Jury Panel: Rustam Vania, Mary Jacob and Vasanthi Das
External mentor: Mr.Vishwanath
Minutes of review one on 09/07/2010
- Design such that it addresses the existing problem of the community not being able to come together and take ownership for things that belong to them as a community
- Source and look at the ‘Green School Programme’
- Not to forget the exclusive ‘girl child’ group within my larger target audience and keep in mind both of them while creating the design
- Source either a person who is interested in this project or someone who can provide me with vernacular help as I would need this in two stages; for conducting workshops, talking to teachers and students and translating and creating my end product, which might involve Kannada
- Talk to people who are experienced in working with children and creating workshops around these areas before I form my own activities- Arzu, Jackson, teachers from Drishya
- To try and involve the children, teachers and higher authorities in the school (administration) in the activities so that they come together and are on the same page about what is happening in and around the village
- To make a questionnaire and a matrix before visiting the village so that I ask the same set of questions to the 6 different schools and am not stuck when I have to compare data
Minutes of review two on 02/08/2010
- Make a visual concept map of the larger picture. Put down all the possibilities if you had enough time and resources to carry it forward. Then zoom in and pin-point what small part of this you want to take up.
- Look at the rain water harvesting tanks and systems. How is the water going to be pumped? How and where is it stored? Are there any points of intervention here- maybe at the point of pumping it.
- The larger goal can simply be ‘Making Water fun at the school level’. See where you can take it from there.
- Focus more on creating an emotional interest and link between the children and the object/activity so that they might respond to it appropriately. Pushing behavioural change and tasks on them is not going to help.
- The children and community need to feel a sense of ownership towards the tank, their school and property. Only then they will take care of it. Look at ways at how this can be done. It could be as simple as making the children paint on the boring black water tank. This will make more people look at it and make the students feel like they are a part of the act.
- Be ready to deal with the fact that all of this might fall apart when you are gone. So, pitch it to organization and people who can be involved in this zone and see how they can take it forward. Involve the stakeholders.
- Cash in on the little novelties of science education. Things that children this age get interested in; like colour, sound, painting and creating etc. and see how you can teach using these things.
Minutes of review three on 03/09/2010
Mary and Vasanthi
- Define your deliverables
1) The hand washing devise
2) A toolkit manual for facilitators to facilitate workshops on water and sanitation and
3) An edited short film on the story of water in this area.
- Along with the hand washing bottle, it would be nice to integrate the idea of soap. Make the
children make their own soap maybe? Explore natural ways of making soap. See if it can be made from any naturally available material. Integrate it with the bottle.
- Send us a rough cut of the film (participatory film- shot by the kids) so that we can give you feedback. If needed, you can go back and tell them to re-shoot some parts for finish.
Rustam
The deliverables are fine but build an experience around your bottle. It is not just a standalone product, but something the children can build a whole experience around. If you choose soap, find out if they have access, which shops sell it? How much does it cost, can they afford it? Create a story around this. Collect data and compare it. Amount needed to get a bar of soap vs. paying for a gastric related disease that these people might get due to not washing their hands. Get some soap and make the children have fun with it. Bubbles, different kinds of soap- detergent, shampoo etc. Make this experience so rich that soap is something nice that sticks to their heads, something they won’t forget about.
You could walk around, make them buy the soap themselves, show them the actual germs in their hands and then check it out after washing. Take a microscope and check it out if possible! All this data should go into the manual- for future facilitators.
Minutes of review four on 01/10/2010
- Go ahead with the tool-kit. Come back with the contents page for the next review so the structure of the tool-kit can be looked at
- The film could be a stand alone or a part of the tool-kit. It is up to you to decide
- This is a good start to something larger. In the real world, this tool-kit and film would be in the form of print, a multimedia CD that can be circulated as well as a website or some database on line. Try and visualise the other two things. It would be good to propose it as a package. Give your website and the CD the same look as your tool-kit so it looks like it belong to a the same set. Just an illustrator file of the look, feel and content. This could be submitted along with your final products or put into your documentation.
- Don't let this end at your diploma project. What do you want to do with it after you finish? Do you intend to pitch it to someone? How do you go about doing this? (I was told about people to talk to about my project).
Minutes of review five on 22/10/2010
- The design of the toolkit looks like it is in place. Would like to go through it leisurely to look at the content.
- Think about how you would display your project for your internal and external reviews and well as the exhibition. It is rich in its process and that shouldn't be lost on the way. If you want to make a quick presentation or posters to tell people about your process, then do that. Display it along with your products
- The film is good, but you should establish the context before you start. Make it more personal. State that you are from an urban context and you travel to the rural areas where there are certain problems. State what the need is and why it is so urgent. Make the audience travel to that space in the first few seconds of the video so they can relate to it more.
