Levenskracht - Healtheducation - confronting the customers
Levenskracht - Student workgroup
Levenskracht - T-huis - Social Design Agency in Eindhoven
Levenskracht - Tippelzone - A temporary solution that controls the situation
Service Design for Drug-Addicted Street Prostitutes
Street prostitution is a topic for social workers and for the police – but not for designers – right? Wrong! Design can play an important role in the improvement of living conditions in our society. Service design especially puts a focus on the development of services that are useful and usable and that solve the real problems of real people in everyday life. In co-operation with the City of Eindhoven, a group of service design students from KISD developed Levenskracht – a service that improves the living situation of street prostitutes. The service was successfully implemented, and it created measurable value for the City of Eindhoven.
Background
Between the years 2000 and 2009, the City of Eindhoven spent 500,000 Euro of tax money per year for the so called Tippelzone, a legitimate area in Eindhoven where drug-addicted street prostitutes could ply their trade. The priority goal of this project was to find an alternative solution to this very controversial outlay of public money and, at the same time, improve the living conditions of the women. The challenge was to create a concept for the women without falling back into the problems that existed before the city established the Tippelzone in 2000. Until 2000, prostitution had taken place in an inner-city area of Eindhoven and it brought dealers, pimps and criminals to that area, making for a very difficult environment. This problem was solved by the Tippelzone. This project was supposed to go beyond the improvement that it delivered. The target group was street prostitutes in Eindhoven, yet the needs and beliefs of the entire neighbourhood, the care system and the politicians had to be considered. Until the year 2000, the prostitution had taken place in a city area of Eindhoven and it brought dealers, pimps and criminals to that area – it became a very difficult environment, dangerous and unattractive for many of Eindhoven’s citizens. This problem was solved by the Tippelzone initiative. The street prostitution was moved to the outskirts of the city, a shipping container – run by The Salvation Army – providing some shelter and basic hygiene was set up and a security service made sure that the aggression against the women was controlled. This solution cost 500,000 Euro of tax money per year, a fact that caused conflict. Against this background, the service design project was set up.
The objectives were to solve the city’s financial problem of putting tax money into a partially illegal enterprise and to create better living conditions and free choice for the women. The overall mission of the project was to actively and collaboratively help the women to take more responsibility for their lives and to live a life without having to prostitute themselves any longer.
Methodology and approach
System analysis: Collecting as much insight as possible about the system using ethnographic research tools and service design specific tools.
System visualisation: highlighting the patterns, tensions, contradictions within the system and the key issues that stabilise the system.
Result
Translating these key issues into opportunities. Creation sessions: building ideas for change. The service designers collaborated with addicted women, caretakers, politicians and industry, as well as specialists like social workers and psychologists from other cities.
Conclusion
In 2010 Levenskracht started to work with a pilot group of women in order to test and improve the concept and analyse the impact and the financial aspects. In 2011, Levenskracht replaced the Tippelzone.
