Lisa Gustinelli

Three eighth grade students in South Florida used design thinking to build a philanthropy with the goal of closing the digital divide in a rural farming area of their community

The class was intended to be an elective, a two day a week offering for middle school students in order to leverage student agency as part of their course selection. 

I was first exposed to the idea of design thinking through involvement in the IB world back in 2011 as part of their MYP course requirements. This way of teaching and learning (which actually dates back to the 1960’s as an engineering method) is now all the rage, and a popular new tool for educators as it has been revived by Stanford’s “d.school” in order to encourage individuals to create and innovate. At the basis of this creation is a methodical process that is based on solving a problem that will satisfy the needs of an end user. In short, the method has five steps

• Empathize

• Define (a problem)

• Ideate

• Prototype

• Test

Studen...

What is it really like here? I’ll try to put it into words, minus the smells and sounds that can only be experienced by a visit to this beautiful island.Home here is a bungalow room at our very touristic hotel, Chez Maggie. Morandava is located on the coast and provides easy access to ecological parks and rainforests as well as some of the most beautiful rivers and Baobab forests in the country. Europeans come to spend a night or two on their way to their Madagascar adventure destination. Luckily, I was able to barter with the owner and secure the room for almost nothing for our two and a half week stay.As soon as we pull out of the hotel every morning, we are immersed in Malagasy culture and lifestyle. Mohabo, where we are working the first week, is in a very remote area an hour away from Morandava. The road on our way passes though downtown Morandava, which is crowded with men, women and children either walking or traveling by “pousse pousse” to the market. The market is a conglomera...

This is a picture of the ariary note. This is a nice clean beautiful one. Most of the bills are quite used, covered with the dirt and dust of the earth from Tulear. They’re torn and tattered, moist and oily from exchange among the Malagasy. I had to stop and think about the fact that that our dollar bills are retired after a certain time, new ones made. The Malagasy are so poor they don’t even have the money to reprint their currency. 

10,000 ariary is roughly $5.00 (actually a little less). It is the largest bill. $25.00 is the equivalent of $50,000 ariary. Imagine that if something costs $25.00 (such as a night in a hotel), one must give five 10,000 ariary bills. If it’s several nights in a hotel.....100,000 ariary-  ten ariary bills. Imagine paying for everything in cash with only $5.00 as your largest bill!

This is not a lesson in economics, but I’m trying to convey just how poor the people here are. Many people inquired about attending the camp but not all could afford it. Believe m...

he expression “ It’s all relative” kept coming to mind as we left Toliara to go to Sakaraha to teach about 22 students last week. Sakaraha is a two-hour drive to the north and east of Toliara. Toliara is poor, Sakaraha is dirt poor. Dirt poor, hmmmm, I’ve heard this common American expression before, and have read about the debate of it’s origins. Most say it was coined during the American Depression when some people were so poor that the floor of their home was simply dirt.

Is there an expression for even being poorer than dirt poor? Poorer than poor doesn’t work. It’s too “rich”. Abject poverty doesn’t work either, it just seems too politically correct. It neatly brings to mind some beautiful National Geographic pictures taken in developing nations of little children running and smiling.

In Sakaraha, the children are running and smiling, but the living conditions? Quite simply put, they simply live in survival conditions. Makeshift homes made of bamboo shoots and mud, outdoor rece...

Patsy and Todd have been such wonderful hosts. They’ve lived here in Tulear, in Africa for many years. Because of them, we have been able to do the work we have done. They have inserted us into a community of Malagasy who have afforded us immediate trust because of the longstanding relationship they have with them. 

Patsy invited us to their English church service which was to be held at 5PM on Saturday evening. In this impoverished city, the church is a place where people can gather to pray in community. It is a place where everyone is equal in love and in hope. 

Patsy asked if I would speak at the service, I said yes, and almost immediately started feeling a little bit nervous about what I could possibly say to these Malagasy who come from a world so different from my own. A world without CNN on television (most don’t even have television or electricity ), computers, internet or any of the “creature comforts” that we take for granted every day. On top of that, "Who am I to speak in chu...

Today was a great day, but I had a hard talk with one of the students named Milson. Milson is 21. Since we only have the five computers and we were working in Paint, I offered for him to use Deb’s computer which has Paint installed. I sat him at our desk and pulled out Deb’s wireless mouse for him to use.

He looked at the wireless mouse in awe, gasped, then said “That’s another thing that a Malagasy could never do”. I asked what he meant. He explained that in his mind he knows that no Malagasy would ever be able to invent something so complex as a wireless mouse. I tried to explain to him how it was invented. That someone (or a team) invented it. That most likely they went to engineering school to learn how to invent it and that education is the way people learn to do things. He told me how as a Malagasy young boy he could never have the opportunity of education, so how could he invent anything? Johnson our translator walked over to the table. He said that there aren’t many universities...

Here I find myself again, another July at the Hotel Cheval Blanc.  It’s a year later, and this time I feel like I’m coming home. I’m so happy to have not given in to my pre-trip questioning such as; “Why do I make this long journey every year?”

 I have to be honest in saying that each year before I go, there is at least one moment in time when I say just that to myself along with… “Why am I doing this again?” , “Am I crazy?”,  “Madagascar is too far.”,  and “How will I get donations of computers once more?”

If you read past blogs you’ll see the angst I go through in preparation for this trip each year. It’s a mental and spiritual preparation as much as it is a practical one. I must bring my mind and my thoughts to a different place. To come here with a servant’s heart, I must leave all distractions behind. It looks easy, but takes an enormous amount of courage and faith to leave my home, my family and friends to do this work. It is the continued encouragement and support of tho...

Madagascar 2014

Here we are again; ready to embark on yet another adventure. This year I am happily traveling with my son Julien who has been enamored by everything Malagasy and is excited to discover the country and the people there. Julien just graduated from American University with a degree in International Affairs and has been nominated for the Peace Corps. This will be a great way for him to see and experience life in a developing nation.

Yesterday we got all of our shots, including: Typhoid, Hepatitis A and B and Tetanus, as well as Malarone pills to prevent malaria, and Cipro for, yep… an upset stomach.  I don’t reflect on the conditions there too often, but thinking about the possibility of contracting any of these diseases is certainly eye- opening.

This time I’ll be setting up lab programs in two very impoverished areas, Fort Dauphin on the southeast coast, and Sakaraha which is two hours northeast of Tulear.  Fort Dauphin seems to attract some tourists and will have a s...

It’s 5:48 am. We won’t get started until 9:00, but I cannot sleep for another minute. The rooster we met yesterday won’t have it. He’s been up since five am shouting his desires to the world. I have also spent most of the night shivering from the cold. It’s winter here in the African desert plain, very warm (even hot) during the day, but quite chilly at night. I was only given a small sheet to sleep with, and my sweater was not enough to give me comfort. This was a slight inconvenience; nothing compared to the hard life lived outside the windows of my hotel room. The first night in Tana (Antananarivo) was the coldest. Tana is situated at a high elevation and although it is in central Madagascar, it’s one of the coldest regions of the country.  Bear in mind, when I say cold, I mean low fifties at night (after all this is Africa), but there is no such thing as heating or air conditioning here. The few buildings here, such as hotels,  are not built with any kind of insulation. As I lay i...