Review TTT Project against poverty to date
During the last four weeks we made quite some progress in our quest for the ultimate ThinkTankThursday-project against poverty! See: “Press Release: Crowdsourcing Against Poverty” and “How can WE stride against poverty??“.
Starting with our wish to leverage our collaborative knowledge, creativity and inspiration for the good cause, we initiated a valuable brainstorm with our TTT-community on how to fulfill this wish. Below you will find a ‘short’ review of the output to date, which will help us to focus and select the best idea(s).
The most IMPORTANT FINDINGS during the discussion are that:
- we have to approach this project with the local ‘ordinary people’ as our main objective,
- we have to involve locals on structural base,
- we should create hope and commitment,
- we have to leave our paradigm in order to understand their needs, values, culture, resources, skills, etc.,
- education is an important point of interest, whatever you’re ‘bringing’,
- it’s not just copy/pasting proved development projects from other areas,
- the solution has to fit their needs, not just our egos,
- it’s not about money, but about enabling the poor to take care of themselves (where a barter with the poor could be a fair way also),
- the poor should be an active and intrinsically motivated part of the solution (bottom-up),
- some influential people as committed ambassadors of our initiative would leverage its credibility and with that its impact,
- it will help if the project could be glamorized and popularized by being a totally new innovative concept against poverty (e.g. using virtual reality),
- the resulting concept should be as easy as possible at the same time in order to make it available for everybody
- there is also much that we can learn from the locals we aim to help (e.g. inspiration, experience, knowledge on local herbs, daily survival tips, local (hand)crafts, etc.)
- the focus should be more on understanding particular problems than immediately identifying a likely solution
More CONCRETE IDEAS that resulted from the discussion are:
- text mobile phones involving specific regions in coming up with ideas. (mobile is much more developed than internet around the world) >> locals will be able to help other locals that are normally not within reach by sharing their knowledge.
- paying consultants FROM rural and hungry areas to teach us their daily survival tips >> those will probably be mind shifting approaches that will affect our wealthy point of view. Probable more about the core, less complex. As a side effect this can be a way to let these people ‘grow’ in terms of self-esteem by realizing the valuable information they possess. We can let them grow while mirroring ourselves and our too complex way of living.
- adult education using the barter system (teach me to read and I’ll teach you sewing). That goes for anyone involved in the project. >> This could result in local marketplaces where locals can redefine value since it’s not only about products, also about services.
- it might be wise to try and be hungry for a while to better understand what issue we are dealing with. […] not talking about a diet, but being really hungry, for an extended period, days at least, for our solution to be real human-centered and one that fits their needs, and not just our egos. >> We shouldn’t take ourselves too serious while other people are suffering hunger. And with the savings we realized by not buying food, we should invest in poverty projects! Interesting point is that we wouldn’t suffer hunger voluntary because it’s not good for our health… THAT’s exactly the case!!
- free text messages to mobile phones with relevant information for that specific area. >> weather conditions, trade info, announcements of important events in the area, etc.
- enabling much small-scaled initiatives by supporting local role models in their intrinsically motivated initiatives. Bottum-up approach where we deal with the problems in an inside-out way.
- a VIRTUAL MUSEUM of (or against) poverty. By the means of Nobel Prize Winner Mr. Muhammad Yunus: that poverty must be banned into a museum – must get rid of.
Since we have a direct contact with Nobel Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus, we will elaborate on the last idea (which does not imply we will execute this idea, that’s up to you). This also because a virtual museum is able to include more of the above mentioned ideas in one common concept. In a virtual museum it could be possible to:
- Have three sections of the ‘museum-tour’: (1) memorial section to those who suffered from poverty and still do, (2) hope section with previous solutions that were successful, and (3) cocreation section where solutions and funding can be collected for current poverty issues.
- Provide a stage for social entrepreneurship >> local initiatives by (or for) locals to create awareness by the museum visitors and give these visitors the chance to enable local initiatives by donating directly to these local initiatives.
- Learn more about the real problems >> involving locals in the museum which makes it possible to really understand the problems their dealing with (instead of immediately identifying solutions for problems we think we know).
- Enable local role models by leveraging their small-scale initiatives. Use the museum as a stage for their initiative and generate direct micro funding by the museum visitors (a.k.a. crowdfunding).
- Create a digital market place for local products and services, including consulting activities like mentioned earlier: use local knowledge to solve problems in our wealthy world. Locals should be able to ‘pitch’ their offer.
- Make it possible to get in direct contact with locals. Like the Foster Parents concept, but more direct by using mobile phones to discuss local issues and help each other. People will get committed when their directly involved with the poor locals.
Well, this will be the review to date. Next step is to focus on only one to three ideas to develop further, together of course! So, please let us know which idea(s) you think should be co-created in the ThinkTankThursday project against poverty!
Share your choice and comments! >> here at the ThinkTankThursday LinkedIn group
