Dear Maria,

I, too,  was very inspired by your email!

All my experiences of the poorest of the poor countries where I have stayed
for a number of years now, confirm what you say: The Mother of all social
problems is the unequeal distribution of wealth. Poverty! Western designers
can surely be of help in addressing some of the most devastating
outcomes that rise  from poverty and help to make life a bit more bearable
in unbearable situations.  This, however, is dealing with consequences
rather than causes.

What Designers really should be doing but what I very rarely see them doing
is to join forces with the indigenous people to come up with good ideas for
income generation or for making businesses more profitable. The fact that
the majority of the people in our global village have to fight every day to
meet even the most basic human needs while the rest of us is having a never
ending consumption feast (with the kind assistance of Designers generating
ever new needs for us), is surely the most serious problem and biggest
challenge the human kindhas ever faced, resulting to a myriad of secondary
(social, political, environmental,humanitarian etc.) problems that we see on
TV news every night.

I agree with Carlos Peralta in that, ideally, profit should not be the only
motivator of any given activity because making money is often boring.
Unfortunately, poor people do not have much choice. Presumably they need
meaningful and satisfying ways to generate income, ways that would not be in
contradiction with their values or threaten their traditional lifestyles.
But they still do need to make profit as well.

From the poor people´s point of view, then,  market product sales might very
well be the top priority because getting cash - and quickly - for food or
hospital fees might be their most urgent human need and they are seldom in a
situation where it is possible to look beyond that. What is required from
the Western benefactor in this situation is exactly that: to look
beyond.Which, I guess, is what Victor Margolin means with the correct
"intervention techniques"! The poor hardly need more "interesting projects".
I would think they need good and sustainable ideas for product innovation,
market diversification, building of productive capacity etc. When the poor
get back to their feet economically, they will be able to solve their own
problems without having to ask help from organisations who seldom, as Maria
wrote, are there really to help.

Western Designers have played an important role in building the economical
well-being of the more fortunate part of our global village. They navigate
with ease in between culture and commerce. They can make people pay obscene
amounts of money of items like toiletbrushes or tooth pick holders because
they have the magic touch of making things, whatever things!, desirable.
Could they help the people in poor countries to achieve the same - but
without the price we have
ourselves paid for our consumer ridden lifestyles?

cheers from the South Pacific,

kati reijonen
P.O.box 1502
Port Vila
Vanuatu