The core of the project lies in upcycling. From the start of the research, I wanted to find new creative ways of upcycling garments and textiles.However, upcycling is a part of a greater whole which deals with addressing the problem of fashion waste. It gives new value to the clothes and prolongs the life span of the clothes. It is a craftivism act since it plugs into an existing system and shapes it towards a more sustainable direction. Thus this project wanted to take a larger approach and include consumers into the process. The purpose of the project was to explore one of the ways to encourage consumers to upcycle their clothes. This was done through an upcycling workshop. In the upcycling workshop, the consumer visualized the way they want their clothes to be upcycled. Their garments were then upcycled using DIY methods such as stitching, patching, and painting. The process was recorded in details. The whole process was then translated into a craftivist zine. The zine demonstrates how to do your own upcycling workshop and how to upcycle three garments. The upcycling workshop and the zine want to encourage the consumer to upcycle by giving them the necessary skills to do so.

In work with clients having profound learning disability, music therapists may include in sessions assistants not trained as music therapists. This study is a qualitative inquiry addressing the questions: 1) How does improvised music influence the interaction between teenagers with profound and multiple disability and learning support assistants? 2) Which aspects of the music are associated with any influences found? A survey of music therapists, exploring how assistants are used and how effectively they perform their role, found that assistants are often used as ‘interaction partners’. To explore how the therapist may facilitate client-assistant interaction, about which little is known, video clips from the writer’s clinical practice were purposively selected in order to illustrate an approach entitled Triadic Support of Interaction by Improvisation (TSII). Seven learning support assistants (LSAs) each viewed a video clip showing her own interaction with a teenager having profound disability, supported by the writer’s improvised music. Semi-structured interviews explored the LSAs’ understanding of the behaviour and inferred mental processes of the teenagers, their own behaviour and mental processes and the music improvised by the therapist to support the interaction. A variant of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis generated shared themes, which included concern for the teenagers’ autonomy, interest in their communicative behaviour and understanding of the mutuality of interaction. The therapist’s improvisation was seen by the LSAs as influencing only the teenagers. All the clips were also viewed by three music therapists, who used a mechanical continuous response device to register the influence of the therapist’s improvisation on four ‘scenarios’: the teenagers’ behaviour, their inferred mental processes, the LSAs’ behaviour and their inferred mental processes. Inter-rater agreement between the three therapists’ continuous responses was generally low, but some intra-rater correlations were found between pairs of scenarios, which the music was perceived as influencing in similar ways. This finding supports the conclusion that musical influences, although they may be analysed according to the four scenarios, actually function as a mutually inter-related system rather than as four independent processes. Each therapist selected decision points from the graphic record of her/his individual responses to discussed with the other therapists as a panel. Positive evaluations were made of the role of TSII in supporting the observed teenager-LSA interactions and the inferred underlying mental processes. This research design was exploratory, and not intended to test specific hypotheses about the mechanisms of musical influence. Tentative suggestions of associations between influences and musical features are however offered by the writer. Indications for the use of TSII are given and other applications suggested for novel aspects of the methodology developed for this study. A refinement of the continuous response task is proposed, and the requirements for any future formal evaluation of TSII are outlined.

This master thesis deals with an online startup project Tigeroy.ru, which I founded from a reason to make alternative education in real life more popular and easier to find on Russian market during 2012. The team behind the project has already spent some time with development of the application and it is now faced up to a question what to do with the startup. In the thesis, I focus on the product development from the initial idea to the current situation. I analyse all the mistakes which we have made until now and offer further steps and a plan how to continue in developing the project in future. As the result of the thesis, there is also a proposal of a business plan which is created for the purpose of informing a potential investor about the project.

A refugee faces many issues on their journey to safety, but the issues do not end once they reach a host country. Applying for asylum is an arduous process with long waiting times in most European countries, and a low acceptance rate. Lack of integration into a new community is one of the main issues faced during this time. Studies show that labour market opportunities are a successful tool to aid integration and help to close the employment gap between native residents and new arrivals. The employment gap exists due to lack of local language, employment connections, transference of existing skills, legal issues, and personal and health issues. This paper argues that early commencement of language learning, transference of qualifications and picking up the necessary new skills for employment, is a positive way to use the long waiting time to benefit asylum seekers. It is also important to support newly accepted refugees during their integration into the community. Reflecting on organisations and networks that currently exist for refugees, a new civic space is proposed in the city to improve the integration of users through labour market training and opportunities. Looking at the legislations in place for integration and existing pathways to residency, an example is shown of how it can be manipulated to encourage involvement in the labour market.