First Year of the CSR Project
First Year Launch
A group of Vand colleagues, project founder Touraj Saberivand, project communications manager Mitra Ferdowsi, project consultants Jalil Noorbakhsh and Ashkan Allahyari, and project coordinator Nazanin Ahani gathered as the core team to start the project. Many consultative meetings were held with Iranian and Afghan social activists who had previous experience of voluntary projects in Afghanistan so that the project could proceed with full understanding of the situation.
Finally, the Project's call was publicized on International Women's Day, March 8, 2022, in news outlets and social networks of Iran and Afghanistan. In this call, Afghan women and girls were invited to complete the initial registration form on the Vand company website. Within a month, 531 Afghan girls signed up from various countries.
Those who registered were between the ages of 13 and 48 years old, with the majority of them being in the range of 17 to 32 years old. 62 percent lived in Afghanistan, 25 percent in Iran and the rest in ten other countries such as France, United States, Italy, Turkey and Sweden.38 percent had left Afghanistan less than a year ago. Only 3 percent of these girls were "thoroughly" familiar with the basics of graphic design, and 86 percent had no professional work experience.
First Semester
158 Women in 11 Countries
The registrants were informed that in order to participate in the course, high-speed Internet and a computer suitable for work are necessary, and they were invited to attend the online opening session of this course. The first semester started in the first days of May with 124 people.
The participants had three subjects in the first semester. Two software training courses "Introductory Photoshop" and "Illustrator" were held on the online platform of "Inverse School of Art and Design". After watching the recorded videos of these two classes, the students had to do the assignments, then for confirmation and corrections, send them to the teachers of these two softwares "Parnia Paupar" and "Ali Shams", renowned teachers in Iran, and get feedback and guidance. In addition, every week they had a two-hour online class called "Literacy of Design" with Touraj Saberivand, designer and founder of the Project.
Vand International was only able to provide financial assistance to a few girls living in Afghanistan who were highly interested in this course but did not have proper internet and computers so that they could participate.
Second Semester
40 Women in 10 Countries
After three months, 40 people out of 120 people who participated in the first semester made it to the second semester, based on the assessment of the teachers. In this semester, the students took the "Advanced Photoshop" course with Alireza Ordobadi and learned more practical techniques than the first semester.
The second course of Design Literacy were held twice a week in this semester, more practical exercises were given to students, and they had to design a project each week. Exercises ranged from poster design, book and catalog covers, social media posts, and office papers of fictional companies.
Salamatpaad
In cooperation with Salamatpaad Institute and Nazli Ebrahimi, a soft skills course was held for the participants, in which students were acquainted with four soft skills within a month. Effective relationship, personal development, career path, job search and resume writing were among these skills. These workshops were especially important because most of the participants had no work and social experience before.
The second course of Design Literacy were held twice a week in this semester, more practical exercises were given to students, and they had to design a project each week. Exercises ranged from poster design, book and catalog covers, social media posts, and office papers of fictional companies.
Third Semester
27 Women in 4 Countries
This project was planned for two semesters, but at the end of the second one, the enthusiasm of the students and the need felt by the organizing team led to the formation of a third semester. 27 students who passed the second semester made it to the third one to do more exercises during the week and achieve more skills in graphic design.5 of the more advanced students were invited to a three-month internship at Vand company. The following designs are some of the works done by the students of the Project.
Project Timeline
Planning & Consultation
5 Feb 2022
Publication of the call, International Women’s Day
8 March 2022
1st Semester
Inaugural Webinar
24 April 2022
Inverse Joining Date
28 April 2022
Beginning of Design Literacy class(1)
30 April 2022
Starting introductory Photoshop and Illustrator
18 May 2022
Human communication basics panel
30 Jun 2022
A free meeting between the designer’s mind and hand
30 Jun 2022
Open session of designer’s professional life
28
July
2022
2nd Semester
Start of design literacy classes (2)
4 Aug 2022
Start of design Beginning of advanced Photoshop classes
20 Aug 2022
Soft skills workshops
16 Sep 2022
3rd Semester
Typography open session With Damon Khanjanzadeh
27 Octr 2022
Beginning of design workshops
3 Nov 2022
Beginning of Internship Sessions
3 Nov 2022
End of the Project.
Methodology
One began as a collaborative architectural and landscape workshop, and has remained true to its trans-disciplinary way of thinking since its inception.
Our work strives to enhance our sense of place, identity and relationship to others and the physical spaces we inhabit, whether feral or human-made.
4 Master Classes
In this semester, several online master classes were held. The first one was with Fatemeh KarkeAbadi, a graphic designer and former head of the Iranian Graphic Designers Association, in which she talked about her professional life and her academic, work and life experiences. The second master class was with Iranian typeface designer Damoon Khanjanzadeh, in which he talked about Persian calligraphy for Kelkin students and answered the students' questions about calligraphy design.
Another master class was held with Dr. Azam Deh Soufiyani, professor of communications at Allameh University in Tehran where a challenging discussion about color, its meanings and semiotics took place. In addition to these three, another master class was held with three of the course instructors and also the head of Inverse Institute. The title of this master class was "Distance between the Designer's Mind and Hand" and the lecturers and students of the course discussed in-the-field challenges. This master class was also broadcasted live on the Inverse page for the audience of this school.
Project Impact
At the end of the first year, at least 27 Afghan girls have become graphic designers. At least 7 of them are "very good designers" based on the strict standards of Vand , and all the rest are ready to enter the job market, despite having said they don't know much about graphic design at the beginning of the call.
Only two of them majored in graphics from the university, and the rest came from the fields of psychology, biology, computer, journalism, medicine, literature, economics, and law. They are 17 to 31 years old and except for a few, all of them live in Afghanistan or Iran.
TOP STUDENTS
