HUMANITARIANISM: DESIGN THINKING IN TANZANIA
This spring, I took a class titled Humanitarianism: Design Thinking in Tanzania that culminated in a two-week trip to Tanzania and Kenya over spring break. Although the amazing two weeks that I spent in Africa implementing the projects first comes to mind whenever I think about this experience, I realize that the 3 months I spent in the classroom gave the trip purpose. To prepare for this trip, Professor Michael Zaretsky directed us to read and discuss texts on colonialism, poverty and aid in Africa, appropriate technologies, Tanzania culture, and design thinking. Our class discourse changed my preconceptions about Africa and what our role was, and I was thankful for the knowledge when I was in Tanzania.
My design thinking class of ten students was composed of various majors to bring a multi-disciplinary approach to creating our project proposals. There was another architecture student besides me, two industrial designers, two biology/pre-med majors, an engineer, a marketing major, an anthropology major, and another student studying early childhood education. In our class, we began to understand the collaboration between the non-profit organization that we would be working with, the Village Life Outreach Project, and SHED, our base of operations in Shirati, Tanzania. Our professor had previously worked with both in designing the Roche Health Center, a clinic in Roche that served the local community and was a great example of sustainable design. Our goal was to understand what the existing needs were in the three villages that we would be working with. With knowledge of the projects that previous students in the class had developed and our understanding of successful approaches to need from our class discussions, we developed our own proposals. Eventually, we came up with several projects that ranged from researching potential classroom book storage to building a physical product, such as the emissions-reducing cook stove, while in Tanzania.
My design thinking class of ten students was composed of various majors to bring a multi-disciplinary approach to creating our project proposals. There was another architecture student besides me, two industrial designers, two biology/pre-med majors, an engineer, a marketing major, an anthropology major, and another student studying early childhood education. In our class, we began to understand the collaboration between the non-profit organization that we would be working with, the Village Life Outreach Project, and SHED, our base of operations in Shirati, Tanzania. Our professor had previously worked with both in designing the Roche Health Center, a clinic in Roche that served the local community and was a great example of sustainable design. Our goal was to understand what the existing needs were in the three villages that we would be working with. With knowledge of the projects that previous students in the class had developed and our understanding of successful approaches to need from our class discussions, we developed our own proposals. Eventually, we came up with several projects that ranged from researching potential classroom book storage to building a physical product, such as the emissions-reducing cook stove, while in Tanzania.
The trip itself took place over spring break. My class was joined by Professor Elissa Yancey’s journalism class, which would be documenting and conducting interviews to get a sense of culture and the ongoing humanitarianism efforts. Chris Lewis, local doctor at Children’s Hospital and founder of Village Life, also accompanied us. Our group was blessed to get to know the four drivers who were with us every single day of the trip. One of the drivers, George, became especially endearing to me as I spent more than 50 hours in his van learning Luo and Swahili vocabulary and listening to his stories about different ethnic tribes. He was a very patient teacher and helped me carefully record all the new vocabulary that I was learning in my notebook. I was also thankful for the accompanying translators. Six of them were around our ages, and we got to know them very well. I was very surprised to find they were avid users of Facebook, which opened my eyes to how similar our lives were.
Most of the trip was spent in the region of Shirati. We stayed at the SHED (Shirati Health Education Development foundation) compound, home of the Kawira family. Here, we had meals and prepared for the activities of the day. One of the tasks that we had was to measure the hostel building that we stayed in and Doctor Esther Kawira’s house. The purpose of this documentation was to get an idea of the size of a typical doctor’s house in the region to aid in the development of future doctor’s housing at the Roche Health Center. The other architecture student and I led the measuring process. I was also part of the Art Exchange, a project developed by our education student to foster cultural understanding. For this project, kids in a local elementary drew and wrote about their favorite activities. These pages and pictures of the kids were distributed to a class of students at Ratia Primary School, who did the same thing to give back to the students in Cincinnati. The day of the event, I led a “station” where I taught “Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” to three groups of kids and had them teach it to me in Swahili and Luo. They also took me to a nearby field, where the older children showed me their favorite game, a combination of high jump and long jump. As a former track athlete, I was amazed at their jumping abilities. The children were very enthusiastic about having visitors and were great participants in all of the activities. One of the younger boys, Frankie, was a hilarious character who spoke English well and took it upon himself to translate things for me. It was a great experience and now the Swahili version of “Heads, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” will forever be engrained in my memory. Another project that I worked on was developing book storage ideas for various schools that we visited. At most schools, three students shared one book, if they were available, and all books were kept at school. One of the directors of SHED was working to provide the necessary number of books to various schools in Roche. However, the schools lacked sufficient storage for the books if they were to be dispersed. We visited the Dagopa Primary School and existing school building at Burere, where we measured the spaces that storage units would be bested suited for and talked to the headmaster and teachers about what they wanted. We eventually came up with two different suggestions, and left the measurements and design ideas in the hands of the SHED director to pass on to a local carpenter for cost estimations. As a group, we all collaborated and aided each other with projects. I also assisted with the “Tippy-Tap” hand washing station, which consisted of a rigged gallon of water that was prototyped and installed at the pit latrine in Burere designed by a previous UC engineering student, and the building of a cookstove for a local kitchen.
I also developed a profound appreciation for the local culture, especially with the Swahili and Luo languages. I really enjoyed learning and speaking Swahili, and was happy to find that I could carry on a decent, if extremely short, conversation in Swahili by the trip’s end. I also appreciated how welcoming everybody was. We were greeted with warmth wherever we went; driving along roads, children would scream after us, “Jambo, Hi, How are you?” and at every school we were always surrounded by mobs of friendly children. The openness that I enjoyed is something that I wish was present in the States. Some of the experiences that we had outside of working on our projects was attending a local church service, climbing Mount Oboke, sitting in on a local town meeting, going to a local market, visiting Lake Victoria, and getting clothes custom made by a local tailor who visited the SHED compound. After leaving Shirati, we spent our last days on safari at the Masai Mara in Nairboi, Kenya, where we saw many tembo (elephant), and my favorite, the twiga (giraffe). We were extremely lucky to get very close to both a male lion and lioness. Before returning to the States, we stopped by some tourist markets. I was able to bargain in Swahili, and at one market, one of the vendors could speak basic Chinese because of all of the Chinese tourists that had gone through the area. I was able to bargain in three languages, and left with some soapstone carvings. I also purchased some artwork created from banana leaves. I was very excited to test my limited lexicon of Swahili in the markets. I thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of this trip.
When I initially signed up for the course, I did so because I was interested in the potential of design to improve impoverished communities. Admittedly, the role I had imagined for myself was naively heroic, that I would introduce something for this community that would improve their lives immensely. However, the course showed me that this approach, although well-meaning, had created many more problems for Africa because many philanthropists and non-profits have given money and handouts without actually knowing how the aid would affect the communities it was meant to “save”. In this class and on the ground, I understood the importance of working with the community to develop projects that were sustainable and truly addressed existing needs. This experience far exceeded my expectations. Although some of the projects that we developed were still in their early prototype stages, I left Africa and this class satisfied because I had truly learned a lot about being immersed in a community and working with them, not for them.
Before this trip, I had experience serving with the Cincinnati community and my local community in Dublin, Ohio. However, it was new to work with a community of a different culture. Patience was definitely necessary on both sides. As an aspiring architect, this experience has given me an idea of what I want to do with design. When our group visited the Roche Health Center, designed by Professor Zaretsky, what I had learned about it in our class and in my Design Science class came to life. It was inspiring to see this example of passive heating and cooling techniques in a structure that served the community well. I hope that I can use design in a positive and meaningful way as an architect.
I had a wonderful experience taking this Honors seminar and traveling to Africa. I definitely recommend this course for students interested in actively learning about other cultures through travel, those with an interest in humanitarian work, and students who wish to discuss important current topics. For those interested in learning more about the Village Life Outreach Project, the non-profit we worked with, check out their website at http://www.villagelifeoutreach.org to see past and ongoing projects. The class is a really great way to get involved with this organization, and I plan to stay involved.
I also developed a profound appreciation for the local culture, especially with the Swahili and Luo languages. I really enjoyed learning and speaking Swahili, and was happy to find that I could carry on a decent, if extremely short, conversation in Swahili by the trip’s end. I also appreciated how welcoming everybody was. We were greeted with warmth wherever we went; driving along roads, children would scream after us, “Jambo, Hi, How are you?” and at every school we were always surrounded by mobs of friendly children. The openness that I enjoyed is something that I wish was present in the States. Some of the experiences that we had outside of working on our projects was attending a local church service, climbing Mount Oboke, sitting in on a local town meeting, going to a local market, visiting Lake Victoria, and getting clothes custom made by a local tailor who visited the SHED compound. After leaving Shirati, we spent our last days on safari at the Masai Mara in Nairboi, Kenya, where we saw many tembo (elephant), and my favorite, the twiga (giraffe). We were extremely lucky to get very close to both a male lion and lioness. Before returning to the States, we stopped by some tourist markets. I was able to bargain in Swahili, and at one market, one of the vendors could speak basic Chinese because of all of the Chinese tourists that had gone through the area. I was able to bargain in three languages, and left with some soapstone carvings. I also purchased some artwork created from banana leaves. I was very excited to test my limited lexicon of Swahili in the markets. I thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of this trip.
When I initially signed up for the course, I did so because I was interested in the potential of design to improve impoverished communities. Admittedly, the role I had imagined for myself was naively heroic, that I would introduce something for this community that would improve their lives immensely. However, the course showed me that this approach, although well-meaning, had created many more problems for Africa because many philanthropists and non-profits have given money and handouts without actually knowing how the aid would affect the communities it was meant to “save”. In this class and on the ground, I understood the importance of working with the community to develop projects that were sustainable and truly addressed existing needs. This experience far exceeded my expectations. Although some of the projects that we developed were still in their early prototype stages, I left Africa and this class satisfied because I had truly learned a lot about being immersed in a community and working with them, not for them.
Before this trip, I had experience serving with the Cincinnati community and my local community in Dublin, Ohio. However, it was new to work with a community of a different culture. Patience was definitely necessary on both sides. As an aspiring architect, this experience has given me an idea of what I want to do with design. When our group visited the Roche Health Center, designed by Professor Zaretsky, what I had learned about it in our class and in my Design Science class came to life. It was inspiring to see this example of passive heating and cooling techniques in a structure that served the community well. I hope that I can use design in a positive and meaningful way as an architect.
I had a wonderful experience taking this Honors seminar and traveling to Africa. I definitely recommend this course for students interested in actively learning about other cultures through travel, those with an interest in humanitarian work, and students who wish to discuss important current topics. For those interested in learning more about the Village Life Outreach Project, the non-profit we worked with, check out their website at http://www.villagelifeoutreach.org to see past and ongoing projects. The class is a really great way to get involved with this organization, and I plan to stay involved.
This is a mask that was carved by a member of the Masaai tribe. The Masaai are a nomadic ethnic group well known for wearing bright red. I visited their village on Masaai Mara safari of multiple mud structures surrounded by a fence of sticks. At the center of the village was a wide plot of dirt that the Masaai herded their cattle into at night to protect them from wild animals. We were greeted by a man who seemed to be the leader of the village. He spoke English very well and told us about Masaai customs, such as how status was determined in the tribe by the number of cows one had. The cows had distinctive ear nicks to differentiate them. We were also given a tour of one of the homes. The interior was a small space maybe 10 feet by 10 feet that housed the parents’ bed, the children’s bed, a cooking area with a cookstove, and a small pen to hold the baby animals. It was very dark inside and there was one single small window of light. We were entertained by men in the village who welcomed us with a chanting song and performed the jumping dance. The Masaai men are known for their ability to jump very high without bending their knees, and this was true. I felt bad for touring their village because I didn’t mean to exploit them, but I feel like they exploited themselves by charging an entrance fee of $20 per person and directing us to a market afterwards where we were haggled to purchase their crafts. I do have to admire their entrepreneurship though; they don’t take any hand outs from the government and are self-sustainable, even if it’s through tourism. I believe that this Masaai mask is representative of an extreme difference in culture that I experienced but still found respect for.
“Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.”-Pat Conroy