Outreach & Public Relations Update

The mandate to document and share Project Sammaan developments and learnings manifests itself in many ways, and April’s activities are a prime example of this, with a video being produced, a media kit developed, blog posts being added to the website, and, most significantly, formal project reports for the municipal corporations drafted.

Members of the Quicksand and CFAR teams visited slums in Bhubaneswar at the beginning of the month to interview community members for a “voice of the people” video. Additionally, CFAR transcribed the video clips into the Odiya font, allowing their comments to be conveyed exactly as they were said.

Quicksand prepared a media kit that was disseminated to project partners. This contains a press release highlighting project progress thus far, a gallery of community and sanitation-related images, and several videos that detail various aspects of Project Sammaan. Media enquiries can also be forwarded along to Kevin Shane (kevin@quicksand.co.in), the communications manager on Project Sammaan.

A preliminary project report (PPR) for the Cuttack Municipal Corporation was drafted and shared with members of the Engineering Department for their review. This work-in-progress document provides a road map for all aspects of the project as it pertains to Cuttack, including costing, and will be formally submitted to the CMC soon.

Additionally, building off of the PPR, a Technical & Design Guidelines report is well on its way to completion. This robust document serves not only as a complete manual for all activities that comprise Project Sammaan, but also as the framework for the project toolkit, which will add the additional layer of insights gleaned along the way for each workstream. This is the key deliverable for the project’s grant and involves the active participation, and knowledge-sharing, of all partners.