← All work
With Fuseproject · 2013 to 2014 · Rwanda
Nike
Foundation
Designing real things for girls' real lives.
Direct Physical Assets: everyday tools a girl can hold, co-designed with girls and their communities across Rwanda.
My role
Design research & co-designWith the Nike Foundation and Fuseproject
In communitiesGirls, families and neighbours across Rwanda
Prototype and testBuilt, tested and reworked where girls live
Core77 Design Awards 2014Recognised for Strategy & Research
The brief
Girls get training, savings groups and support. Almost no one designs the things she uses every day.
How we worked
Listen. Make.
Test where she lives.
Every idea started with girls and their families, and went back to them, again and again, until it earned its place.
01
Listen
Card sorts, home visits and conversations to understand what would make a real difference to her day.
02
Make
Simple, cheap prototypes of each idea, plus the guides to explain them.
03
Test
Back in the village, used for real, so we could see what worked and what got left in a corner.
Four concepts
Small things, big days
Super stoveLess wood, less smoke, less time spent cooking.
Solar lightLight to study and work by after dark.
Sewing machineA simple machine to make and mend, and earn.
Reusable padSo a period never means missing school.
The insight
They asked for a sewing machine. They needed a sanitary pad.
At first, communities told us a sewing machine would help most. It took deeper, quieter conversations with girls to hear the real need, the one nobody says out loud.
What I learned
Ask, then ask again.What people ask for first is not always what they need. The truth comes in the second and third conversation.
Prototype where it will live.A stove that works in a studio can fail in a kitchen. Test in the real place, with the real people.
Design for dignity.The most valuable idea was the quietest one. Some needs only surface when girls feel safe enough to say them.
Next project
Ni Nyampinga →