ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the story of Point B Design & Training (PointB)—a learning and social innovation lab in Mawlamyine, Myanmar. As Myanmar’s first social innovation lab, PointB has been working creatively and collaboratively since 2013 to create a culturally grounded and relational approach to learning design. It documents the work that they have been doing with communities and shares the rich lessons learned. This chapter explores the tendency for design to focus on problems that are reductionist toward a solution, which in the case of community and complex systems, misses the relationality and interconnectedness that can come from an asset-based approach that focuses on strengths, people and relationships as assets. We uncover approaches and strategies used by PointB to work sensitively and co-design in ways that utilize existing assets, enable relationships, build capacity, develop trust and ultimately create a sense of shared ownership within a community.
