Mogoneba: Facilitating grief – losing a parent at a young age

With my thesis, I want to explore ways to help children who had one of the worst experiences a child can ever have which is losing a parent. As a designer, I have noticed that there are solutions and suggestions on what to do when a parent has a terminal illness or how to treat children whose parents passed away. I lost my father suddenly when I was twelve. My father was my hero, and throughout the past thirteen years of my life without him, when I have a major decision to make, I always ask myself “What would my dad do in this situation?” To be able to have an answer to this question, a person should know one's character. Luckily I was fortunate enough to have my father's close friend who supported me in exploring my father's character from different perspectives by telling me the stories and letting me hang out with their group of friends. This helped me to understand that every parent carries a mix of qualities and experiences, shaping their character in complex ways and that my father was not an exception.

This project focuses on proposing an assistance process for young people who have lost one parent. Throughout the project, I discovered that everybody has their way of grieving and coping with loss. Deceased parents' character has an important effect on people's decision-making. Some might prefer talking as their main coping mechanism whilst others do not feel comfortable during verbal communication and prefer different mediums like diary making, drawing, doing their parents' favourite activities etc. During the project, I asked: Can I use my own experience to help others who are going through the same situation as I did?

My proposal is a process that encourages children to explore their deceased parents’ personalities by answering given questions first from their own perspective and next from their parents’ perspective. If they do not know how their parent would answer the questions,  then they have to ask family members, friends of the family and people who knew the deceased person closely. This process is designed to be guided by professionals such as grieving counsellors, psychologists etc. to help children filter out the information and help them identify good and bad patterns.

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