The situation in Kibera
Kibera is the biggest slum in Africa and people even say it is the densest populated area on earth. It is situated southwest of Nairobi’s city centre and is framed by a railroad line and the Ngong River. In an area of about 4 square kilometres there are approximately one million people living, one third of Nairobi’s population and it could even be more. There are no precise figures.
The living conditions within Kibera are different depending on the area. There are very poor areas and there are estate areas with up to four storey houses. The majority though are simple mud houses with a tin roof which are of the same type as are found in the Kenyan countryside.
Except of the few roads around the estate areas all the tracks between the houses are mud. A lot of people would like to build better houses but the houses belong to the landlords – and they don’t do anything because Kibera is not an official settlement. All improvements are made by people’s or NGO’s efforts.
View over Kibera slum.
Even tough Kibera is not an official settlement people have to pay rent, and this often collides with the decision of rather buying food for that money. For the mud houses, depending on the sizes, people pay in average 500 to 1000 KSH (5,50 – 11€) per month rent. In the estate areas, where people have brick houses rent goes up to 10 000 KSH (110€). For those people who have a job, of course it is no problem to pay rent. But for a lot of others even 500 Shilling per month can become a big problem. The income gap in Kibera can be quite big. There are a lot of people working in the city at offices. These people can afford their regular food, better homes and even the latest technology. It is quite odd to come in some houses and see a Dolby-surround-system with a big flat screen monitor.
Not all the people living in the slum are poor. For a lot it is just a cheap option to live. There are roughly two income groups in Kibera. One is earning from 10-60€, the other from 150 – 300€ per month. This gives life in the slum another perspective. To us it seemed that not everyone, as the general prejudice might be, is eager to just get out. There are a lot of families living in Kibera since generations and they seem to like it here. It is their home. They don’t even have family in the countryside where they look forward to go when they are old. Their only aim is to make a living, and a better living in the future.
If Kibera would be recognized as an official settlement people could come together and make it a better and nicer place to live.
The biggest and most present problem in Kibera is the trash. It is lying almost everywhere, especially around the river area. People don’t have bins and if they would have, there would be no one to pick up the trash. So they throw it out of their house, on small dumpsites in the area or in the nearby river where the children are playing. There are some trenches built in Kibera that lead down to the Ngong River and the Nairobi Damn. Here as well people throw all kinds of things in - a very good breading place for diseases. From time to time Carolina for Kibera, the NGO we were working with organises Clean-up days and clears the trenches but short time after they are clogged again.
Toilets and water points are public. Some have their own toilets but most families share one. In worst cases there is one toilet for 200 people. Since the toilets are mostly built next to a trench or the river the human waste goes directly in there. One can imagine the smell when the trenches get filled. A proper toilet block consisting out of 3 washrooms and 3 toilets including tank would cost around 300 000 Shilling. The people are therefore dependent on fundings or donors to install these fascilities.
Our aims and ambitions
We came to Kibera with the aim to teach people design and the process of creative problem solving. After I had written my theoretical thesis about “design in development countries” and us both having had knowledge about development aid we wanted to go another way and see if we can make a difference for the better.
Our concept was purely to pass over knowledge, involve the people fully in the design process and empower them with skills so they would be able improve their living situation with their own effort and motivation. Compared to common development aid projects we didn’t hand out any money. In our opinion, this would just contribute to the present state of thinking that the white people come, give money and thus solve problems. A lot of people don’t want to work because it’s easier to get help from an NGO. But it doesn’t solve the problem in the long term. People should be encouraged to think by themselves and go their own way. Besides teaching design one of our goals was to build self-confidence amongst the youth groups and to encourage personal development. It turned out that would be a big part of the project.
For a lot of people design is mainly seen as a package around a technical device and as styling. We wanted to show that design is much more than this, a work process that can even serve as a development tool in very poor areas with no input of money.
Our aim should serve on three different levels. On a global one we wanted to prove the possibility of using design as a development tool in third world countries. On a local level we wanted to help and encourage the people improving their situation and, on a personal level we wanted to realize this workshop in Kibera and gain more experience as designers by teaching design in a totally different environment, to a group of people who are not familiar with the design process.
For us, the project was somewhat of a test, if it is possible to use design as a development tool. Now, after 10 weeks work in Kibera I can say that it does works. The Youth Groups have done a big step forward and we are very satisfied with the outcome. Now it is up to the groups to continue their work and show that they are committed to push their activities into money-generating activities.
The first design lessons
Since trash is a big problem in Kibera we wanted to focus our project on recycling and on solutions to improve the environment. Our plan was to let the people find problems in their area regarding recycling, housing, hygiene etc. and then using the design process to tackle these. In cooperation with Carolina for Kibera (CFK) an american-based international NGO which is run by people from Kibera, we implemented our project in their umbrella program Taka ni Pato, meaning “Trash is Cash”. Taka ni Pato consists out of 5 NGOs who run projects in different slums of Nairobi and work with different youth groups. The aim is to build awareness towards trash and to improve the slum environment in Nairobi.
Our project aimed at the six youth groups under CFK who work within Taka ni Pato.
Carolina for Kibera (CFK), main office in Kibera, Olympic estate.
The first week in Kibera we took our time and got to know the area and visited the different youth groups. We wanted to find out which group would be suitable to work with, what kind of activities they have and what their problems are. To keep the learning process effective we didn’t want to work with more than 15 people in total, but after having visited the groups we realized that all the six groups are really interesting and worth working with. Then we also decided that it will be best to work in the area the youth groups already were active in.
But, we had to find a solution to integrate all of them. The problem was that each group consists of 15-25 members and most of them wanted to join. Even though we suddenly had to deal with more people than planned this aspect made us very hopeful for the success of the whole project.
Trash collection and sorting place from Kibera Youth Group, Kibera.
The project was set up for 10 weeks. The first week would be about design theory and the design process, the other 9 weeks the groups would work specifically on their problems implementing the learnt knowledge. We set up criteria for the groups to choose 2-3 members who would join the project and be the channel that brings the knowledge into the whole group. These people should have been able to attend the project for the complete 10 weeks. They also should have been trusted representatives of their groups in order to pass on the learned knowledge to the rest of the group. It was a very important point for us. Only if the knowledge from the first week gets passed over to the other members the groups will benefit.
From the second week onwards we went into each group twice a week to apply the learnt knowledge to their specific activity. In that way we left time for the groups to work for themselves and to implement the new skills. One can read a lot about design and problem solving but at the end you actually have to sit down and do it with your own hands. Otherwise you won’t learn it! This is the reason why we tried to encourage the groups to transfer and use this knowledge in their activities. On each meeting we discussed the progress and the next steps, gave them inspiration and tried to make them think outside the box. Which progress each group made in the 10 weeks, you can read about it in the different group chapters further down.
In the first week we went through all the steps of the design process, beginning with the problem analysis. Since we wanted to give the people an overview in the first week and then go deeper into detail in the different groups later we kept the theory basic and easy to understand for people who have never heard anything about it. Our aim was to show them that they have the creativity and the potential to realize their dreams and visions. We wanted to make them believe in themselves. For that reason we implemented several creativity games in the theoretical blocks, also to make them enjoy the project more and to keep up the motivation. From other projects we have heard that the number of participants usually decreases during projects and we wanted to avoid this.
The concept turned out to work well and during the first week they gained a lot of knowledge. After a few days some of them came up to us and told us: “...you really made me think...” They now started to crosslink and think how they for example could implement the principal of a Tuk-Tuk (small three-wheel moped) into their garbage collections. Some of the exercises dealt with lateral thinking, connecting odd objects to new ideas, or creating constructions like a wooden bridge with narrow limitations. A lot of the tasks I think they considered as strange or crazy, but at the end they mostly understood the “why”.
Going through the design process.
Each day of the week we went one step ahead. From problem analysis to what is research and why it is important, we worked on project descriptions, made time plans, brainstorming exercises, etc. A script about the different steps we did is available as download.
For us it was a very interesting experience to teach people who never heard about product design before. For me it was the first time I taught a group of people and it was tough in the beginning, but after a while I enjoyed it very much when I saw the sparks in their eyes. I must say that we learnt a lot from the people and about life in the slum.
The difficulty in beginning was to find the right language that can transport the content in a way they can understand. It is easy to use special design expressions who are too difficult or who are not familiar to the people. It was our aim to show that design can be useful also for people in poor areas, so we kept it on a basic level.
All the participating groups have been active for several years and were more or less successful. Some of them have even reached a level of frustration which was blocking their group work.
The design process should show them a way to bring structure into their work and make it more efficient. Before, they never have thought about who they want to sell their products to, how much they want to earn per hour, is the way they are working really attacking the problem or how to find new solutions by using their creative mind?
During the first week we could see quite a lot “wows” in their faces. They started to understand why it is important to structure their work in order to become better and to develop better products for a better position against the competitors. After the project it will be up to their motivation to use this knowledge and make business out of it.
At the end of the theoretical part the participants had to go through a little design project by them selves and show what they’ve learnt. The task was to find a solution for an egg to be free-fallen from 2 meters without damage. To reach the task we gave them two party balloons, 4 sheets of A4 paper, 1.5 meter of rope and 1.5 meter of tape. The outcomes were better than we expected – three out of four eggs survived - so we did a second round where we raised the height to 4 meters and limited the material given. This time only one egg out of four survived. Between the two rounds we let them analyze their first products and find the weak points to improve.
Now they just had to transfer their learnt knowledge into their projects.
Groups are analysing different product, here a head lamp for the pros and cons.
Brainstorming seesion.
Design task at the end of the project - building an egg carrier with the test afterwards.
What made the project very interesting was the diversity of the different groups. It gave us the chance to show how broad design can be. We were dealing with the development of marketing material (brochures, posters), a trash collection system, business plans, product development of plastic handbags and jewellery design.
From the six groups three of them were working with solid waste management. A major problem for them was to collect enough trash per month in order to sell directly to the industry. Due to the small amount of a few hundred kilograms or even much less the youth groups are dependent on middlemen and their changing prices. Selling directly to the industry would bring much more income. Hence our first idea was to bring the three groups together to join forces. Maybe then they could have reached the target amounts.
Unfortunately one of the groups didn’t show up from the beginning and another one started to have internal problems during the first week of theory. Therefore the knowledge couldn’t be passed over to the other group members, which made it impossible for them to catch up. This left us with four groups in total.
The Y.A.D.D.S Youth Group
(Youth Against Decadence Disease and Starvation)
The Y.A.D.D.S
A theatre group within Taka ni Pato which focuses on awareness against HIV/AIDS, drug abuse or rape. The difference with The Y.A.D.D.S compared to the other groups is that they are not focusing so much on waste management but mainly on theatre. Their contribution to Taka ni Pato is their help in regular clean-up days run by CFK. There had been discussions about establishing their own waste collection activity which, in our opinion fortunately had been put to the side. We supported their focus on theatre which is definitely their strength and encouraged them to stick to this chance to earn money.
The Y.A.D.D.S works since several years and has done a lot of comedies, plays or stand-up shows for the people in Kibera, for churches or NGOs.
In the fist meetings with them our focus was on gaining as much knowledge as possible on the group to find out where their problem is and why they are still having problems getting enough bookings and thus not earning enough money. Everyone realized and agreed on that the major problem of The Y.A.D.D.S is an effective marketing strategy.
In the past they performed a lot for free and were dependent on the goodwill of the client. Their approach was ‘how much money do you want to pay us’. They accepted the money people would give instead of asking for a price they think they are worth.
They said it is very hard for them to ask for money. Some churches said they could not pay, public audience usually does not want to pay and schools for example pay per number of pupils. In the last case The Y.A.D.D.S then even have to give a part from their payment, up to 2000KSH, to the principal – sort of a commission fee. You could also call it bribe to get a next-time booking. Their marketing was done only by mouth-to-mouth propaganda.
Our aim was to work with them on their approach towards future clients. As we have seen their capabilities as actors, the only thing they needed was to achieve more bookings to make a sustainable income.
As taught in the first week we let them create mind maps to fully understand the group’s position in their environment. What are the group’s fields and activities, who are potential clients and how can you reach them? According to this map they started to research about their possible clients (NGOs, schools, churches, companies ...). The task was to find as much information on their target groups as possible. We wanted to make them understand that it is essential when addressing potential clients you have to know everything about them in order to draw their attention. At the end of the 10 weeks we set the goal to have brochures and posters ready to hand out including a list of potential clients they could address. Who is this agent who will receive the brochure? How can he/she be attracted?
The Y.A.D.D.S performing at Dagoretti Show Ground, Nairobi.
I would say The Y.A.D.D.S was one of the most motivated groups of all four. Their commitment to the theatre was pushing the group and keeping it together.
The actual design part came very late in the project. A big part was trying to make them understand how marketing works and to motivate them that they can actually do it. We developed a project description with them to make everyone in the group understand what they are working for and what their aims and goals are. It helped very much to position them.
Like all the other groups we met the Y.A.D.D.S twice a week for two hours and discussed their progress. Doing a mind map was no problem, but when it came to research and the project description, putting together contact lists of potential clients we realized that they had big difficulties. We wanted them to go out and get NGO and school lists including contact persons, collect flyers and brochures of other theatre groups to get a comparison and to see where they can position themselves on the market.
It took us a long time and a lot of convincing talks until we saw results. Apparently it is a big effort for them to get started and to go out in the city and collect data. A reason could be that it is not their place or area or that they not yet saw the importance for doing the research. We could do nothing more than telling them on and on to do it and make them aware of the importance. Still, during the weeks we saw a progress in the group. They developed much more self-confidence and awareness of their own value.
When I remember the first meeting with them they were really disappointed, frustrated and had no hope in their eyes. Now, at the end of the project they have partnered with Care Kenya and CIPAC for shows and training sessions.
Our effort in building self-confidence and training them how to approach new clients seems to have worked. What is still missing now is the finishing of the brochures and posters for shows. Here the problem is mainly their computer skills. Of course we could have done it for them, but our principle was to let them do it themselves in their own way and only give them guidance. The result doing it this way will come much later than we probably would have liked to but in order to really learn they have to do it with their own hands. This is tough but will pay off in the long term.
Bunker Y.G. Youth Group
Bunker Youth Group is situated in Makina, a part of Kibera. Committed in Taka ni Pato they were cleaning up their area close the river and were collecting domestic waste. The valuable things were sold to middlemen and the organic waste was turned into fertilizer. But it never really worked. In the beginning they have tried several ways to get the trash from the households. One problem was, that they charged the people 20 Shilling (20€Cent) per week which was for some of them too much. The other problem was the compost production which failed of too little space. But the biggest and probably the key problem was a lack in organisation and motivation within the group. This is in a way understandable when you have tried a lot of things and nothing has really worked. When we met the group the frustration level was high. In the past they never really have structured their work ahead. When they had a new idea for their garbage collection they just started without having made a proper plan before. This actually contains a really high risk of failure!
We first sat down with Buddy, the chairman of the Bunker Group and did a problem analysis. We let him and his group find out where the problems in the group were and where the past garbage systems failed. We learned a lot about their area and the way people live. A lot of people throwing their garbage in the river were apparently too ignorant to contribute to a cleaner environment. Bunker told us that people rather throw the garbage in front of their house and in the river instead of using the garbage service. When you are poor the community environment is probably quite low on the priority list, especially when you have to pay 20 Shilling per week for it. That is 300ml of cooking oil.
We started doing Bunker’s first calculation of all the costs involved in the garbage collection service. Wheel barrows, gloves, overalls, polythene bags.... The result was that the margins when selling the trash will be very low but – the calculation showed that there is a profit to make. The group would need as much clients as possible. They counted that in their area live 649 potential clients. The more they would reach the better for their business.
We introduced the idea of setting up a free garbage collection service which would eliminate two major problems. One, the clients almost can’t refuse to participate because they won’t get charged. Because there will be no money circulation there will be no risk that any money gets lost on the way to Bunkers register. They only way of income will be from selling the garbage.
It was very strange for Bunker to offer something for free but after a while they could imagine that it could work.
The calculation for the service took most of the time. A proper business calculation plus inventory, calculation of monthly costs and thoughts about salaries and time effort all has to be put in. The change in Buddy’s face was great to see when the whole calculation made more and more sense and – there was actually a positive sum showing up in the bottom.
To find out if a calculation gives you the profit in reality as well, you have to test it. For that reason Bunker started a four weeks test phase in their area with a few clients. What they have to see now is how much trash they actually will receive, how many clients will participate and, very important, is the number of kilos of valuable trash the same as in the calculation?
BUNKER during their test phase for the free garbage collection service.
Sorting the garbage after the collection.
A very positive thing already now is that the concept of free garbage collection shows a very good acceptance from the clients. Bunker started the test phase with 40 clients and a lot of others already want to join. The reputation and the trust towards Bunker still has to be built up amongst the clients. Some clients still fear that Bunker will charge them in the future. To get something for free seems to be very suspicious for a lot of people. But this exactly has be found out in the first test phase. Depending on the valuable waste they will collect they will be able to continue the free garbage collection service. If not Bunker will probably have to charge the clients at least the costs of the polythene bags.
A problem is that the amount of valuable waste after the first collection was very small. The next weeks will show how this number will develop. If the major part of the domestic trash is unvaluable organic waste Bunker has to find a way how to make profit out of that. For that situation we were discussing ways of producing their own manure.
To raise the awareness in the Makina area towards a cleaner environment we developed a sticker system together with Bunker. The clients of the free garbage collection will get a sticker at their door. The sticker shows that the person getting the trash collected from home contributes to a cleaner and nicer environment. This will hopefully influence the neighbours in the area to join the service.
Bunker is also planning to offer a premium service. Here the client gets a bucket in which he can put the polythene bag. The problem so far is that the people don’t want to keep the bag inside because of the smell. Outside is the risk that scavengers or dogs take the bag. The bucket in this case would provide a closed compartment for the bag.
In the premium service Bunker will charge the client to cover the costs of the bucket with a margin. At the pick up they will clean the bucket and the area around and will clean in front of the house.
This will make a big difference to the appearance of the area. Playing with the pride of the neighbours will hopefully give Bunker an income, make the area nicer and keep the river clean.
The next months will show how Bunker develops. At the end of the project the group is very stable and very motivated and at a good point to become successful. It is great to see that we could give them their hopes and their motivations back and made them believe in themselves again. We really hope that the system we have set up with Bunker will provide a sustainable income for them.
PAT Zero Waste Youth Group
The members of this youth group joined together from two groups. One was Patriotic Youth Group with only boys and the other one Zero Waste Youth Group with only girls. They joined forces in 2004 and started to do trash collection. They sold the trash they collected and they started to sew handbags from polythene bags they found in the trash. Every time they had collected enough paper they shredded it, soaked it and pressed it to fibre boards which they sold as ceiling boards for houses or used as canvas substitute for drawings. They also started to do composting out of the organic waste but it didn’t go well.
Now they are fully concentrating on the handbags.
When we started working with them they had been manufacturing bags for a while so the start and the problem finding was relatively easy. For us it was clear very early that we want to focus with them on the product design and the product quality and also on a business calculation. In the past they just did the bags but never thought about costs and salaries.
PAT Zero Waste had quite a lot of orders in the past time. Unfortunately they have not always seen money for the bags because it happened that people organisations took some into their home countries to sell them and never sent the money. In general their “business” went quite all right but their bags didn’t look like fully developed products. We saw that there was more potential in it.
The usual procedure when getting an order was that they just started to do the bags. Each member had his design. But they were also often producing on-the-go. When the bag was not good at the end they still sold it. Quality checks or ergonomic checks didn’t exist.
To improve their bags we guided them through the research phase in order to find as much information as possible about competitor products, market prices and target groups. This gave them a new picture on their bags. With the calculation they saw what kind of costs they actually have, that they, for example have to calculate 5 work hours when five people are working for one hour. We have gone through their existing bags and made them find out what the good and the bad part were. From that point onwards we started developing new bags with them.
Bag production in the Zero Waste office.
Zero Waste office.
On big flip-chart paper we started sketching ideas with the group and advised them to use this kind of technique for the develpment of their bags before they start sewing. Sketching helps a lot in making decisions and can eliminate a lot of problems afterwards. It is the main tool a designer uses.
Somewhere in the project they got an order of 50 bags. Now they had to start producing. This great opportunity was good and bad for our project. Bad because we couldn’t go through the actual design process slow and thorough enough. Good because they now had to do bags and we could help them improving them and developing new ones.
Now, at the end of the project they have done a big step in their development. The group structure and commitment has become much better because Zero Waste began to work only with committed members. Suddenly the other members wanted to join in again. The group is now teaching each other how to sow. Before just three girls who have been available only on the weekends had the sowing knowledge. Now, the group can produce bags also during the week and thus raise their production.
The only thing the group has to finish realizing is their logo and the tag for the bags. Like the development of quality bags this also takes its time. But we are very confident of a good outcome. The last days we are here we will help them finalizing a good logo and the tag so that they will have a printable version. Then the bags are ready to sell.
Discussing the first prototypes with Musa.
Visionary Youth Group
The main focus for this group was on jewellery design. Their plan was to start a business in bone jewellery and to make a living out of this. Bone jewellery is very common in Kenya and you can find a lot of people doing bone handcraft in Kibera.
The idea to this business came from their trash collections where they also collected a lot of animal bones.
At the beginning of our project the plan for this business already existed in the Visionary Group and they had contact to a nearby handcraft manufacturer where they got information about the production. But they have never worked with bones before and they just knew the process in theory.
We helped the Visionary to work out a structured plan who to set up this business. Very important was of course to develop good quality products out of bone.
In the design process the procedure is the same for most problems. When starting a whole new business and developing new products, you have to think what kind of market you want to address? Is there a market? We advised The Visionary to not go into the same kind of jewellery as the others but to look for niches. In Nairobi and around there are a lot of handcraft markets where bone jewellery is offered. But the products are more or less all the same. To make business out of bone jewellery, The Visionary must be better than their competitors and special in their own way.
The group is now, at the end of the project, in the development of different kinds of beads and ways how to colour them. The plan is to go a new and different way compared to the products on the market. The Visionary Group wants to not only develop bracelets or necklaces but also plans to develop hair jewellery which could be sold in the hair salons locally.
Since their progress was a little bit slower due to the commitment within the group they haven’t come as far as they originally aimed at in their time plan at the beginning of our project.
After their testing and prototyping phase which they are still in the goal is to have developed a range of beads which they can combine to jewellery. While the men are working on bracelets and bangles and ear rings the women in the group are working on hair jewellery. It is going to be very interesting to see the outcome.
Our part with the Visionary was mainly to guide them through the research part, motivate and encourage them and show them how to start developing ideas out of the bones. It is definitely difficult when you have a piece of bone in front of you to get started and get ideas. But the key is to just start working and to put effort in. We experienced quite a lot motivation challenges within the group and it was mainly two people who were the driving force. Apparently some people were not sure if the project will become reality and thus didn’t join the work. We advised them to start working with the committed members, the others will automatically join in later. But to push the project forward and to make it efficient they have to keep on working even though they are maybe only three.
Working on the first prototypes during the experimental phase.
The group members are experimenting with different colours.
Conclusion During our 10-weeks project we wanted to see if it is possible to teach design and creative problem solving in a third world country. We wanted to find out if we can make a difference compared to the numerous development aid projects in the world, which in our opinion deserve a big question mark. The aim was to make the people more independent and more confident and teach them creative problem solving skills.
Since it was our first project in that field, we were not sure if it would be a success. If we could have a positive effect on at least one of the people we would work with, we would have been satisfied. Due to the uncertainty of the outcome of our project we kept our expectations very low.
During the project we took really care that we are not solving the problems for them but give them the knowledge to solve them by themselves. We integrated them fully and challenged their thinking about what they actually want. We think that help should rather be a push-start and should focus on the people’s wishes and needs. Us as Europeans we can only give them skills and tools. It shouldn’t be in our interest to tell them how to live and make them do everything to have the same life style as we have. Maybe they have different aims? No one seems to question this anymore and the development wheel is just kept spinning. It is their environment and they know it better than us. They should be given the free choice how to design their future.
We learnt so much during the project, maybe even more than they did. The project went really well and the groups achieved a lot in this project. Even though the actual design part where the groups designed brochures or sketched and developed product ideas was rather small, the participants learnt how to identify problems, structure them and develop solutions with the help of the design process. There is a lot of work to do before you can actually start designing the shape of a product. These preparations are a very important basis for the success of a product. In big companies the work is much more divided between different departments. In our case the group members have to overtake all the jobs, like in a small design office. Having done the research and putting up the whole concept you can start designing the product. It was a very good and helpful experience for the groups to go through the whole process. They now have a very good basis to carry on with this knowledge. The good thing is that they can apply this knowledge on all future projects they do.
Most of the participants never really have sketched down ideas. For a designer the pen is a very important tool. We encouraged them to use a pen and a paper before they actually start sowing a bag or developing a jewellery design. The main purpose for scribbles is communication and one doesn’t have to be a very good in drawing in order to sketch ideas. In meetings we often asked them to sketch their ideas so that they get into it and loose the fear for the prejudice of being a bad sketcher. It will take some time until they will get used to the benefits of sketches and small scribbles. It is all about practice.
The start though was very good and they saw what benefits drawings have in order to make decisions or to avoid mistakes in the production.
The project showed that design has many facets and can work on products, marketing material, and graphics and on systems like Bunker’s. Design is a complex process a lot of people are not aware of. I think we proved with this project that it can also benefit people in third world countries who don’t have a very big industry and a lot of high-tech tools.
As we learnt, time is not as valuable as in western countries and the feeling for time is very different. A lot of things get postponed; the vocabulary carries a lot of “maybes”, “we try”, “you know the problem was...” or “very soon”-expressions which we told them to try to avoid. The vocabulary one uses is influencing the thinking a lot and using the right words is the first start to reach your goals. Now they use more “we will do this”, “we can do this” and “we have done this”. We had to learn that in the kenyan culture people don’t speak frankly. They often go around the topic and don’t answer questions directly. We didn’t understand this behaviour in the beginning because we are used to put things on the table and discuss problems.
It is very difficult to change cultural issues. It is even the question if it is good to intervene in other’s people culture. Concerning problem solving people have to learn how to address a problem! If you want to achieve something and you fear tackling the problem you will never get there.
We experienced that people are not very much used to time keeping and time planning. Within their activities in the past they used to meet maybe once a week because everyone is involved in different other activities, hardly calculated how much time they spend in the production or how much they want to earn per hour. We had to learn that time for them doesn’t have the same meaning as for us. Because the needs are very different here the long term planning is not as developed as in Europe. The members in the youth groups are of course not used to work 8 hours as in a job or as you do in University. But, during the project they understood the importance of using their time and that if they want to make a business out of their youth activity they have to see it as a job and put more effort in which will consume time. We are very positive about their further development. The perception of time has changed and group members got more committed because they actually know now what they are working for and that their success is in their own responsibility.
It was a great experience to work as a designer in this environment. For us it was the first project where it wasn’t us who designed the solutions. Our function was to guide the people, give directions and unveil their creativity and motivation. At the end some of the group members were impressed by themselves what they actually were able to achieve – that was all what we wanted.
The next months will show how the groups will continue their work and we are looking forward to see their further development. We will keep following their progress and will definitely stay in touch with them and we hope we will be able to come back. Medina, program officer for Taka ni Pato and Salim Mohammed, CFK’s program manager will be the local contact persons at CFK.
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