CAKI stands for Children Are Key Initiative.
Packaging 2d net
What's CAKI?
CAKI is a community-focused initiative that empowers primary school students to take part in beautifying and improving their local environment. The system supplies classrooms with upcycled materials and planting resources, encouraging kids to create handmade planters from used milk bottles and cartons. These planters are then filled with greenery and placed in shared public spaces, promoting environmental awareness and enhancing local aesthetics.
Problem Addressed
CAKI
In many urban areas, public spaces, especially around schools, lack greenery, and children have few chances to participate in environmental action.
The project tackles three key issues:
Plastic waste from everyday household products
Lack of hands-on environmental education for young students
Drab, uninspiring urban or school surroundings
Just a few web designs I did for the landing page and product page. These are just a few from a few sketchbooks worth.
Goals
Reduce local plastic waste through creative reuse
Help students develop eco-conscious habits from a young age
Improve small-scale public spaces through greenery and color
Encourage collaboration and community pride
Just a few drawings of the different ways I'd create the planter and how I would attach it to fence posts
The System
The project was designed as a kit-based system, which includes:
- Instructions for teachers and students
- Upcycling templates for common household containers
- Basic gardening tools (soil pellets, seeds, gloves)
- Visual branding and guides for planter decoration
- A suggested planting map or walking route for local placement
The kit would be sent out to schools as part of a workshop style lesson, we'd come into the school, help children make their planters, customise, paint them, and then with parent's permission take the children and teachers around the local area to place the planters.
An example of how children could customise their planter
Things I would Improve On
- A school-to-school sharing platform to track planter growth and exchange ideas
- Biodegradable planter alternatives
- Ties to local councils for larger community gardening opportunities
- I would consider the end of life scenario, as the plant would eventually die, it would degrade the aesthetic of the local area and would look generally sad. So a clean up would be ideal
- Plants eventually grow too big, so how would I create a system in which the plants would be rooted and placed into the natural environment. A school plant patch maybe?
- Can this system work beyond schools? How could I impliment this somewhere else?
- Consider the materials children use. Not all materials are durable, equally safe or accessible.
The packaging of the kit we supply to schools