Towards Community Centric Design in Cairo Informal Areas

Proceedings of DRS Learn X Design 2019: Insider Knowledge, 2019

Informal areas take up 65% of Cairo. Mansheyet Nasser -one of the biggest informal areas in Cairo- alone hosts more than 2,000,000 inhabitants. Several NGO founders feel responsible to create a model that fixes informal areas’ problems (such as education, employment and health). Especially since the 25th of January revolution, they have been doing their role in sustainable development. Currently these NGOs are responsible for providing opportunities that generate income for informal area female inhabitants. This study focuses on sustaining this income through community centric design. Moreover, the designer’s role was more of moderating between the informal area, the inhabitants and the NGO rather than designing only. Aiming the women could have sustainable income, the participants’ needs and communities were investigated using Kimbell and Julier’s (2012) Storyworld method. This resulted in three women sewing clothes that are sold using a well branded online store. A sample from the store’s target group were invited to participate in several participatory design workshops to create the chosen products. This action research draws attention to the impact of community centric design on socio-economic status in informal areas.

Pages on Art and Design, 2018

After the January 25th Egyptian revolution, 250.000 Non-Governmental Organizations were active in Cairo alone, with the aim of solving numerous poverty-related problems. In this paper, the unemployment of inhabitants of informal areas is under the spotlight. The aim is to help NGOs establish more sustainable projects serving informal area inhabitants through the intervention of designers. Research aimed to grasp an understanding of the NGOs' problems, micro-projects they undertake and problems facing their target group-the informal area inhabitants-in relation to their projects, in order to investigate how design can intervene. The research results in the analysis of sustainable development in the informal areas of Cairo. As revealed in the NGOs' members unstructured interviewing, poverty in Cairo has four cyclical reasons: lack of education, unemployment, overpopulation and health problems. The analysis concludes that micro-projects face problems and it is hypothesized that they can be solved through a design intervention. Producing outdated products that have no specific target group can be reversed through market research and participatory design. Also, marketing and pricing were better formulated through collaborative strategic design with the NGO team. These results draw attention to the significance of interfering in the local issues to support NGOs sustainable programs.

2016

The aim of the research was to create a model for sustainable socio-economic development in selected informal areas of Cairo, through collaboration of NGO members, informal area inhabitants and designers. The objectives were as follows: Using design intervention to develop more effective socio- economical empowerment program for informal areas through NGOs Repositioning the role of designer in relation to social change Providing a sustainable project that lives on after the designer has left. After conducting field research, including extensive interviews with NGO project managers, it was concluded that many of their economic development programs were having limited impact, and new strategies were needed. The selected strategy was to bring design thinking to the development of new product lines to be made by women in informal areas. The concept was to implement a well branded line of clothing targeted to a specific market segment; to be promoted through social media; sold through an online store; to be manufactured by informal area inhabitants, thus the money gained will be returned to the informal area inhabitants. Therefore a pilot project was implemented for 12 months, where 4 trails were made in 4 different informal areas until acceptable quality of products were produced. The concept is creating a sewing workshop in the homes of the informal area inhabitants where they produce clothes designed through participatory workshops where potential customers are gathered to design for their needs. Then the NGO team uses online marketing to sell the products through a well-branded online shop. Consequently, after holding 4 participatory workshops, 16 products where selected and produced and eventually promoted through Facebook and Instagram. This resulted in the informal area inhabitants gaining a minimum of 30 LE per piece rather than their previous pricing (2 LE, 7 LE and 14 LE).

Swiss Design Network Symposium 2021 Conference Proceedings , 2021

In this paper, the field of contemporary design is explored and its development moving towards more recent discourses such as transition design, relation to craft and where designers fit in this image while considering external forces and how they influence the playing field. This brings to our attention the current movement of social design, how it came to be, why is it needed and what are the local examples showcasing it. Moreover, the business side is discussed and its relation to social innovation and entrepreneurship. This paved the way in the past few years, to the rise of a number of start-ups or enterprises and initiatives examples in Egypt that tackle the social aspect one way or another, particularly crafts and craftsmanship combined with the founders' expertise in design. The examples discussed are the Nilfurat project, Up-fuse, Kiliim, the doodle factory and reform studio. The initiatives in question are part of a movement still in its infancy phase, depending mainly on expensive products to a limited target group. Having said that, those initiatives seem to be a good starting point in the direction of social and economic reform that is gaining momentum..

Advanced Science Letters, 2017

This article presents challenges and opportunities of employing participatory design approach with underprivileged citizens of developing countries. Through our on-going community project that develops recycled craft products in the interest of obtaining extra income for the mothers of Penjaringan, Jakarta, obstacles and prospects of employing participatory design method has been identified. The method which is known to bring the whole stakeholders into the design process is now preferred when the end product is intended to respond the real needs of its users. However, for such methods to be successful, designers in charge to work with underprivileged citizens must understand that they will be working under very different conditions than when doing participatory design in an established society. There are economical (quantitative) as well as cultural (qualitative) discrepancies among plural settlers of Jakarta, where the underprivileged suffers the least access to good quality infrastructure, which in turn affecting their self-actualization, aesthetic sensibilities and workmanships. Our field study revealed that participatory design methods may be advantageous only if the designers firstly take the lead and empower those who have been hindered economically and culturally, before we can expect them to participate in the design process optimally. As long as the empowerment process is carried out, we realized that participatory design with underprivileged citizens of developing countries has a prospect to bring out outcomes of at least two types: First, products that suits participant’s existing socio-economical condition, and second, the empowered design process itself improves citizens’ workmanships valuable for their own future productivities.

This paper focuses on the roles of designers for enabling sustainability of livelihoods in disadvantaged communities. This paper was drawn from my doctoral research which I completed with communities with people with physical disabilities in Amphoe Phrapradaeng, Samut Prakran province in Thailand between 2007 and 2010. The main objective of this research was to find ways to enable the people with physical disabilities in one particular disadvantaged community to attain sustainable livelihoods and to continue flourishing long after the completion of the research project. This research was guided by three main research question; what strategies and tools designers should use in order to enable themselves and the community to undertake a collaborative investigation, how these strategies and tools were used in order to achieve research objectives, and what role and contribution of designers are as design researchers for enabling the community to attain a sustainable livelihood. To achieve a real outcome, this research was designed to investigate a real-life situation of a community of people with physical disabilities in Amphoe Phrapradaeng in the Samut Prakran Province in a semi-urban area of Thailand as a case study because the research was embedded in this community. This was a collaborative research with nineteen community members of this community. The research methodology of this research project was Participatory Action Research (PAR) by using the Sustainable Livelihood Framework (SLF) for data collection and evaluation of the effectiveness of the implementation of this research with the participants. This research has a basis in the theoretical frameworks established in the field of Human-Centered Design (HCD), which is a specific approach to design, and Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA) which is an approach to sustainable community development. The activities of this research were multiple cyclical processes. These processes were composed of a group discussion for reflection and planning a new action, the taking of that action, observation, and then a group discussion for reflection and planning a new action. These activities were set up through a series of four workshops because they were designed for facilitating and enabling the participants to improve their capabilities to reach their full potential to achieve a sustainable livelihood. The research outcomes have shown the participants and their community discovered an alternative livelihood that could enable them to reduce or avoid vulnerability in their community and become more self-reliant. After the completion of this research study, they still continued to improve their capabilities and are pursuing a sustainable livelihood in their community. This research also revealed that PAR integrated with HCD and combined with SLA were shown to be effective strategies and approaches because they facilitate the knowledge transfer to the participants and their community and enable them to generate and implement their own idea. Reflection, traditional visualization, and the communication skills of designers were essential in such research because reflection enabled the participants and to recognize a change in their community explicitly. The visualization and communication skills of designers were very sophisticated and powerful tools in this process because they made complex situations or problems easy to understand and made new ideas and potential solutions visible during group discussions for reflection and planning. In conclusion, this research has shown that these research strategies, approaches and tools would not work effectively unless they were operated by designers who work as design researchers had a mindset for and behaved as an agent of sustainable change. This role is not a catalyst because it was innovatively, consciously, intentionally responsible for enabling people to have a sustainable and satisfying livelihood. A sustainable change agent should be mindful and work responsively to support local people, especially disabled people, to attain their goals. However, the project itself was a catalyst because it sparked a new idea for the participants and their community, showed them how to identify their own problems, let them generate their own solutions, and pursue a sustainable livelihood that they designed for themselves.

Designers are often impatient to get down to ‘designing solutions’ before the fundamental problem is identified and the situation sufficiently explored. In this paper, we do not approach ‘socially engaged design’ by asking ‘what should be designed?’ Instead, we argue for the necessity for designers to spend time gaining an understanding of the circumstances in which they seek to design and that bear upon the possibility of taking action. The aim is to contribute to more effective modes of socially engaged design by attempting to better understand its contexts and challenges. This is done via a ‘problem- nding’ exercise related to a village in Egypt’s Nile River delta, interwoven with critical discussion of certain forms of socially engaged design and the theories of economic and social development that frame it.

Iridescent, 2011

This paper focuses on how designers can contribute to enabling sustainable livelihoods in communities, especially communities of people with physical disabilities. Designing to enable sustainable livelihoods is a new area of design research and practice. Between 2007– 2010 I undertook a design research investigation with one of the most disadvantaged communities in a semi- urban area of Thailand. The aim of this investigation was to explore the role and potential contribution of designers for enabling sustainable livelihoods within such communities. It was undertaken as a collaborative project with nineteen community members who had physical impairment in the Samut Prakran province. This community had a long history of developing craft objects as a means for income generation. The objective in this research was to explore and trial the development of new approaches for income generation that would result in an alternative livelihood model for them; including transforming their capabilities and available resources in their community into positive outcomes. Transforming the designer’s role can have empowering effects on not only the participants and their community but also upon designers themselves. To do this, designers need to change their mindsets, attitudes, and behavior about their own role and that of the participants. The designers are no longer providers of a solution for the participants but rather agents of sustainable changes who have multiple roles as facilitators, enablers, innovators, and disseminators. The community participants are no longer passive recipients of a solution created for them. They need to have an active role in the research process to generate solutions which are then implemented in their community.

IASDR 2013

The design practices and design agency of non-designers have received increasing attention from designers and design researchers. How the practices are formed, supported and fostered has been briefly, though not closely, studied from various aspects such as user community, competence in the material and tools, and platform or medium for design knowledge sharing and exchange. In this paper, we present a case study involving local street vendors in a northern Uganda town, Gulu, who design and make their own display stands for their goods. Firstly, we provide a detailed description of the materials, skills and knowledge of one street vendor that are required for this work, as well as the practical reasoning behind such design efforts. Secondly, we examine the various ways the physical and social texture of the local community provides support and affordance for such practices over time; that is, we show how the design agency of individuals is formed in and through that local, material environment and community. Furthermore, we reassert the significance of bodily engagement and intensive social interactions amongst a community for supporting design and innovation. By presenting one type of design practice in an agrarian society and the way these practices are deeply embedded in – are essentially inseparable from – that local context, we trust that readers with a similar interest in design agency will be able to reflect on their own society and situated practices (whether DIY or user technology innovation) and how they are supported (or not) by the material infrastructure and social texture of the community.

Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseño y Comunicación

Neste artigo, compartilhamos algumas reflexões sobre os possíveis papéis do designer em iniciativas baseadas na comunidade. Realizamos um estudo de caso em Salvador, Bahia, que se apresenta como uma plataforma de transformação social por meio da economia criativa. Foram analisados os impactos sociais, culturais, ambientais e econômicos das ações de design deste projeto, que visa apoiar artistas e artesãos e outros profissionais em situação de vulnerabilidade socioeconômica. O estudo de caso tem como foco principal o impacto de um projeto de inovação social na Coopertêxtil, Cooperativa Mista de Produção e Trabalho de Artigos Têxteis que envolve 16 mulheres e beneficia 40 famílias. Apontamos algumas oportunidades de intervenção projetual, visando: a) trazer novas perspectivas para a produção artesanal local (visão sistêmica e planejamento); b) desenvolver artefatos a partir de recursos locais e agregar valor à cultura material e imaterial embutida nos processos produtivos; c) promove...