EPIC at UN:Winter Youth Assembly

EPIC at UN: Winter Youth Assembly

by María Gabriela González Rausell [UPM] & Alejandra Gómez Bolívar [UPM]

EPIC is a partnership created from a shared desire to make positive social change in cities through clever, inclusive design and active civic participation. It was founded by Alejandra Gómez B. and Maria Gabriela Gonzalez Rausell in 2017, whose experience in architecture and placemaking has taken place in contexts as diverse as Caracas, San José, Medellín, Bogotá, New York City and Philadelphia.

María Gabriela González R. and Alejandra Gómez B. at the UN Youth Assembly Winter 2018.

Photo: EPIC.

Alejandra is a proud Colombian architect, highly interested in community service and improvement in quality of life in actual cities. At present, she is living in Philadelphia after completing her Master’s Degree in Urban Placemaking and Management at Pratt Institute in New York City.

During the past years, Alejandra has had the opportunity of traveling, working, and studying in different countries around the world learning from different cultures, people, and experiences. Her main goal as a young professional is to enlarge this multicultural knowledge and giving as much as she can to create new alternatives to make more equitable and inclusive cities through community based plans and social participation.

Maria Gabriela is an architect, researcher, and cofounder of EPIC. A native Venezuelan, she is passionate about social and humanitarian causes, and has special interest in the relationship between architecture, public space, dignity and civic participation. Maria has been part of community-based projects in Caracas, San José (Costa Rica), Bogotá, New York City and Philadelphia, ranging from civic engagement events to the creation of placemaking strategies that address matters of equity, quality of life and inclusion in urban environments. Maria holds a bachelor’s degree in Architecture from Universidad Simón Bolívar, and a Master’s Degree in Urban Placemaking and Management from Pratt Institute.

Alejandra and Maria founded EPIC with the goal of designing places that diminish social barriers, using placemaking as its main inclusive tool. This partnership’s values are to take part in the process with curiosity, creativity, and wholeheartedness. Its audience are people from any background who are moved to make sustainable impact by putting people first. From local leaders and community organizers, to academics, professionals, and anyone eager to elicit change in their communities, all are invited to be EPIC.

In the search to promote this initiative, EPIC found in the United Nations Youth Assembly the perfect platform. It is a conference celebrated twice per year, and gathers over 600 delegates from 16 to 28 years old, representing over 120 different countries around the world.

The 21st Session of the Youth Assembly, organized around the theme of “Innovation and Collaboration for a Sustainable World”, brought together students, young professionals, activists, social entrepreneurs and participants from a myriad of backgrounds to discuss collaboration and multidisciplinarity as pathways for sustainable development.

Alejandra and Maria Gabriela were deeply inspired after having participated as delegates in a previous edition of the Youth Assembly. What both noticed on that occasion, and what moved them to become more involved, was how little was actually being talked about cities and their relation to community development. Considering the relevance of the Youth Assembly as a platform to reach out to a young and diverse audience, and the critical need to talk more intentionally about cities and public spaces, Maria Gabriela and Alejandra decided to team up and apply as panelists to the 21st edition of the Youth Assembly this past February.

Both speakers and delegates must go through a selection process that involves explaining the motivation behind participating in the conference. In the case of those applying as panelists, the application process required Alejandra and Maria Gabriela to also think thoroughly about their new organization’s mission, values, and strategies to put them into action, particularly related to equity and to the event’s theme. And so, EPIC (Engaging People, Including Communities) was born.

EPIC’s original application proposal to the UN Youth Assembly was to facilitate a civic engagement workshop with students, where Alejandra and Maria Gabriela would put into practice engagement techniques that were familiar from the Placemaking program and other experience as students. On a fortunate turn of events, EPIC was instead invited to a panel about “Social Inclusion in Cities”; also at the table were Dr. Gregory Donovan (Professor at Fordham University); Elka Gotfryd (Senior Project Associate at the Project for Public Spaces), Sahar Moazami (UN Program Officer at OutRight Action International), and Dr. Setha Low (Director of the Public Space Research Group at CUNY) as moderator.

EPIC’s role during the panel was to provide the perspective of a young organization started from scratch and that was coming together. In this sense, Maria Gabriela and Alejandra envisioned a presentation where civic engagement could still be touched on and, most importantly, the motivations behind forming a social initiative or partnership from scratch, such as we did with EPIC.

For Alejandra, her inspiration was Cartago, her birthplace in Colombia, and using placemaking to engage residents, neighbors and friends into protecting and advocating for La Vieja Riverfront an, important environmental and community landmark.

For Maria Gabriela, she is moved by talking about dignity in design, what constitutes a dignified space, and how can architects, planners and professionals alike honor it, with a particular focus on the negative impact of PVCmade social housing projects in Venezuela, her birth country. If you’d like to learn more, go to page 30 of this publication to find the thesis “Building Dignity in Design.”

The resulting presentation, titled “Placemaking as a Tool for Social Inclusion”, integrated both Alejandra’s and Maria Gabriela’s experiences, which were also part of their respective thesis.