Another grant awarded to KOMITU

KOMITU team is happy to announce that another grant was awarded for the youth center project! The Alfred Kordelin Foundation has decided to support "--the design and building process of a youth center of functionally and architecturally high-quality for CVS organization in Phnom Penh Cambodia."

Thank you Alfred Kordelin Foundation!

KOMITU receives its first grant

KOMITU was awarded with a grant from Viljo Revell fund by The Finnish Association of Architects. The grant was directed to travelling expenses to Phnom Penh. Three members of the KOMITU team will travel back to Cambodia in December to continue the design process in close collaboration with CVS and the Cambodian youth.

Thank you Revell fund and SAFA!

Unicef Innovation Unit

Last thursday 30.9.2010 Inari Virkkala from KOMITU attended a lecture by the manager of the UNICEF innovation Christopher Fabian organised by voluntary group Aalto Social Impact. As Unicef is a huge organisation it was very lightening to hear how you can work fast, effectively and in a innovative way within "the world's largest purchaser of pencils".

Here are some highlights of the lecture

• Unicef has a concept of "School in the box" a travelling school for 40 children that fits into a suitcase to carry with as airplain luggage. They try to get the schools up and running on emergency areas within two weeks after a disaster - eg. earthquake, flooding or a tornado - has striken for four main reasons: to give people hope, to slowly start getting back to normal life routines, have a safe place for children to be during days to give their parents more time and to have a place for meetings and gatherings.

• Their rapid SMS system has helped to be able to provide emergency food to the right locations. In an emergency situation they might have enough food in the country but no knowledge on where the hunger is worst and how to transport the supplies.

• Concept of "Failure Fridays". Every friday the innovation unit (8 people in NY, 3 people in Uganda) sit down for a coffee break to discuss previous failures and ideas that did not work in the end. This helps them to deliberate used tactics and learn from the mistakes made.

More info on the Unicef Innovation can be found on

http://unicefstories.wordpress.com/