Role: Designer, Co-Facilitator

Company: Chocolonely

Brief

Do Good” was a Chocolonely Foundation initiative with the sole purpose of enabling individuals in rural communities to identify and solve problems using Design Thinking. This initiative was designed as a Designathon program where participants would attend a series of training sessions and workshops after which they would receive a form of certification and a grant to pursue a problem they were passionate about.

Third Do Good graduating cohort

How can use Design Thinking to empower people in Aponoapono to own problem-solving in their respective communities?

My Role

I worked alongside the Senior Research in facilitating our workshops and training sessions. I also helped in transcribing and later synthesizing key takeaways, pain points and surprises we encountered in the field. I was also involved in designing and periodically reviewing our entire training curriculum.

The Process

How we Empathized

First, we sought to understand the social context of the people within these communities. Our target participants lived in a socio-economic setting that is quite different from what we were used to. So, if we wanted to effectively engender a change in mindset, empathy through engagement was our most logical approach.

Assumptions?

We made a series of assumptions that formed the basis of our research. These are as follows.

1. People in the community do not know the problems that exist in their community.
2. People in the community believe that they are capable of solving problems in the community by themselves or as a group.
3. People in the community do not care about problems in the community.
4. People in the community are not affected by problems within the community.