This is part of a series of posts that shares more about the project partners and the important roles each plays.

CTRAN Consulting manages large, complex development projects by providing a mix of program management and technical assistance.

For Project Sammaan, they are the one-point contact for interfacing with various government agencies. In this role, they facilitate meetings with government representatives, assist in the land approval process, and are establishing Project Management Offices within BMC and CMC.

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Additional disabled user testing needed to be conducted, so we began seeking out participants through various channels.

After failed attempts at recruiting users through various organizations, we decided to use the snowballing method of recruitment where you ask someone you know to connect you to someone they know and so on. We looked closer to home and reached out to our office staff. Our cook, Mr. Dayanand, offered to help us recruit people from his community in ‘Chiragh Dilli’, as well as at a nearby temple where a small community of disabled people beg for alms.

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Meeting with experts, conducting “Potty Lab” exercises, and general field research led to key insights and corresponding decisions across several facility components:

WC
One of our major learnings was, though a lower-height western-style WC might be an ideal choice in terms of comfort, there was a fair bit of resistance as it differed from their preferred habit of squatting.

The reasons weren’t hygiene-related as we had previously believed, but about ingrained behavior and the belief that squatting would help with bowel movements.

From a design perspective, this left us with an interesting dilemma: how could we provide support through a western-style WC and keep it high enough for wheelchair users to side-transfer to while also allowing other users to squat? After some discussions within the team, we realized that the best solution was a ‘low height hybrid WC’.

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The land identification process for Project Sammaan is one of the most complex and exciting processes I have participated in. The excitement comes from the challenge of meeting the deadlines within multiple constraints; the complexity comes from the task of identifying at least 160 sites within 2 months.

Visiting a community in Cuttack, Bhubaneswar.

There are multiple steps taken before selecting a site:

• A member from J-PAL, a government surveyor and a Feedback Foundation associate visit proposed sites
• J-PAL decides whether the site fits into the scope of the project while Feedback Foundation works with the land department to get land details, including ownership information. (It should be noted that only government-owned sites with clear land details will be selected.)

It has been a longtime coming since we first announced it, but we are pleased to finally unveil the teaser trailer of our upcoming film entitled “3 Pounds of Rice”. The short documentary features Kevin and Ryan’s 24 hour slumstay experience in Bhubaneswar. What started out as a personal challenge quickly evolved into a filmed experience that will provide some insight into the people, the culture, and daily lives of one of the communities we work with.

My role at Quicksand is to gather and disseminate pertinent information to internal partners, clients and the general public. As such, I’ll be spending a good deal of time in the slums for Project Sammaan to generate rich media and write about the experiences.

I’ve always taken pride in my ability to easily connect with people and adapt to any environment. This job, and this project specifically, presented a golden opportunity to test this perceived strength as the slums here are considered as having some of the harshest living conditions on Earth. I’m from rural America, so this is a daunting challenge indeed.

I traveled to Bhubaneswar and Cuttack in February with fellow team members for my first-ever slum visit.

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