In my last entry, I  promised to offer a few thoughts about what it means to embed a culture of dignity in this cook stove project. I call dignity a culture because I hope that each piece of our work—from conceptualizing the product to getting it into the hands of women–reflects truly humanizing experiences for everyone involved, including ourselves.

Our stove gives women agency by making cooking the center of their activity. Not tending the fire, not gathering wood, but cooking. I think people find dignity in their work especially if they do it out of love for others. Women in Myanmar cook all day for their families. This can be an arduous task, or it can be an act of love. By making it as easy as possible to cook with our stove, we hope that we make the woman’s role less menial and more meaningful.

We firmly believe in creating a stove that can be sold at an affordable price to women, not given to them as an act of charity; I think there is dignity in being able to choose a quality product that you need, instead of being given one because someone else feels sorry about something you lack. We also plan to manufacture our stove to fit local expertise and ability because we believe that the work of improving each others’ lives is something that the community should be able to own.

I don’t claim to know everything about how to make this vision of a culture of dignity a reality; I’m still defining for myself what dignity is in relation to design. One day, I hope to even be able to measure it. For now, we’ve made a commitment to hearing what our customers are saying at all costs, because we believe it humanizes our product. I believe that creating a culture of dignity is the biggest impact we can make, and hope to continue to work towards it.

I believe that everyone deserves dignity.

Having dignity is empowering; it compels people to act, change, and even inspire others. Why? Because I believe this how humans were made to be. The designer’s challenge is to create products, services, experiences that create a culture of dignity through their use. Good design makes people feel like they count, and that their needs and fears are meaningful. It changes the way they see themselves—and the way they see others.

If all this sounds rather abstract and idealistic, it is. I wrestle with how to embed my designs with a sense of dignity all the time. One thing I do know: having a deep understanding of my customers and their needs is the only way to create systems that really promote a sense of dignity.

I am challenged by this (albeit strongly-worded) quote from Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed:

“The oppressor is solidary with the oppressed only when he stops regarding the oppressed as an abstract category and sees them as persons who have been unjustly dealt with, deprived of their voice, cheated in the sale of their labor– when he stops making pious, sentimental, and individualistic gestures and risks an act of love… To affirm that men and women are persons and as persons should be free, and yet do nothing tangible to make this affirmation a reality, is a farce”.

How can our stove create a culture of dignity for all the people it touches? In my next post, I’ll talk a little more about this.

Recently at the Cool Product Expo, we got a lot of great questions from people.  As I was explaining our goals for the project, one man asked me, “what do you mean by sustainable?”  What a great question!

Our goal from the start has been to create a cook stove that can be completely sustained within a local market.  One aspect of this is economic sustainability.  From the start, our cook stove has been designed to be as cheap as possible.  It needs to be a product that families living on $1-$2 a day can afford and one that saves them money over time.  (Current prototypes currently “pay for themselves” in about 3 months and are priced below what most potential customers say they would pay.)

But, even if it makes sense economically, our cook stove needs to be something that people want to buy and are willing to assume the risk on.  It’s surprising to some people, but marketing plays a big role even in the developing world.  This is especially true of anything that’s perceived as a risk or an “unknown”.

Sustainable also means being manufacturable using local (or easily importable) materials, tools, and know-how.  Shipping costs are of course a concern, but helping build local industry and entrepreneurship know-how is equally important.  It also fits nicely into our design philosophy of building prototypes, getting them into the hands of users, getting real feedback, and doing it often.

Sustainability is at the heart of what we’re trying to do.