MPOPHOMENI
DESIGN THINKING
A number of community members recently collaborated to imagine ways to improve life in Mpophomeni. Top ideas emerged from this workshop and are now being taken through to the Innovation Prototyping phase.
Workshop
The goal of the initial Design Thinking workshop was to uncover new opportunities that might empower Mpophomeni to co-create new opportunities, whilst also enabling social and environmental sustainability.
IMAGINING FUTURES
NEEDS IDENTIFIED
Outcomes
The teams created maps of Mpophomeni that captured new ideas and the potential linkages between them. The following core, interrelated themes emerged:
- Unity within the community
- Development of improved connectivity infrastructure – i.e. wifi
- Turning dumps and vacant land into gardens
- Development of secondary products (e.g. pasteurised milk for sale to market, as well as unpasteurised milk to sell locally)
- Upskilling
- Looking for common ground to grow the community
- Community access to leadership (politicians)
- Leading and inspiring by example
- Creating jobs – e.g. vegetables, hairdressing
CHALLENGE TO BIOLOGY
- How can we mitigate environmental degradation associated with monoculture timber forests?
- How can some community members access knowledge that is not locally available, for the collective benefit of the Mpophomeni Community?
- How can the Mpophomeni community benefit from their water resource endowment?
- How can we mitigate the solid waste challenge in Mpophomeni?
- How can we create unity within the Mpophomeni community?
- How can the Mpophomeni community optimize benefits from local economic activities?
- How can species that are endemic to Mpophomeni inspire innovation?
COLLABORATE
Are you interested in collaborating?
Get in touch, we would love to hear from you.
