A community-initiated website development project: promoting a San community campsite initiative

Digital services have not been truly available for marginalised rural communities, especially in the Global South. Rural communities often lack technical infrastructures, awareness about available services and the necessary skills to use them to their full potential. In this paper, we present a collaborative web-site development project initiated by a rural San community in Namibia. The website intends to support a current community livelihood activity of setting up a campground next to their village. Embedded in a community-based research approach we have deployed co-design methods and techniques to establish a consensus-based business description, including target market, activities, pricing and promotion strategies. Co-design techniques enabled the community to examine and refine their conceptualisation of their business endeavour as well as anticipate target audiences and operational scenarios. A basic website has been created including the agreed upon content. Further efforts include a wider dissemination of the information as well as possible inclusion in global broker websites. We conclude with a reflection on the co-design process providing a researcher and a community perspective.

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