Informal Groups
This is a page on informal groups, informal communities.
Seed content[edit]
Bosnia and Herzegovina[edit]
The United Nations Development Program in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNDP BiH) and Bit Alliance, an association of IT companies in the country, with the support of over 20 other partners, organized the covIDEJA2020 "ideathon" to involve the general public in solving a wide range of problems caused by this pandemic. Everyone with an idea could suggest solutions through two categories: Act now! or Re-imagine the future! The ideas could relate to problems in health, economy, community, education, (new) public services, new business models, environment, etc. Everyone was invited to participate, people of all ages, individually or in a team, informal groups, civil society organizations, representatives of the private sector, academia, and the media.
Source: AccLab Blog
The City Mind Lab was established in December 2018 as a voluntary, self-organized, multi-disciplinary group of professionals, residents of Sarajevo, who are the brainpower behind the Initiative. The City Mind Lab counts more than 120 members who meet informally to build connections, opportunities, and advise on next steps toward inclusive futures for Sarajevo.
Source: AccLab Blog
Ghana[edit]
Recycling is not an entirely new concept in Ghana. Some communities have always re-used items – including plastic bottles. Indeed, there is an informal community which goes from house to house collecting plastic waste, for free or for a fee. But can informal solutions cope with the volume of plastic waste being generated?
Source: AccLab Blog
This excerpt is also potentially relevant to: Informal Solutions
Pacific-Fiji[edit]
The increase of informal settlements [1] [2] and urban informality is a global phenomenon accompanying the growth of urban populations, with an estimated 25 percent of the world’s urban population living in informal settlements [3]. People living in informal settlements suffer spatial, social and economic exclusion from the benefits and opportunities that are available in the broader urban environment. Characterized by inadequate housing conditions, limited access to basic services, and high levels of poverty, informal communities are particularly vulnerable to the socioeconomic impact of COVID-19. Furthermore, many informal settlements are on the frontline in the battle against climate change as they are located in areas which are highly vulnerable to climate-related disasters, such as flooding and cyclones. Yet, these informal settlements are also warehouse of innovative ideas and concepts.
Source: AccLab Blog
This excerpt is also potentially relevant to: Informal Settlements
I devised my own customized blended method (described below) of problem-solving approach for the Solutions Safari on Fongafale, using concepts from the Ukraine AccLab Community Safari and the Solutions mapping tools that we were coached for in Quito, Ecuador during the onboarding Bootcamp. This approach was collaborative in nature, action-oriented, and integrally anthropological / ethnographic and was made possible by combining research related tools such as Participant Observation, Informal Community Engagement (refer Figures 2 and 3), and Semi-structured Interviews that I utilized previously as an academic with that of Solutions Mapping tools such as People Shadowing and Walk-about / Drive across Fongafale, commonly utilized by Solution Mappers in the Innovation space.A School Competition was an additional tool that I later introduced into the methodology to explore from the students - the future generations and leaders of Tuvalu, what they perceived about Climate Change and its impact on their nation. The following illustration provides a list of tools used to craft the blended methodology (refer Figure 4).This customized methodology helped elicit information relating to what we didn’t know previously about our frontier challenge and our ‘deep demonstration site’. It allowed us to triangulate data gathered, and the intel generated from it supported identifying possible entry points for future experimentation related to our frontier challenge.
Source: AccLab Blog
Our solutions exploration tour in many of the informal settlements illustrates the creativity of empowered communities in the face of disturbances such as COVID-19. As we walked through and immersed ourselves with the informal communities, we were reminded that ultimately, a more practical and sustainable solution in informal settlements would be to empower households to develop their own ingenious concepts and ideas and shape them into realistic and quantifiable plans. As development practitioners, we need to provide the right tools such as voice and stake in development that can put communities on track to implementing their own solutions.
Source: AccLab Blog
This excerpt is also potentially relevant to: Informal Settlements
Our tour with the community leaders and the locals revealed the formulation of new concepts and ideas by communities themselves for food and income security. We noted the development of new agricultural models and concepts as a response to address rising food insecurity in the informal communities of Fiji. During the tour, we also realized that some settlements stood out as outliers in the context of food security while others stood out in the context of income generation from recycled waste materials.
Source: AccLab Blog
For Vunato and Veidogo, we observed that a large proportion of households are engaged in recycling from a nearby dump site for income generation by sorting of PET bottles, metals, plastics, etc. and selling it to recycle centres, and repurposing of materials such as mannequins into scarecrows in their small farms, wooden pallets into building materials for houses, and flat irons and roofing materials for make shift shelters.Empowering the Local Informal Communities Our solutions exploration tour in many of the informal settlements illustrates the creativity of empowered communities in the face of disturbances such as COVID-19. As we walked through and immersed ourselves with the informal communities, we were reminded that ultimately, a more practical and sustainable solution in informal settlements would be to empower households to develop their own ingenious concepts and ideas and shape them into realistic and quantifiable plans. As development practitioners, we need to provide the right tools such as voice and stake in development that can put communities on track to implementing their own solutions.
Source: AccLab Blog