CommuniTEA Infusion project

Design
Written By Ben Weinlick

The CommuniTEA Infusion experience is essentially a mobile tea house that comes to a neighborhood street and creates a kind of town square where people can come together, get to know each other better and strengthen connections.  One reason this is important in our fast paced society today, is that fewer persons are connected in meaningful ways with community.  If however the gathering place comes right to your door, there is a greater chance for meaningful exchange to take place.

More info here CommuniTEA Infusion website

What's innovative about this project is how people with disabilities work along side other community members to build vibrant, creative, connected communities.

The van and the experience was designed based on a human centered design approach that offered a relevant social innovation.

Think Jar Collective members Ben Weinlick, Debbie Reid and Brooks Hanewich led the design and development of the project through the Edmonton Learning Community.

Ben Weinlick

Ben Weinlick is the founder of Think Jar Collective.

Currently Ben is also the Executive Director of Skills Society. Skills Society is one of largest and most innovative social service organizations in Canada. Stewarding an amazing collective of 500 employee, and a 25 million a year budget, Skills Society has a long and unique history related to social innovation and systems change around the rights and inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities. Ben and colleagues of Skills are known internationally for quality human centered services and creating tangible social innovations. Before becoming Executive Director in 2019, Ben stewarded Social Innovation Research & Development through an innovation lab he helped launch in 2015 called the Action Lab. The Action Lab focuses on systems change and innovation around some of the most wicked and entangled problems that humans are facing today. He is also the co-founder of MyCompass Planning which is on a mission to humanize social service case management systems where people served are centered in shaping their support services.

As the founder of Think Jar Collective and his expertise in disciplined innovation culture and methods, he regularly is asked by Universities, Businesses, Governments, and Non-Profits to help grow capacity to problem solve better and in more holistic ways. He offers keynotes on human centered service design thinking, social innovation labs and the tools and culture of disciplined innovation. Along the way striving to nudge positive systems change over the last 20+ years, he has had stellar mentors and colleagues that he shares credit with for accomplishments and awards.

He is deeply driven by the desire to help people, organizations and community to get better at navigating complex challenges together.

https://www.thinkjarcollective.com
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The Edmonton Learning Community
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RAWK Project (SKILLS Society)