THE CHALLENGE

The Airbel Center of the International Rescue Committee brought us in to help them with a really tough challenge. In the first year of a crisis the majority of refugee children stay out of school; together we asked- how might we cover that gap in kids education with products that are easy to set up, safe to use, adaptable to different cultural settings and most importantly engaging?

THE BIG IDEA

A modular toolkit designed around existing educational products.

THE DESIGN PROCESS

In a five-week sprint of rapid prototyping we hit the ground running with a research phase that included working alongside internal stakeholders and field experts to better understand the challenges facing refugee children in the first year of a crisis. We used existing data to craft user stories and took for a test-drive a ton of educational products that already exist in the market. We looked at products that were both playful and easy to implement even in a low fi environment. The accelerated timeline necessitated a fascinating flip of how we typically run our design projects. Instead of developing unique product solutions we leaned on existing solutions that were already tested and could be rapidly implemented in a crisis zone. In addition we tapped into existing grassroots communities to design a network of supporting programs.  

THE outcome

By the end of the project, the humans who play team had created a well-defined strategy brief that outlined the elements of a modular toolkit of products and programs, that could be used as the foundation for a major campaign.