#sieng

[ireth2773]

The siam and bilem sieng. #cat #pet #sieng #ngau #mayau https://www.instagram.com/p/CQBYpXjr6sR/?utm_medium=tumblr

[designforgoodpilot]

Dream CAPI Food-Shelf Experience

If Design for Good could have a wish, along with many other wishes, it would be to have a convenient location for the food shelf and improved facilities. Although the current one can be improved upon we wanted to explore the possibilities of a space solely dedicated to CAPI participants.  In order to truly visualize this concept we created a quick model within Google SketchUp to reflect our ideas.

To better understand what the space had to be we created a story about Sheng Lee, a mother of five who anxiously awaits going to the food shelf every first of the month. We told of her journey as she entered the building and walked into a furnished room with the smell of tea and pastries, while she waits. Soon after she is greeted by the smiling face of Pa Houa who does intake checking to see if anything has changed within her family. After intake a very energetic young man named Pao who is a volunteer greets Sheng. Pao was recruited from the local High School and he personally helps the participant with collecting food. As Sheng ventures fourth into the food-shelf she meets Toua, the food-shelf coordinator. Toua works hard facilitating and moving the traffic along as the participant’s wheel their shopping carts choosing what they want. Once she has gathered all the food that she wants, she weighs the food and exits the shelf. Happy with what she has gotten she leaves CAPI and goes home until next time.

This was just a short synopsis of a much more detailed story. This was presented in front of our listening sessions. It was well received by the participants as they looked on and gave valuable ideas about what was needed to improve the food shelf. For example they liked the idea of a simple white board where they can just write down food that they would like to see. Although they may never get to see the food of their dreams, it gives them a voice and empowers the participants. This was a very gratifying project that allowed participants to see a dream location that they already have within their minds.

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Nancy Yang

Meet Nancy. She is the star persona used for story telling in our participant listening sessions.

Envisioned by Sook jin, illustrated by Sieng.

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Sook Jin is going to be Hmong in no time. It’s not fair. It took me 25 years to become Hmong and she’s going to do it in one summer.

Sieng

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Community Garden day

  CAPI along with Gardening Matters was able to work with a local motorcycle shop donating their vacant lot to some of CAPI’s food-shelf participants for gardening. On this small piece of land 18 families take care of it, working on their own individual 4ft x 4ft plot. It maybe small, but the feeling of independence from growing strengthens the souls of those who tend it. It was a great time seeing these strong independent women in the Hmong community working on this garden. Not only are they utilizing unused space that would of been left barren or forgotten, these women have brought vitality to a space that is deemed unworthy of growth and contribution. Through the hard work of these women they are able to build self-confidence and also provide what little yield the land has to offer for their families. More than 60 families are on a waiting list for gardening. All they want is more land to be self-sufficient and show off their gardening abilities that were passed down to them.

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Many of the canned food products go unwanted because lots of Hmong families do not know how to utilize them. A key factor in helping the food shelf is informing participants on how they can use each individual item, like tomato sauce to create simple dishes for their families. Therefor I had brought home some canned tomatoes and kidney beans to create a simple chili as a experiment to see what can be made with basic goods from the food shelf.

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What do you do with scraps of lettuce? Smidchai donates them to a local farmer, who is also a participant, to feed her chickens.

[designforgoodpilot]

Hunger

While informally interviewing a woman in her early 60’s, she shed tears about being on the brink of death because of starvation. She had shared a quote with me that was most insightful. ‘There is an old saying, those who are poor can be identified by the tattered clothing on their backs, but hunger is invisible.’