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!
28 October 2010
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!
Thank you Revell fund and SAFA!
02 October 2010
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
http://unicefstories.wordpress.com/
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.
http://unicefstories.wordpress.com/
13 September 2010
Painting a bamboo forest to a fence of a construction site
Jay!! Komitu's first realized project!
When there is no snow in Helsinki, there are construction sites everywhere. Wherever you go you will run into these dusty, grey, noisy sites and the untidy, depressing fences around them. Therefore we were excited when we heard about Multicoloured Dreams.
"Multicoloured Dreams is a voice for developing creative visual culture in public space, but not illegally and by damaging property", it says on their website. The idea is to give anyone, who is willing, an opportunity to design and realize a legal street art piece to a construction site wall.
Our painting brought a slice of bamboo forest into the centre of Helsinki. It added some color and sunshine to the cityscape and it also worked as a prototype for the painted facade of the youth centre. There will be one facade in the youth center which the youth can paint themselves and it can be an evolving process. With the Multicolored Dreams project we were able to practice the participatory painting process by involving the people passing by. All the feedback we got was great and surely we managed to bring some smiles to the streets of Helsinki - at least our own ones. ;)
Many thanks for all of you who participated!
See all the paintings and more info about Multicoloured Dreams here http://mcdreams.wordpress.com/
See all the paintings and more info about Multicoloured Dreams here http://mcdreams.wordpress.com/
03 September 2010
Carin Smuts workshop at Habitare fair
I will write this post in English, as all my notes from the workshop are in English and I do believe these methods will be very useful for us with the KOMITU project in Cambodia.
On thursday 2.9.2010 two KOMITU members, Inari and Maiju, had a very exclusive opportunity to attend a workshop on participative design methods run by architect Carin Smuts from South-Africa. Among with only two other participants we had a fruitful two-hour discussion with Caren. Below are some methods she has used in her work with different communities.
1. Get everybody to introduce themeselves, who they are, what they do, and also to name an animal that they see themselves to be (usually this animal really represents the person quite correctly).
2.Ask the attending people why are they there. This way you''ll find out who is already committed to the project and who you especially have to work with.
7. Helicopter excercise. Ask people to draw a bird's eye view of what the site will look like in 10 years. "If you would fly above the site on a helicopter, how would it look like?"
8. Draw networks. Ask people to draw all the people, organisations, municipalities etc. related to the project. Good relationships with a straight line and complicated ones with a curvy one.
9. Draw resources. Ask people to draw all the resources that could benefit the project.
Now go trough the drawings with the people, try to get different group memebers to explain so it's not only one person talking all the time. Fill in the information the people tell you "Can you write/draw this too or Can I fill it in for you?"
On thursday 2.9.2010 two KOMITU members, Inari and Maiju, had a very exclusive opportunity to attend a workshop on participative design methods run by architect Carin Smuts from South-Africa. Among with only two other participants we had a fruitful two-hour discussion with Caren. Below are some methods she has used in her work with different communities.
First of all, how to get the people to participate? You will need to set up
A community meeting/gathering/workshop
where you will invite the people from the community/ future user group.
A community meeting/gathering/workshop
where you will invite the people from the community/ future user group.
You are advised to use creativity in the forms of getting the people to come, you can for example drive around with a megaphone. It's also a good idea to offer the people something fun at first; theater, bands, football, games, circus etc. Other ways of gathering information from the people include e.g. household interviews which are very practical especially if the people are illiterate.
When you have gathered a group of people, how to run a workshop successfully?
Most of the time you will be working with people who come from a completely different culture from your own. It is important to try to learn as much as possible about the culture you're working in. This way you will also know e.g. how to dress correctly, and communication will go smoother. If you need to use an interpreter do so but keep in mind that the message you're getting might be different from the original one. It is always usefull to learn at least a little bit of the language of the the people you're working with.
Work towards an attitude of equality, you are neither superior nor inferior to the people you're working with.
STAGE 1 - Getting started
1. Get everybody to introduce themeselves, who they are, what they do, and also to name an animal that they see themselves to be (usually this animal really represents the person quite correctly).
2.Ask the attending people why are they there. This way you''ll find out who is already committed to the project and who you especially have to work with.
3. Setting the right mood for interaction. The people you are working with might be living in very hard reality so it is a good idea to first do something to lift the spirits of the group up. You can for example show the people beautiful and interesting pictures of something inspiring and somehow linked to the theme. This stage will prepare them to give the situation a chance.
4. Games will help in the beginning to set the mood and break the ice. Carin introduced a ´please, climb through this piece of paper ´excercise where you literally ask the people to climb through a 1/2 of an A4 sheet. Sounds impossible at first, just as the project you're trying to realize, but can be done (with some tricks you need to learn) and shows that nothing really is impossible!
5. Before the actual tasks of the workshop you should set up working groups. If people have clearly formed groups that might be opposing each other, get them to form a row of birthdays without talking. Then divide the row by 5 or 6 and you'll get mixed working groups. Groups of seven are already too big for working.
STAGE 2 - Then comes the part where you actually gather information from the community.
6. Identify the project.
7. Helicopter excercise. Ask people to draw a bird's eye view of what the site will look like in 10 years. "If you would fly above the site on a helicopter, how would it look like?"
8. Draw networks. Ask people to draw all the people, organisations, municipalities etc. related to the project. Good relationships with a straight line and complicated ones with a curvy one.
9. Draw resources. Ask people to draw all the resources that could benefit the project.
Now go trough the drawings with the people, try to get different group memebers to explain so it's not only one person talking all the time. Fill in the information the people tell you "Can you write/draw this too or Can I fill it in for you?"
STAGE 3 Then with the information the community has given you
10.Make a strategic plan. What will happen time-wise in 6 months? What has been accomplished in a year? Make a time-plan.
11. Make a real business plan of the project.
10.Make a strategic plan. What will happen time-wise in 6 months? What has been accomplished in a year? Make a time-plan.
11. Make a real business plan of the project.
General goals to keep in mind:
Empowerment. Make your customers so strong that they can really have a dialogue with you and the funders, and later on take care of their own building.
How are the gender roles in the current society and culture? What kind of events are ok for both sexes to attend? For example a lecture or film about bambu could be enough neutral.
Time-management. If a meeting is supposed to start at 18, start sharply and close the doors after you start.
Drawing. In societies where people are often illeterate, they can always draw. If you don't have paper, draw to the sand. You can't lie in pictures and drawings. Ask for example the children to draw their dreams and you'll get to see and understand the related emotions. Drawing big is also a means of empowering. Draw so big that everyone in the meeting can follow your presentation.
What do the stakeholders really need and want in their community? Listen to the cleaner and the cook, they might know a buildings functions better than the official spokesperson. Funders can also be bullies. Security and cleaning are often fundamental in the success of a project.
Secure the land. According to internetional law you should either have a lease or an "entitled deed(?)" Never, ever build anything if the land is not secured!
Total accountability. Always if you pay someone a salary, get then to sign that they have recieved it. Keep alist of everybody involved, also for the funder to see. Have a community liaison officer that you pay a regular salary. He/she can save you a lot of time by finding the right people, workers, materials, officials etc.
Nabeel Hamdie (Oxford Brookes University) has written a good book about participatory excercises.
Empowerment. Make your customers so strong that they can really have a dialogue with you and the funders, and later on take care of their own building.
How are the gender roles in the current society and culture? What kind of events are ok for both sexes to attend? For example a lecture or film about bambu could be enough neutral.
Time-management. If a meeting is supposed to start at 18, start sharply and close the doors after you start.
Drawing. In societies where people are often illeterate, they can always draw. If you don't have paper, draw to the sand. You can't lie in pictures and drawings. Ask for example the children to draw their dreams and you'll get to see and understand the related emotions. Drawing big is also a means of empowering. Draw so big that everyone in the meeting can follow your presentation.
What do the stakeholders really need and want in their community? Listen to the cleaner and the cook, they might know a buildings functions better than the official spokesperson. Funders can also be bullies. Security and cleaning are often fundamental in the success of a project.
Secure the land. According to internetional law you should either have a lease or an "entitled deed(?)" Never, ever build anything if the land is not secured!
Total accountability. Always if you pay someone a salary, get then to sign that they have recieved it. Keep alist of everybody involved, also for the funder to see. Have a community liaison officer that you pay a regular salary. He/she can save you a lot of time by finding the right people, workers, materials, officials etc.
Nabeel Hamdie (Oxford Brookes University) has written a good book about participatory excercises.
26 August 2010
Kesällä 2010 perustetun KOMITU työryhmän, Noora Aaltonen, Sisko Hovila, Tuuli Kassi, Maiju Suomi, Elina Tenho ja Inari Virkkala tavoitteena on nuorisokeskuksen toteuttaminen Phnom Penhiin, Kambodzaan CVS (Cambodian Volunteers for Society) järjestölle.
Cambodian Volunteers for Society järjestön tavoitteena on tarjota paikallisille nuorille mahdollisuuksia opiskella ja kouluttautua ja täten toimia tulevaisuudessa Kambodzan yhteiskunnan hyväksi.
Tietoa aiemmasta projektistamme Kambodzassa löytyy sivulta http://www.urbanmurmur.blogspot.com/ sekä täältä voit lukea yhdyskuntasuunnittelun City in Crisis-kurssilla tekemäämme Cambodia2009-kirjaa.
Cambodian Volunteers for Society järjestön tavoitteena on tarjota paikallisille nuorille mahdollisuuksia opiskella ja kouluttautua ja täten toimia tulevaisuudessa Kambodzan yhteiskunnan hyväksi.
Tietoa aiemmasta projektistamme Kambodzassa löytyy sivulta http://www.urbanmurmur.blogspot.com/ sekä täältä voit lukea yhdyskuntasuunnittelun City in Crisis-kurssilla tekemäämme Cambodia2009-kirjaa.
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