A human-centered approach to design for development

Designers from California and development professionals from Tanzania wore T-shirts reading “Kuwa Mjanja,” Swahili for “be smart,” as they presented a movement that starts with girls at menses and continues with them to marriage. They pointed to their Kuwa Mjanja pads, condoms, and birth control packs, and screened a video of their conversations on the streets with the people at the center of the project design: the girls themselves.

 “A conversation outlives a product. It outlives an intervention. It outlives all of us,” said Rena Greifinger, who focuses on youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health services, in her Kuwa Mjanja shirt.

This “design immersion,” hosted by Population Services International in Dar es Salaam, focused on the question: “How might we inspire medical professionals to be more willing, even excited, to provide contraceptive services to unmarried girls?”