Hi Amelia,

Firstly, this is a really exciting project! It’s clear that your careful, ground-up approach – investing in people’s long-term autonomy and doing so by using facilitators from the community itself – is making a huge difference in what we at KDI know to be one of the most challenging settings in the world. We really hope you get to the next phase!

In part, we were so excited to read about the Somo Project because your work overlaps so significantly with ours. KDI is a design and community development nonprofit, also working in Kibera – we’ve collaborated with residents to co-design and build a growing network of 8 public spaces that improve the environment and provide basic amenities while growing community capacity and cohesion through cultural programs and economic initiatives. You can read about it here: https://challenges.openideo.com/challenge/bridgebuilder2/ideas/productive-public-space-a-community-driven-design-solution-for-peace-planet-and-prosperity

We feel there’s a real possibility of a mutually beneficial relationship here, given KDI’s existing physical spaces and networks, and your entrepreneurship expertise and networks. Please get in touch with us at mail@kounkuey.org – we would absolutely love to chat and meet your team in Nairobi!

All the best,

The KDI team

Thank you for your kind comments Asel! It is true that a group can dream up and do so much more than one person alone.

Hi Heath,

Thanks so much for all your clarifications. So exciting! We're replying to your email too.
To answer your question, "Community outreach" is a term we use to describe how we "reach out" to local members of the community for a particular reason/goal, whether it's inviting them to come to a workshop like yours; understanding the challenges and needs in a neighborhood; or asking people to sign a petition or take some other action. It usually happens at the beginning of our projects and in the streets or other public areas with high foot traffic, so we can reach lots of people. We begin all our PPS projects with community outreach/research so we have a solid basis of knowledge from which to co-design a useful public space.

More widely, "Community engagement" means any method by which you work with the community toward a certain goal. Our community engagement strategies include outreach (described above) but also meetings, workshops, focus groups, etc. Our PPS model is based on "community-engaged design", which means the design of a PPS and accompanying programs happens through an in-depth series of community engagements. It's a bit like Our Workshop but often more structured due to the technical nature of a PPS project.

Does that clear things up? We'd be interested to hear other people's thoughts on these two terms.