The Solutions Spectrum
It’s 7 pm on Thursday, September 24, and the Solutions Mapping WhatsApp group is buzzing with reflections, photos, emojis, and mappers from around the world cheering each other on -a typical kind of conversation for this group. Alongside our formal channels, WhatsApp is our safe haven for critical questions, ideas, and sometimes even venting.
That evening, there’s a special webinar that includes, Gina Lucarelli, Team Leader of the Accelerator Lab Network, Anil Gupta of the Honeybee Network, and some of our very own Solution Mappers. As this webinar streams live, the group is alive with virtual chit chat. At 10:57 pm, Amina Omicevic from Bosnia and Herzegovina jumps in with a reflection, “...local solutions are often focused on answering a specific individual or community need that needs immediate attention. And that every narrow focus sometimes leaves the broader range of issues hanging out…and reach for sometimes harmful instant solutions.”
I’m immediately drawn to this thought.
“I’ve been thinking about this lately. And wondering where the line is drawn between a coping mechanism and a solution. I feel like level of “dignity” would be a good measure of whether something is a solution. Have any of you faced this challenge? Of deciding whether or not something can be considered a solution?”
The conversation continues, as Najoua Soudi from Morocco remarks, “a good entry point could be having the humility to start looking for the solution people directly affected have already, because at least it says something about their unmet needs”.... “I love also what Ru’a said that we should apply a dignity lens and I think it is something we should theorize and take seriously.”
‘On it, Najoua!’. I think to myself.
