Haiti
Nicaragua
It all started with a distinctly human capability: empathy. The ability to understand the people you are trying to help, to be able to feel their feelings, and to be able to see the world through their eyes. As a pioneer design thinking project of The Humanos Institute, we visited 32 families in their homes. We talked and, more importantly, we listened. Working in the context of microfinance, we focused on the behaviours and attitudes concerning financial activities at home, at work, and with financial institutions.
Goal
To immerse ourselves in the community, to understand their hopes and dreams and fears, and to co-create a solution with them that ushers them into a new era of financial inclusion.
Challenge
How might we develop a financial inclusion program that benefits the community as a whole?
Solution
The Centro Comunitario del Naranjo will be a purpose built structure where people can benefit from a trade school, the financial literacy training, and the co-operative bank.
Canada
ECHO is a community-based research project aimed at designing, testing and evaluating solutions to build confidence in the COVID-19 vaccine for children and youth and reduce vaccine-related tensions in schools in neighborhoods of Montreal. The ECHO and Humanos teams include community researchers, academic researchers, design experts and community partners.
Goal
Eradicate vaccination hesitancy for children and young people. ECHO teams are trained to apply a human-centered design approach.
Challenge
There are significant knowledge gaps on how to improve confidence in COVID-19 vaccines and address inequities in vaccination, both of which are important for reducing transmission and fully resuming social and economic functions.
Solution
It involves learning and developing empathy, being creative, and taking risks to find innovative solutions, using an iterative process to test and refine solutions. Work in progress...
United Kingdom
The London Declaration for Refugee Entrepreneurs is a shared statement of ambition to expand business support services to 50% of London’s refugee entrepreneurs by 2025. In partnership with The Entrepreneurial Refugee Network (TERN) we had the opportunity to help young refugee entrepreneurs lay out their journey ahead, sharing tools and best practices to design their businesses.
Canada
Humanos, along with volunteers from The Junto Society and SAP Canada embarked on a Design Thinking project to identify the most acute problem to be solved for Syrian refugees during their integration phase. In the prelimanry phase we observed that finding employment and a sense of belonging were the most pressing problems that needed to be addressed. Therefore, the project has been named “I am Montrealer” and will focus on accelerating the integration process from refugee to Canadian.
Goal
Enable and empower new immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers to realize their dreams and build a fulfilling new life in the destination country.
Challenge
How might we develop an all inclusion program that benefits newcomers as a whole? Building a new life, brick by brick…
Solution
Apply Design Thinking principles to design a new life path through group mentorship program, facilitated workshops and expert led circles
Canada
