- by Cindy Ranchon
- July 18, 2022
How might we eradicate urban poverty?
Co-Creation Lab facilitated a 4-month design thinking challenge promoted by Polifonia, Creative Leadership School, endorsed by CUFA (Central Unit of the Favelas), and sponsored by the State Secretary of Human Rights. The project took professionals from different backgrounds, social classes & neighborhoods on a journey to tackle the complex problem of poverty in the city of São Paulo, Brazil.
Walk a mile in their shoes
The process started with the definition of 2 distinct personas: homeless people living in the streets of the city and people living in underprivileged communities of the suburbs.
We then enabled the participants to immerse themselves into the users’ environments, with the help of local organizations such as Pimp my carroça, Meninos da Billings, or Guardiões Griô. Going on the field in order to get some tangible observations and collect interviews allowed stakeholders to get a better understanding of the challenge to raise. In a nutshell ‘walk in the shoes’ of real people impacted by poverty to design a solution.
Co-create to walk further
The participants consolidated their research, worked on uncovering insights and user needs, and reframed the problems they were working on. We then organised a co-creation session in the heart of Paraisopolis, one of the largest favelas in São Paulo, that would mix them with local residents, direct target beneficiaries of the solutions developed.
The concepts created in Paraisopolis were later polished and turned into prototypes. These were tested on our beneficiaries, to leverage actionable feedback, iterate and optimize the concepts by focusing on their users.
MVPs (Minimum Viable Products) were handed over to the state sponsor and partner to be integrated into tangible initiatives.
