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.

In my last post, I talked about how introducing new technology to developing countries is often not enough, regardless of how great it is. There are many cook stove technologies being developed, but how many, really, have made a significant impact? How many have been embraced by women as the norm, and not as something foisted on them by an aid agency? I think that seeking to understand culture and how it changes over time is what differentiates our cook stove project from many others that have gone before it.

Culture explains why we chose some of the paths we took, such as deciding to make a wood-burning stove rather than choosing “greener” (or even free) sources of heat. It explains how low the stove is because the women we designed it for are used to squatting on the ground, and how wide the opening for the firebox is because they like to regulate the strength of the flame by the amount of wood they add to the fire.

Unexpectedly, culture also explained why women were so excited that the box design of the stove and the flame it produced made it look just like a gas stove; our design made them feel rich.

Don’t get me wrong, having a robust technology is still important to us. We’ve made some improvements to existing stove designs to minimize fuel consumption and to protect women from the heat of the fire because we know those are important considerations for them as well. But besides implementing the technology well, we hope to create a product that provides meaning in our customers’ lives. We’re creating a stove that enhances their culture, not rejecting it as “primitive” or “backward”, which some stove projects have a tendency to convey.

And yes, culture does change. People in this country didn’t use microwave ovens from day one—that technology had to be introduced. Perhaps there was a large resistance to change then, with women complaining that using a microwave wasn’t “real” cooking. As a team, we’re not averse to introducing new technologies as long as it seems to fit with where the culture of cooking is going. In fact, enclosing an open flame is still a pretty revolutionary idea in some parts of the world. And the microwave, though it was a radical departure from the cooking technologies before it, was part of a greater shift towards time-saving devices and a growing culture of convenience; it still made sense.

For me, the most satisfying compliment about our stove is not, “wow, it saves THAT much wood?!” It is in the stories we hear back from our partners saying that the stove has a prominent place in the home, is considered a pet by the women, and has become the focus of the family’s conversation at the dinner table. That’s when I know we have a shot at lasting impact.