why i do it

From the beginning, I’ve always had a natural leaning towards wanting to help people whether it’s a temporary help (that’s only going to affect that one day) or going to assist their lives for a lifetime. Working on these blogs I’ve realized that there are so many creative and more exciting ways to reach out to those people who are less fortunate. In order to design a great product for people, the designer obviously needs to collect information and data about that specific target group. Collecting this information always brought me closer to people and opened my eyes to their lives… then emotionally swallows me up.
There are so many problems in this world today that it wouldn’t be tough to choose one problem to make my objective. When I am able to have the right means of executing my plan… whatever that may be… I know that problem would lead to another which will open my eyes to a whole other world that is out of my comfort zone. I am hoping that it happens sooner than later so I can take what I have learned here at RISD and apply it to whatever I am doing and knowledge will hopefully stay fresh in my mind.
Travelling out of the states and going on mission trips with my church in the past, I have seen so many trials and tribulations people face on a daily basis but have learned to deal with. Things that we wouldn’t know about unless we tried to live like them for a week or so. It’s such a humbling experience being in that area… even if we didn’t spend every hour living like them it was tough so I can’t even imagine what it would be like to be them. But in order to design something specific for a group of people, I would think that one would have to live with them and try to understand to the best of one’s ability.
Reading on the internet for the blog, I came across many problems… one being the lack of water or having access to a water pump or having a place to cook food. What they need is simply necessities/essentials for living.
I would love to try and help them through design whether it’s a water container that doesn’t later turn into a carcinogenic product or a shoe that lasts longer than the rubber clogs that they wear if they have any shoe at all. These are the things that I focused on in my blog. Because designers design for people, I feel that we are the connecting piece for those who need our help and for those who don’t know how to help. It’s important that we keep all these people in mind and make a product that is universally understood.
“Two and half billion people are still without access to improved sanitation – including 1.2 billion who have no facilities at all and are forced to engage in the hazardous and demeaning practise of open defecation. The news is better for water: the number of people without an improved source has dropped below one billion for the first time in history.” –unicef