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STORY
How Afghanistan’s U-Reporters are using Design Thinking to reach communities with life-saving information

Jalalabad, Afghanistan, 3 October 2022:

Design Thinking is a new way of solving problems. Increasingly popular, Design Thinking is about putting people at the centre of the process; it’s about empathizing with their needs and creating sustainable, tailor-made solutions. This approach can be used to address challenges that communities face – which is a core objective of U-Report.

 © UNICEF Afghanistan/ 2022/Salamatu Muhammed


By taking a human-centred approach to problem-solving, young people come up with solutions to community problems. For example, by walking in the shoes of a nursing mother who needs nutritional tips and guidelines for her infant; by considering how a teenage girl with no access to hygiene facilities will stay clean; by imagining how a boy who wants to find alternative educational learning platforms for his sisters will do that; or by thinking as parents looking for practical support during natural disasters, such as floods.


Wagma, a 20-year-old female U-Reporter, learned about this approach to solving problems for the first time in the workshop, and wondered how it could help her overcome diarrheal outbreaks for mothers in her community.


© UNICEF Afghanistan/ 2022/Salamatu Muhammed


This approach takes its users through a three-phase process: collaborative, innovative and acceleration.



The collaborative stage, also known as ideation, involves consultations between the designers and end users, which in this case are mothers, fathers, young boys and girls, and community health workers who want to access and share vital health information.

Before the ideation process began, the U-Reporters in Jalalabad shared that they were happy to join the Design Thinking workshop and even more excited to have their ideas undergo an iterative process for practical use in their community.


Excitingly kicking off this session, teams quickly formed and each one was assigned core responsibilities to note down every challenge they have seen families face on topics such as nutrition, education, hygiene, soft skills to boost employability, and natural hazards.

 © UNICEF Afghanistan/ 2022/Salamatu Muhammed


The team moved on to the next phase of this approach known as the innovative phase. They exchanged many solutions that connected to the challenges presented in the previous stage. For most people who use Design Thinking to solve problems, they often find stage two the most interesting part because it allows designers to wear their innovative hats. Khadijah, Naveeda, Assimullah and the rest of the U-Reporters who made up this design team agree!