PROJECT INTRO

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Changing Livelihoods refers to both directing design students and design education from the for-profit to non-profit sector, and connecting young designers with organizations and projects who engage in training and support of Making communities that promote independent livelihoods.

In 2019 three Parsons Product Design students, traveled to Katmandu, Nepal, to work for House with a Heart, an orphanage for abandoned Nepalese children, founded by Beverly Bronson in 2001.
In addition, Beverly set up a women’s tailoring and felt-making program, aiming to give training and instruction to community women so they could provide income to support their families and address address the leading cause of child-abandonment: lack of money.

This skills-building support is vital: as the economist Jeffrey Sachs points out, “When impoverished families bear many children, it can have tragic results: as the families cannot afford to invest in the nutrition, health and education of each child, they may send only one  child - a son - to school. High fertility rates in one generation, tend to lead to impoverishment of the children and to high fertility rates in the following generation”.

Offering women jobs and skills-building opportunities enhances their children’s chances at education and health services, and is a first step out of the poverty trap.