human. (Human Ventures)

Human Ventures (Human) is a leading creative and social enterprise.

We develop community programs and provide creative services that help grow innovative and sustainable businesses and communities.

Our people are strategists, designers, artists, educators, facilitators, videographers, programmers, producers, researchers, entrepreneurs, and social workers.

Our tools include: Design (print, web, multimedia, video), Publishing (print and digital), Photography, Animation, Craft, Fashion, Music, Technology and Visual and Performing Arts.

Our approach is known as Human Centred Design (HCD). HCD assists us to hear and understand the needs of diverse stakeholders, create innovative solutions to meet these needs, and deliver those solutions in a sustainable manner.

Legally speaking

Human is a non-profit public company limited by guarantee, endorsed as a Public Benevolent Institution with Income Tax Exemption and Deductible Gift Recipient status.

Our vision

A world in which each of us value the other, as much as we value ourselves.

At Human we seek to identify, develop and invest in the people and solutions that actively contribute to this world.

Our solutions focus on the most vulnerable members of our society and the people who work with them.

Guiding principles

  1. We value the voices of diverse, and often marginalised, communities and encourage their active participation in cultural production, planning, development and decision-making;
  2. We harness the power of creativity and entrepreneurship as agents of community change and to redress disadvantage;
  3. We develop and provide products and services for organisations who seek to do good, better; and,
  4. We actively seek to enhance the social, economic, cultural and ecological benefits of our practices, programs, and services.

Objectives

  1. Engage diverse, and often marginalised, individuals and communities as advisors, consultants, coordinators, facilitators, entrepreneurs, and partners;
  2. Develop the mechanisms by which people and communities can communicate and showcase their stories and ideas and identify and promote further opportunities for learning and commerce;
  3. Create high quality programs, products and services through the disciplines of communication design, community engagement, enterprise development and participatory arts;
  4. Identify and implement strategies and processes that monitor, report on, and improve our social, economic, cultural, and environmental impacts.

Traditional charity, or welfare, addresses immediate needs and crises but often fails to break cycles of abuse, dependency, poverty or unemployment.

Communities also face growing uncertainty due to significant global challenges, such as dwindling natural resources, climate change, and volatile economies.

We need all members of the human family to be active, creative, compassionate, skilled, valued and resilient to ensure these challenges can be addressed.

As such, our solutions focus on the most vulnerable members of our society and the people who work with them.

Defining the challenge

In order to frame the purpose of, and possibilities for, the solution/s that need to be developed, we work with communities, organisations and key stakeholders to define the specific challenge. A challenge is:

  • human-centred (rather than technology, product or service centred)
  • broad enough to allow the discovery of diverse or additional solutions
  • narrow enough to ensure the project is manageable and the outcome is viable

Examples include:

      “How can we create new and viable skill and industry development opportunities for young people in rural communities?”
      “Enable a group of people to educate their peers about effective water resource management.”
      “Develop the appropriate mechanisms for seeding local commerce and economic development opportunities.”
      “Create opportunities for people to be cultural creators and producers rather than consumers.”

The numbers (Australia)

The over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait-Islander people in the following statistics is one of the greatest challenges faced by our nation.

poverty

1 in 2 children in a single parent family live with no ability to meet emergency expenses.1
1 in 5 children are living in poverty.2

violence

24,000 more incidences of violent crime occurred in 2006 than in 2001.3
1 in 7 women have been physically assaulted by a male previous partner.4

neglect

27,188 children are on care and protection orders.5
1 in 13 children are reported as victims of abuse and neglect.6

education

1 in 5 will not attain year 12 or an equivalent qualification.7
1 in 14 children have fewer than 11 books in their home.8


Sources
1 Australian Social Trends, Low income low wealth households, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2007
2 Profile of Young Australians: Facts, figures and issues, Foundation for Young Australians, 2004
3 9 Crime and Safety (Australia), Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2006
4 Personal Safety Survey, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005
5 6 Child Protection Australia, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2006
7 How Young People are Faring, Dusseldorp Skills Forum, 2008
8 10 The Wellbeing of Young Australians, Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth, 2008
11 Voluntary Work Australia, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2006