Sunday Meeting Notes
Joelle Gamble
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Notes:
Attendance: Noor, Stephanie, Joelle, Konrad, Rob, Hsiu
RESEARCH RECAP
Rob-Over 46,000 NGOs in Nigeria---lots of opportunities to partner with folks on the ground
Magen-there is a Design-Thinking power point with us that will help us tackle our problem and develop a solution (will share it) It’s made by Design for America
Part of the model involves testing and implementation to measure impact. However, we won’t have time to get to those stages
When we are coming up with our solution we have to keep in mind that there is a need to measure the impact of the solution
What we are doing now is defining the problem and brainstorming the solutions
Get as many ideas out there as possible and tweak later. Don’t think about tweaking now
Konrad- Gave over view of background that his mother provided on the region/conflict. She works for the World Bank. (on google doc)
Stephanie- Wrote about the background and history in the states
Rob-We should look to universities as potential partners on the ground for our solution
Stephanie-DoS people say to think about unintended consequences of policies and ripple effects of proposed solutions
Noor-GMOUs: oil companies have created community structures—agreements between community members and provide resources
Listed some current capacity building initiatives---maybe our idea can stem from helping them with their projects in the region
Joelle-on doc
IDEAS?
Stephanie-we have no money or resources…what do we do?
-I can’t tell your voices apart, sorry: utilize the existing infrastructure on the ground
-Government corruption
-Positive deviation-HBR Idea-cast
-What ideas are out there? What is working? Can we combine existing programs to make more effective structures?
Be out of the box
-The most effective solution may be how to build better partnerships or leveraging existing resources
We may need to bring together new separate programs into a better one OR leveraging or improving upon existing resources
Hsiu- project that got extra soap and shampoo donated to needy communities
-What if we focused on project management training modules for youth?
Joelle-Which problems are we addressing?
Magen-How do we define community resilience?
-The only way we can have resilience is if we have a community that can organize and has access to resources.
Likes the project management idea
Magen-How wide spread is access to knowledge resources? What is the discrepancy in access to resources? Why does it exist?
-Leads into the question of ownership and who has ownership
needs to be community ownership so that members want to make this improvement
It is helpful to have someone on the ground to guide folks through a process but the best outcomes come from community ownership
Magen-emphasizing partnership with university as suggested by Robert
-What if we helped students in the Delta start their own design innovation studio?
-Possibly creating a module where smaller studios can be opened up in the area. May not be a design studio but rather a business studio or something more culturally relevant.
-Likes ideas but we have to remember that people do not know the same things we know
-Joelle: how can we help people better coordinate leading up to the 2015 election? How can we help existing initiatives and projects and structures build capacity?
-Whatever we design, we don’t want to be the starting of a revolution or riot. When you educate people, they will take what they want from it and it can get out of hand.
-What if we implemented a new source of media or new means of communication between groups and communities?
-Do we know which problems we’re addressing?
-Combining education and empowerment but recognizing that we aren’t trying to start a revolution
-We want to make sure that we aren’t offering a resource that people don’t want.
-We will have to look for places and communities that will be receptive to our solution because it is not taking away from their other life priorities
-Revolving funds are ways that we can support women’s empowering in the Delta
-Looking at Girl Scouts of America model
-Question: Is making the girl scouts idea creating new infrastructure?
No, infrastructure is more like rivers and dams
-Question: what are the effects of this idea on other organizations and initiatives
….Joelle left her computer for a second, sorry.
Next Steps:
-We only have one other meeting besides this one: June 2nd
-Could we do a check-in on Wednesday? If everyone came up with 3 ideas, we could bounce them off each other.
Wednesday check-in will be 9pm EDT
Everyone comes with 3 solutions
-If folks come up with ideas for community resilience and empowerment, send them to the group or bring them to the call.
-It’ll be interesting to look at other countries’ models as well.
UCLA Class of 2012 l International Development Studies Major l Political Science Minor
(909) 268-2870
Deputy Field Director | Roosevelt Institute Campus Network