Bachelor of Science (1st Class Honours)
Using Co-design to create educational resources for remote Indigenous communities in Far North Queen
In March, 2020, I begun studying my Bachelor of Science (Honours).
My co-supervisors were Dr Victoria Brookes, at the time a Senior Lecturer in Population Health and Production in the School of Animal & Veterinary Science at CSU, and Dr Chris Degeling, a health social scientist and philosopher interested in the social and political dimensions of disease prevention.
For my honours I worked on a project with a remote Indigenous community in Far North Queensland in the town of Yarrabah.
The project we worked on used co-design to create an educational animated film with the community to assist them in managing the healthcare of their horse population, specifically in the case of a Hendra virus infection.
Co-design is the theory of creating a product or service where experts from multiple disciplines work closely with end users from the beginning to create a tangible, workable solution to issues that end users experience. It has commonly been used in manufacturing and health services for people, but not as much in animal health care. My aim was to show that it can provide benefits in the provision of services for animal health care.
The animation included information on what to look out for in their horses, how to safeguard themselves and their other animals from potentially infected horses, what can cause the infection, how Environmental Health Workers and Vets will treat the horses and the people involved, and to show children in these communities possible careers that are available to them.
Prior to COVID-19 affecting travel we visited Cairns and Yarrabah for a few days and I was able to get some photos and video for reference, visit Art museums in Cairns and Yarrabah, and visit the botanical gardens in Cairns to see the types of trees and flora that grow in northern Queensland.
When travel restrictions were eased and the risk of COVID-19 dropped off we travelled to Yarrabah four more times to show them the current work in progress and get their feedback and input, made the adjustments, and then finalised the animation.
The output of my Honours thesis was the educational animated film that the community own and uses and a thesis on the use of co-design to create further films with Indigenous communities.
For my work and research I was awarded a First Class Honours in a Bachelor of Science
My Thesis "Co-designing an Educational Animation with a Remote First Nations 1 Community in Far Nor
My Thesis can be downloaded from this link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HGw-Rf5DbVKof5kIncQ8tS8Y8CUieJVh/view?usp=sharing