More than just the news…

As we work on the many different challenges of Project Sammaan, it is worthwhile to spend some time thinking about the motivations behind this endeavour. The primary goal is building toilets for those underserved by the existing urban sanitation systems in India, but we should not lose sight of Project Sammaan’s original intention as a pilot project.

The lives of the thousands of people served by the toilets we are building will doubtless be improved through these facilities. However, the toolkit that will share the insights of this project will lead to an improvement in the lives of millions more people as other organisations and governments use our learnings and documentation to build even more improved toilets and sanitation facilities.

As part of this objective, the Project Sammaan newsletter will be an invaluable part of the project toolkit and can go a long way towards addressing the goals of disseminating the knowledge and learnings accrued during this project. Now that the first edition of the newsletter is fresh off the presses (download it here) this is a good time for us to take a look at the format of the newsletter itself and how it can be leveraged to better serve us as a way to chronicle and archive the learnings of the project.

Beginning with the second edition, which will be published next month, we will introduce ‘themes’ as a way of providing 1-2 pieces of targeted content in the newsletter that address a specific aspect of the project. Having a theme will provide a more concrete direction for the newsletter while also serving as a topic for reflection and introspection amongst the partners and contributors to the newsletter.

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