The Burden on Children: The Cost of Insufficient Post-Conflict Services and Pathways Forward
Summary
Fleeing the horrors of war, only to find yourself trapped in a system of inadequate services there to aid your survival as a refugee, often leaves vulnerable women and children in a paradox of despair. For South Sudanese and Congolese refugees in Uganda's West Nile Region, this is a daily reality. This talk highlights the urgent need to redesign better support services in these camps and surrounding communities, challenging us as designers to advocate, through our practice, real change in a broken development sector.
Key Insights
-
•
Uganda hosts over 1.5 million refugees, 60% of whom are children, representing one of the largest child refugee crises globally.
-
•
The 70/30 land and resource allocation policy, though progressive on paper, creates tensions due to chronic underfunding and perceived inequities between refugees and host communities.
-
•
Redemptive design goes beyond human-centered and regenerative design by aiming to restore people, place, and time to their rightful future.
-
•
Starting research from a community’s desired future—‘from the future to the future’—helps guide sustainable, hopeful design interventions.
-
•
Social dynamics in refugee-host contexts often involve feelings of unfairness, justice, and dignity, complicated by external power systems like NGOs and government agencies controlling resources.
-
•
Historical tribal conflicts brought from places like South Sudan continue to affect cohesion within refugee settlements and must be mapped to inform design.
-
•
Facilitating hope is an active, structured process that includes embracing multiple knowledge systems and critical reflexivity about researcher positionality.
-
•
The A, B, C, D model structures engagement by exploring the past (A), envisioning the future (B), bridging stakeholders (C), and re-initiating conversations (D).
-
•
Engaging donors effectively requires personal dialogue and aligning their futures with those of communities served, often through informal settings like dinners.
-
•
Sustainable systemic change requires horizontal design approaches combined with top-down legislation to stabilize and scale redemptive solutions.
Notable Quotes
"Will you become an advocate for the world’s most vulnerable voices muffled and unheard in complex systems?"
"Uganda is Africa’s largest refugee host nation with over 1.5 million refugees, 60% of whom are children—yet this crisis is often invisible in media."
"Redemptive design means to buy back or restore something or someone to its rightful place."
"You begin research from the end—from the future to the future—asking communities to share their envisioned future first."
"The tensions between host and refugee communities are more than poor service design; they point to chronic systemic issues rooted in resource allocation and social justice."
"Hope is not passive. Hope is very proactive and requires facilitation that helps people dream despite their harsh realities."
"Knowing your positionality and having native speakers and culturally sensitive methods is vital for authentic data gathering."
"We had conversations with donors over dinners and asked about their vision for innovation and future impact—it’s about asking the right questions."
"There’s never really conflicting futures—everyone wants to take care of the most vulnerable children; you just have to find the bridge between visions."
"Our job as innovation managers is to build the playgrounds where people play—designing the built environment to complement policy and sustain future generations."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"At the turning point, the team realized they were in charge of their own process and got engaged."
Carl TurnerYou Can Do This: Understand and Solve Organizational Problems to Jumpstart a Dead Project
March 28, 2023
"With selfie pay, you take a picture, blink to prove it’s you alive, and authenticate in-app seamlessly and securely."
Karen PascoeDeveloping Experience Teams and Talent in the Enterprise
June 8, 2016
"Emojis and GIFs have become effective tools for remote teams to add expression and prevent miscommunication."
Jilanna WilsonDistributed Design Operations Management
October 23, 2019
"We have over 30 contracting teams spread across roughly 10 vendors all working on parts of the veteran experience landscape."
Shawna Hein Kevin HoffmanCreate a Cohesive Civic Design Practice Across Agency, Vendors, and Contracts
November 17, 2022
"The scoping of Canada’s COVID app protected people with new phones, but left vulnerable populations unserved."
Barb SpantonDoing Work That Matters: A Look Beyond The Idealistic Notion of 'Doing Meaningful Work'
June 10, 2022
"Michael became our farmer maintaining steady flow; Davis our forger bringing world-class UX; Dana our gardener cultivating quality work."
Briana ThomasThe Quiet Force: Uncovering Hidden Leadership in High-Impact Design Teams
September 24, 2024
"Therapists create space for clients to reflect and discover insights in a safe environment."
Gina MendoliaTherapists, Coaches, and Grandmas: Techniques for Service Design in Complex Systems
December 3, 2024
"If you press the exact same button today and tomorrow you get two different results, that’s non-deterministic UX."
Lija Hogan Milan Mijatovic Sam Proulx Louis RosenfeldThree Years Out: Perspectives on the Near-Term Future of User Research
March 15, 2024
"DPM loneliness and siloing happen because of wearing too many hats and inheriting mismatched responsibilities."
John Calhoun Rachel PosmanTwo Sides of the DesignOps Coin: Teams Ops and Product Ops
January 8, 2024