Project Sammaan will lead to two things: 1) the reduction of open-defecation and improvement of health amongst urban poor, and 2) the creation of a “toolkit” for successful sanitation interventions that can be replicated throughout South Asia.

The second point served as the impetus for a recent Quicksand field visit to Bhubaneswar to meet with project partners for a review of activities, milestones, learnings, frustrations, and other pertinent developments. It’s hard to believe, but the project has been underway for over 6 months now and the team felt it was a perfect time to get all the partners together.

Incorporating these conversations into the toolkit is certainly a daunting task considering the number of partners involved and the complexity of their individual workstreams. However, these concerns are part of the challenge that got us excited about this grant and they continue to motivate us.

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Two children pose infront of their school in Sikharchandi.

Quicksand’s approach is about human-centered research and design and Project Sammaan encapsulates this.

An ancillary goal in this project is to engage and inform a larger community about sanitation in India specifically and life in the slums here generally.

For some of us at Quicksand, Sammaan represented the first opportunity to visit a slum community. We decided to share that experience by embedding Ryan and I (both Americans) in one of the slums we’re working with for 24-hours. The objective being to share what living without adequate sanitation would be like, if only for a short time.

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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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There’s been much internal debate regarding nomenclature when discussing Project Sammaan. Of particular concern is the use of the term “slum”.

This problem surfaced due to the imminent launch of our social media sites. The most polarizing question was whether or not to use the term “slum”. Is it insensitive or even outright offensive? In its stead, should we use the more sanitized (pardon the pun) and safe terms “community” or “low-income settlements”? It was decided that, while the other parlances are safer, this project provides a unique opportunity (and thus, the responsibility) to help realign people’s understanding of what a slum is.

To quote UN-Habitat, “…in developing countries, the word lacks the pejorative and divisive original connotation, and simply refers to lower quality or informal housing…A simple definition of a slum would be ‘a heavily populated urban area characterised by substandard housing and squalor’.”

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Project Sammaan is unique in the world of sanitation innovation. From the vital impact of its initial scope to the sheer magnitude of its eventual scale, we can potentially improve millions of lives.

Community members at a Cuttack slum

This is a huge undertaking for us and with it comes the excitement and anxiety inherent in any new project. The importance of this project has not been lost on any of us and has led to many late nights and weekends spent in the studio.

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Sammaan is the Hindi, Bengali and Odiya term for honor, respect, and dignity. We at Quicksand felt it the perfect name for the sanitation project we are undertaking that seeks to rethink the current model of sanitation facilities in urban slums and design a new structure that instills a sense of pride, dignity and respect.

The project will begin in slum communities in two cities in Eastern India – Bhubaneswar and Cuttack – and hopefully expand across the rest of the country.

Project Sammaan was born out of the research Quicksand undertook as part of the Potty Project, an in-depth design research study focused on understanding three things:

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