Mariana Prieto and the IDEO.org team working with Marie Stopes International in Lusaka, Zambia prototype their own pop-up nail salon to engage teenage girls in conversation about reproductive health.

I never thought I would be able to say my job taught me how to do golden confetti french tip manicures, but yesterday it did. 

Here we are back in Lusaka trying to find the best way to talk to young girls about safe sex and the options they have to protect themselves. Our first instinct told us that we would get peoples attention when they were out dancing so we designed a few prototypes for clubs, dressed the part and went on a night out. Fairly quickly we discovered that although it was a good place to find congregations of teenagers, it was also an environment where conversations would never reach they depth and engagement we were looking for. As usual, finding out what didn't work was half the battle and we were pleased to prove our hypothesis incorrect and move on to the next. 

It so happens that "the next" included a crash course in fine manicuring to be able to give free services to teens at our newly opened nail salon. We rented out a space and set up a pop up nail salon in the middle of the Kamwala street market, a place where hundreds of people shop and loiter around on sunny Saturday afternoons. Part of team (Design Lead Danny Alexander) advertised through the little market streets while the three girls - IDEO.org Talent Lead Jessie Chamberlin, and Global Fellows Minnie Bredouw and I - perfected the art of simultaneous manicuring intertwined with girl talk. 

In this case our initial hypothesis was right. The nail salon was a great setting to gather teenage girls and talk about the different types of contraceptives available to them through casual conversation. The girls were comfortable sharing their experiences, had hundreds of questions and were eager to take referral cards and more information back to their friends. There is something special about looking down at your nails, not having any eye contact and throwing in a hard question wrapped inside superfluous comments. "Is this the shade of red you wanted?" "Oh, so the injection made you gain weight?" "Do you also want white tips or just glitter?" 

The prototype went well, but as always, it also opened up new questions for us. We believe the way and pace with which we tell the story about contraceptives has a huge weight on their likelihood of adopting a method. It's not only about side effects, but also about how they fit in with every girls' lifestyle. The impact that myths have on decision making is also both fascinating and heart breaking but we haven't found the right way to communicate truthful and trustworthy information. Our next step is to take everything that worked well and make it better, while also questioning everything that didn't work, ask ourselves why it didn't and try again. Now keep a look out for the next opening of "Gals n' Swagg" - Lusaka's new pop up teen nail salon. 

PS. We had the famous Zambian rapper Slap D advise us on names for our new business, because it turns out that almost thirty year olds from San Francisco are definitely not cool enough to come up with teen slang. Word.