdoor activities within the guidelines of HEY-toolkits. There were three topics: one school explores the historical building sites in Luoyang and with parents' support, they went into the city to capture the city's historical building textures with pencil and paper. And with local business' help, students experienced and collaborated with the Wadang Rubbing workshop in learning local culture. In the second school, students explored the local park in Xi'an. In the third school, students explored elements of the school. During this process, students gained more confidence and made new friendships. Parents showed demand for more parent-child activities, and schools and local business were glad to have a valuable collaboration.
Moving to the Value Map...HEY provides magazines, community, and shops for migrant children, families, and schools to help them establish relationships, have more wellbeing, develop confidence and self-identity, and create a sense of belonging for migrant Children and migrant families.HEY provides HEY-Products and co-design workshops with local businesses to co-design HEY-Magazine. This can help them gain social responsibility and valuable opportunities to cooperate with schools to create more attention, profits and customers.HEY provides a HEY-Community for users and researchers of migrant children - they can share their experiences and also obtain academic data. HEY builds a connection between migrants and locals, creates a new culture for the city and builds a sense of belonging for migrant children and their families.HEY builds connections between migrants and locals, creates new cultures for cities and I hope people enjoy HEY.
I am really thankful to my tutor David who helped me develop the project, and thanks to all the participants, Jing, Yajie Xue, Cong, Keyi Lv, Yanrong Fu, Xixiong Liao, Xiu, Minying, Fan, Bing bing Zhang, Weiting Qing, Weiping Zhang, Chuntian Hu, migrant students and their parents.
