What We Do
What We Do
By using play, storytelling, and community-engaged design to strengthen movements, build hope, and advance environmental and social justice. Our work is organized into two main sections, each with three focus areas that reflect the heart of what we do and how we create impact.
Explore each section below.
Click on any focus area to learn more.
Impact Consulting and Research
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KiraKira offers justice-centered impact consulting that helps organizations, communities, and mission-driven institutions design more sustainable and equitable systems. We support partners in aligning their strategies with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and developing ESG frameworks rooted in environmental responsibility, community voice, and transparent governance. Our consulting includes program and policy design, systems mapping, climate and sustainability strategy, circularity and environmental impact planning, and youth engagement models. Whether advising on climate justice, health equity, or community-based initiatives, our approach integrates systems thinking with creative methodologies—such as play, storytelling, and participatory design—to create solutions that are practical, community-informed, and aligned with long-term justice outcomes.
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Our participatory research centers lived experience, ensuring that community insights and frontline knowledge guide every stage of design. We work directly with youth, residents, organizers, educators, and nonprofits to co-create research questions, gather qualitative and quantitative data, and develop insights that reflect real-world needs and aspirations. This includes co-design workshops, climate justice game design studies, SDG-based learning sessions, story-based inquiry, oral histories, and mixed-methods evaluation. We focus on understanding how people learn, build motivation, imagine new futures, and take action—especially in climate justice, sustainability, and health equity contexts. Our research not only documents community experiences but actively strengthens agency, imagination, and leadership.
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KiraKira translates community wisdom, creative methods, and systems thinking into accessible yet academically rigorous knowledge products. We publish papers, case studies, and research briefs that highlight justice-centered sustainability strategies, SDG and ESG integration, participatory climate literacy approaches, and community-engaged environmental research. Our publications bridge the gap between academic research and on-the-ground action, offering organizations, policymakers, and educators practical frameworks informed by lived experience and creative practice. Through this work, we aim to shift narratives, elevate youth perspectives, and build a shared evidence base for hope-centered, community-rooted climate and social justice solutions.
Community Building
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KiraKira supports young leaders, students, and emerging changemakers through a passion project incubator that helps transform ideas into impact. These projects span climate justice, health equity, sustainability storytelling, gaming for social change, and community-centered creativity. We provide mentorship, research guidance, design support, and structured pathways for developing meaningful work rooted in lived experience and imaginative thinking. Each project is a space for exploration, leadership growth, and creative problem-solving, empowering participants to build something personally meaningful while contributing to broader justice movements.
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We build coalitions across youth groups, nonprofits, universities, community organizations, and mission-driven networks to strengthen collective power around sustainability and justice. Our coalition work involves forging partnerships, facilitating cross-sector collaboration, and creating shared frameworks for long-term impact. By connecting students with organizers, researchers with communities, and creatives with advocates, we help cultivate ecosystems of support that foster innovation, accountability, and sustained momentum. These partnerships enable deeper, interdisciplinary problem-solving while ensuring community priorities remain at the center of every effort.
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KiraKira hosts interactive events and workshops that combine play, systems thinking, research, and storytelling to build climate literacy, strengthen community relationships, and inspire action. Our gatherings—such as hackathons, game design workshops, climate justice learning sessions, and creative storytelling events—invite participants to learn through experience, imagination, and collaboration. These events turn complex challenges into spaces for exploration and hope, helping participants understand environmental justice, reimagine systems, and design tangible prototypes or campaigns rooted in community needs. Each workshop is intentionally designed to be joyful, accessible, and justice-forward, reflecting our belief that learning should spark agency and possibility.