Fail often to succeed sooner: Can this idea truly work in development?

I have not known where to begin writing about this trip to Rwanda. Suffice it to say that in a short amount of time I have learned much more about collaboration in a cross-cultural/multidisciplinary context than I could have imagined.

To bring you up to speed: My current role is to develop packaging and communication tools to support the implementation of a micronutrient that is often referred to as Sprinkles:

Sprinkles are an innovation in home fortification, addressing vitamin and mineral deficiencies. This unique delivery system provides micronutrients to vulnerable populations by enabling families to fortify many different semi-solid foods in the home.

Sprinkles are sachets (like small packets of sugar) containing a blend of micronutrients in powder form, which are easily sprinkled onto foods prepared in the home. Any homemade food can be instantly fortified by adding Sprinkles. Coating of the iron prevents changes to the taste, color or texture of the food to which Sprinkles are added.

As a designer, this opportunity is interesting in and of itself as I begin developing tools and messages to support the adoption of a new behavior based on community research. Add to this a diverse group of people who have various interests and required protocols and this project just got amplified. During this short trip, I’ve been introduced to the partners (of which there are 4 NGOs, 2 universities and the Ministry of Health) and listened in on meetings about budgets, methodologies, and requirements. I’ve looked at a range of visuals that are either in use or in development (and vary from organization to organization).

In the next week, I will be briefing a photographer about a photo shoot, seeking to acquire proper translations for technical data, obtaining all current visual tools (and prospective ones as well) to prepare for future messages and tools and ideally getting a package design created so as to get approval from the partners and ultimately signoff by the MoH. In the midst of this, I am contacting micronutrient distributors to ensure the best price and ease of supply to the country.

While this list of to-dos might sound like a normal day in the life of a designer, it has subtle nuances that are not typical in my North American experience. Notably, the idea of iterating on ideas to come up with a final solution isn’t necessarily the modus operandi in the context of development. Budgets are on the line, donors want proof and you don't want to mess around with things like someone's state of health. This caution begs a question for me:

Can design process (which often includes the acceptance of “failure”) truly be permitted in a development project? If so, what does it actually look like when collaborating with other disciplines?

If you’ve been in this domain, you know what I’m talking about. There are enough projects out there that had the best of intentions and yet were not able to be sustained or implemented for of a variety of reasons. Engineers Without Borders are already reacting to the typical need for a success story by reframing the way of talking about development: Let’s just admit our failure.

But what if the entire process permitted failure more fluidly in order to ensure deeper understandings, new insights or alternate solutions? How would you introduce this idea to key partners within the country so that it became an asset rather than a potential liability? Is there a better word to make the idea more palatable from the beginning?

I’m still wrestling with this idea so this post is merely a starting point. If you are reading this with any level of interest I would welcome your comments or thoughts on the topic. I’m sure there are others who have more experience and insight.

This image represents my thoughts on how design can act as a conduit for conversation and collaboration (especially when working in contexts/cultures that are unfamiliar). The expert mindset can reduce the opportunity for sustainable solutions. And the expert posture assumes we've nothing to learn from others.

Conversely, when we aim to design a solution or service together, we have the opportunity to imagine alternate possibilities and in turn apply some of these learnings in other environments.

I've put the continent of Africa in my diagram because of how my design work in Rwanda has influenced my ideas on the topic significantly. But I wouldn't limit these notions to what is often perceived as design "over there" or "for development." There is great potential for this way of working to be applied in my own backyard.

This image has been included in this discussion if you have more interest in the topic:
Aid as a conversation between cultures

Tweet Translations: The Number 25

After my talk at Practivism II last night, a few people tweeted this quote so I wanted to clarify its source and some of my thoughts around it for those who weren't able to attend.

If you haven't had good conversations, with your eyes open, with at least twenty-five poor people before you start designing, don't bother.

This quote comes from Paul Polak's book, Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail. It contains an amazing amount of information for a designer who has interest in designing with rural communities. In one section, Polak suggests there are some basic principles when designing for the “other 90%.” The former quote represents one of them.


The majority of the world’s designers focus all their efforts on developing products and services exclusively for the richest 10% of the world’s customers. Nothing less than a revolution in design is needed to reach the other 90%. (Polak)

His recommended design principles put the poor customer at the centre of the design process in order to develop the most sustainable offerings. To know your customer, you need to talk to your customer. I'm not sure why he suggests that it should be twenty-five people. I don't know that it's a magical number but I'll assume that talking to more people will help overcome the large assumptions that can surface after only talking to one or two. It may take more time but this is a much better option; otherwise, we have the potential to waste a lot of money and time on a product or service that won't actually be useful or successful.

At my talk last night, I suggested that if we are to design appropriately at this time in history, it shouldn't matter what demographic we are working with - talking with and including people in the process will be a key to the quality of deliverables we produce. My work in Rwanda forced me to consider how to have these good conversations when language was not shared. I highlighted how this diversity of language and culture we exist in requires us to think creatively about the best ways to design and deliver appropriate solutions in this very global world.

If you're interested in more, the Cooper-Hewitt Museum has presented a wonderful exhibit on what this type of design could look like.

Bambulance Project

As a designer who cares about how my skills might be used for those on the margins, you can imagine how delighted I was to find an organization in my own backyard that wants to do the same! Design For Development is dedicated to using the design process as a problem-solving tool to address issues in poverty-stricken areas of the world.

In 2007, DFD and a few interns from ECUAD developed a project to improve healthcare access in underserved communities by designing a safe, affordable and sustainable means of medical transportation. The Bambulance is a bicycle–pulled emergency medical transport device created in response to the lack of safe, affordable and sustainable healthcare transportation in underserved communities in the developing world. It was designed by: Philippa Mennell (Canada) Chris Ryan (Canada) Niki Dun (Canada) and Philippe Schlesser (Luxembourg).



With the aim of saving lives by improving emergency transit times for communities where motorized transport is unavailable or inappropriate, the Bambulance is a cost-efficient and sustainable trailer and stretcher combination, pared down to essential materials. Composed almost entirely of bamboo, bicycle inner tube, and reused trucking tarp, the Bambulance is designed to be affordable to community members, utilizing local materials and trade skills in its construction.

Inspired by skin-on-frame building techniques, the chassis frame and stretcher are fabricated using simple hand tools and craft processes, making the parts easy to assemble and disassemble for repair and replacement. Bamboo – an underutilized locally available resource in Western Kenya and other African regions - is inexpensive, sustainable, lightweight and strong.

With the initial design taking place under the guidance of the Design For Development Society and in consultation with Kenyan partners and healthcare providers, the Bambulance will first be manufactured and piloted in western Kenya.

Prototypes are currently in production. Pilot project scheduled for early 2010.

The exciting news? The Bambulance is a finalist for the Index:Award Design To Improve Life!

Process Video:


Manufactured/Produced by: Pilot project manufacturing by the Community Transformers and Women’s Equality Empowerment Project, Nairobi, Kenya.

Additional credits:
Project concept, development and implementation: Design for Development Society
Project assistance and student interns: Emily Carr University

I went to a conference on global health at UBC today. The last talk by Dr. Shafik Dharamsi had to do with ethics and responsibility. The conversations were relevant and when he showed this documentary film, They Come In The Name Of Helping, I felt like I was watching a video version of my thesis. The dialogue that occurs reflects the concepts I have looked at with the women in Rwanda. It takes a bit to load but is well worth watching.

Aspirations

This exercise is asking the participant to identify what they need (red dots) versus what they wish they had (green dots). Here is a rough image showing 6 of the 10 responses. The majority of images come from IDEO's HCD Toolkit.


Interestingly, one participant numbered the priority of each. They are hung here in order from number 1 to number 6 in each category. I am not certain as to how she interpreted each image but for my purposes I'm listing them as this:

Needs:
1. Clean water
2. Truck
3. Books/education
4. Shop for amenities
5. Firewood
6. Cell phone

Wants:
1. A better house
2. Tractor
3. Doctor
4. Jerrican (or fuel?)
5. Electricity
6. Computers

I have a lot of thoughts about these images but I'll save writing about them for my actual thesis paper.

Scenes from the field

Lama took some shots to show what happened when the kits were delivered to the women.


(T-B, L-R: Signing the informed consent form, explaining the research, drawing in the notepad, and using a pencil crayon as a ruler)

I heart Gui

Gui Bonsiepe could be considered a key voice on the discussion of design for development. Here are a few wonderful quotes that help in positioning the aims of my research.

From Design Issues: Volume 22, No. 2 Spring 2006
Design humanism is the exercise of design activities in order to interpret the needs of social groups, and to develop viable emancipative proposals in the form of material and semiotic artifacts. Why emancipative? Because humanism implies the reduction of domination. In the field of design, it also means to focus on the excluded, the discriminated, and economically less-favored groups (as they are called in economist jargon), which amounts to the majority of the population of this planet. I want to make it clear that I don’t propagate a universalistic attitude according to the pattern of design for the world. Also, I don’t believe that this claim should be interpreted as the expression of a naive idealism, supposedly out of touch with reality. On the contrary, each profession should face this uncomfortable question, not only the profession of designers. It would be an error to take this claim as the expression of a normative request of how a designer—exposed to the pressure of the market and the antinomies between reality and what could be reality—should act today. The intention is more modest, that is to foster a critical consciousness when facing the enormous imbalance between the centers of power and the people submitted to these powers, because the imbalance is deeply undemocratic insofar as it negates participation. It treats human beings as mere instances in the process of objectivization (Verdinglichung) and commodification.
---
To design means to deal with paradoxes and contradictions. In a society plagued by contradictions, design also is affected. It might be convenient to remember the dictum of Walter Benjamin that there is no document of civilization that is not, at the same time, a document of barbarism.

From Design Issues: Volume 19, No. 4 Autumn 2003
There seems to exist a hidden romantic notion of the periphery: that it should maintain its status of pristine purity that would be contaminated by any outside contact. It might be advisable to distinguish between influence and influence. I don’t see anything negative in the endeavor to contribute to a project of social emancipation. I did not come as a missionary to Latin America. What I did was to provide an operational base for concrete professional design action. People in peripheral countries, and Latin Americans particularly, are not as naive as sometimes is supposed. They are critical and demanding. I offered some operational tools in order to do product design, from agricultural machinery to wooden toys for children and low cost furniture, and get rid of the ballast of art tradition and art theory.
---
If I were called on today to assist in some program, I would focus on the importance of information technology and communication, which have not been considered as decisive factors in industrialization policies so far. I don’t know of any government plan in peripheral countries that takes into account,and tries to do something about, this sector of communication and information technology from a design perspective that puts people in the center. And I would say that design has a vast new field for activity.
---
"The center knows nothing about the periphery, and the periphery does not know anything about itself.“ This provocative sentence might serve as a breeding ground for reflections about the dialectic relationship between different discourses and practices of design. After all, we live in different places, but in one world!

"In order to understand the meaning of dialogical practice, we have to put aside the simplistic understanding of dialogue as a mere technique. Dialogue does not represent a somewhat false path that I attempt to elaborate on and realize in the sense of involving the ingenuity of the other. On the contrary, dialogue characterizes an epistemological relationship. Thus, in this sense, dialogue is a way of knowing and should never be viewed as a mere tactic to involve students in a particular task. We have to make this point very clear. I engage in dialogue not necessarily because I like the other person. I engage in dialogue because I recognize the social and not merely the individualistic character of the process of knowing. In this sense, dialogue presents itself as an indispensable component of the process of both learning and knowing."
Paulo Freire

"Our advanced technological society is rapidly making objects of most of us and subtly programming us into conformity to the logic of its system. To the degree that this happens, we are also becoming submerged in a new "culture of silence"."
Donald Macedo

This book is rocking me (and giving me language to share my reasons for research). In the best possible way.

The Development Set

The Development Set
by Ross Coggins
"Adult Education and Development"
September 1976

Excuse me, friends, I must catch my jet
I'm off to join the Development Set;
My bags are packed, and I've had all my shots
I have traveller's checks and pills for the trots!

The Development Set is bright and noble
Our thoughts are deep and our vision global;
Although we move with the better classes
Our thoughts are always with the masses.

In Sheraton Hotels in scattered nations
We damn multi-national corporations;
injustice seems easy to protest
In such seething hotbeds of social rest.

We discuss malnutrition over steaks
And plan hunger talks during coffee breaks.
Whether Asian floods or African drought,
We face each issue with open mouth.

We bring in consultants whose circumlocution
Raises difficulties for every solution --
Thus guaranteeing continued good eating
By showing the need for another meeting.

The language of the Development Set
Stretches the English alphabet;
We use swell words like "epigenetic"
"Micro", "macro", and "logarithmetic"

It pleasures us to be esoteric --
It's so intellectually atmospheric!
And although establishments may be unmoved,
Our vocabularies are much improved.

When the talk gets deep and you're feeling numb,
You can keep your shame to a minimum:
To show that you, too, are intelligent
Smugly ask, "Is it really development?"

Or say, "That's fine in practice, but don't you see:
It doesn't work out in theory!"
A few may find this incomprehensible,
But most will admire you as deep and sensible.

Development set homes are extremely chic,
Full of carvings, curios, and draped with batik.
Eye-level photographs subtly assure
That your host is at home with the great and the poor.

Enough of these verses - on with the mission!
Our task is as broad as the human condition!
Just pray god the biblical promise is true:
The poor ye shall always have with you.

Communication for Sustainable Development

Communication in development is attempting to consider new ways to approach the exchange of information. I appreciate this inquiry after returning from Rwanda where my ideas of the transfer of information had to be weighed when working with another culture.


There is a difference between the transfer of knowledge and the co-creation of knowledge. The first implies a specialist or external agent who is seeking acceptance of his or her way of looking at solving a problem. The second (co-creation), considers stakeholders and their varied or complimentary experiences and knowledge in the outcomes. This becomes pertinent in my research as I consider how a communication designer can enter into the transfer of knowledge "problem" and be helpful (or not) in a culture other than my own. How can one "co-create" in communications where knowledge is typically exchanged with the use of a common language?

(Charts are from the 2005 United Nations Communication for Development Roundtable Report that focused on sustainable development)

Adequate cultural critique in design theory

(click on images for a better view)





For those of you who couldn't attend my public presentation, here are a few slides to show some of what I discussed. If you want to see or hear more, add your comments here.
If you were there and want to add to the dialogue, I welcome your feedback and ideas.

Mind the Gap

Today I had a practice-run for my upcoming public presentation where we speak about the intentions of our thesis research and project ((set for October 20). I have introduced the idea of the gaps involved (that have ethical implications) when looking at design for development.
Loads more to learn and absorb but I'm relieved to have survived the first expression of these new ideas. Good feedback was presented that will only help to shape my focus.

The Girl Effect