3D HELPS: Emergency preparedness capacity-building in Indigenous and underserved communities

Jason Nolan, professor at the School of Early Childhood Studies and director of the Responsive Ecologies Lab, has been actively involved with design and fabrication in collaboration with under-serviced communities. This project will help marginalized and isolated communities produce their own personal protective equipment (PPE), which will be in high demand in medical centers for the foreseeable future and is also critically needed in remote and marginalized communities. Nolan and his team and collaborators aim to find ways to build capacity to produce PPE within Aamjiwnaang First Nation near Sarnia Ontario, external link. In finding solutions that enable the Aamjiwnaang community to produce and expand their own capacity to develop PPE, Nolan and his team expect to help many isolated and marginalized communities care for themselves during this pandemic and into the future. "Our aim is to develop a model that can be replicated in other communities, with a long-term goal of establishing local technical infrastructure that can be allocated for use in other fabrication/emergency management projects/needs," says Nolan. Joining Nolan in this partnership with Aamjiwnaang First Nation are Eric Liberda, School of Occupational and Public Health, Ali Mazalek, RTA School of Media, Faculty of Communication and Design (FCAD), and Gabby Resch, Synaesthetic Media Lab, FCAD.