Community Centers

Our community centers for urban slums serve as one-stop-shop platforms for essential services.

The Problem

Essential services for slumdwellers are deeply fragmented and difficult to access.

A Solution

Community center platforms that pull together a baseline of essential services in a one-stop-shop.

The Impact

Access and quality of essential services increase and costs go down.

We launch the community centers with three essential components in mind.

01 — Place

We’re designing building solutions for the community centers that easily assemble within the slum yet can be moved if the community is demolished. Our first community center from 2006 was demolished. This set us on a path to use intentional design to bring dignity and to set new standards of quality in the environment we aim to provide for the community members. Our environment deeply matters. We design a multipurpose classroom environment that draws from recent education design advances.

02 — Programs

We quickly deploy an anchor programming package of early childhood education, after school programs, and employment training to get the ball rolling and build trust with the community. We then work with a consortium of strategic partners to bring in their additional services on top of the community center platform, creating a one-stop-shop for the slums. The community center becomes a living room for the entire community.

03 — People

We staff each community center with a few team members and begin to train community workers from the community themselves. We have a deep commitment to ongoing training of both our own teams and those from the communities who we work alongside. Our teams are part coordinators, part educators, part social workers.