To-Date Achievements

Project Sammaan has been going full-steam ahead for well over a year now. Several posts have been written over the last few months detailing the many challenges that have been faced thus far, so we thought it pertinent to review the achievements that the team is most proud of.

1. Facility design features were finalized.

After months of internal deliberations and community engagement exercises, the design features of the facilities were agreed upon, thereby allowing the individual facility designs to proceed. This is the first, most critical, component of the design process and one that seeks to shift the Potty Project findings from the conceptual phase and into practice.

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Collaboration

Project Sammaan is a unique innovation initiative due to the diversity of the organizations working on it: design firms, government bodies, empirical researchers, architectural firms, waste management experts, community engagement specialists, and an interface management team.

This amalgamation of seemingly disparate entities provides a robust and exhaustive approach that ensures community members’ needs are designed for, the facilities are both functional and valued, and the effectiveness of the engagement is thoroughly evaluated.

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Paper Toilets & Cardboard Bathrooms

Supplies needed to make our very own paper toilet!

This month, we started working on detailing the bathing stall, toilet booth and disabled access booth designs after completing our community feedback sessions in Bhubaneshwar.

We crafted a long list of activities and design aspects requiring user feedback at the end of Sketch Design 1. These user-centric insights are absolutely vital in ensuring that the designs are a response to what end-users need and not just “more of the same”.

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Engaging with the Community

Engaging communities is, in my opinion, by far the most fun and challenging part of the projects we do at Quicksand. Due to this, we were both nervous and excited about returning to the field after creating a guide and toolkit to elicit and record community responses during feedback sessions.

Ensuring Diversity & Representation

The first step was screening participants. Our on-field partners, CFAR, accomplished this by screening potential participants that fell into one of several profiles we defined. These profiles ranged from recently married couples with newborn infants to elderly or disabled individuals who might use a crutch, staff, or wheelchair.

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