Creative Hub
This video documents the work of three MIT D-Lab: Development students, Amelia Seabold (‘21), Anna Johnson (‘22), Meghana Vemulapalli (‘22), their trip leader Leonie Marinovich, Thabiso Blak Mashaba of These Hands, GSSE, and the community of Tsodilo, Botswana during a Creative Capacity Building workshop in January 2020.
Together, they created five solutions to five problems community members were facing in their daily lives. Projects included:
- An easy-to-use plow that had an additional wheel in order to increase stability, as plowing is an important and time-consuming part of community members’ lives.
- An alternative energy source - charcoal briquettes made from agricultural waste - because community members want to avoid deforestation but need wood for cooking fires. Now, community members have a product to sell to tourists who are no longer allowed to cut down trees in the campsite.
- An elephant repellent project because elephants eat farmers’ crops and destroy sewage fixtures trying to drink water.
- A brick press, because people are trying to build houses and the current press, is not ergonomic.
- An oven because the community members want bread but it is only available through one organization.
Contact
Libby Hsu, MIT D-Lab Lecturer and Academic Program Manager