I had also met two World War II veterans that frequent the post and, over time, developed a bond with them. My friend had an inspiration one day in June that he wanted to take our two veterans, along with other veterans in the Houston area, to New Orleans on an all-expenses-paid vacation to visit the World War II National Museum. He asked if I would be interested in helping him raise funds to make this happen.

I reached out to Sandra Broughton, our global head of Travel, and Travis Boone, our West Region Executive, and asked if ArchTam would consider donating points for the veterans who were interested to stay at the new Hilton Higgins Hotel, which is affiliated with the museum and located directly across the street. Without hesitation, both agreed to reach out to leadership and within a couple of days, I was given the okay.

With the help of a couple additional friends, we began fundraising and were able to support the 12 veterans and their families that would be traveling with us. We raised enough money to add an additional night as well as set up first class transportation on a coach bus, reserve a locally famous restaurant for their celebratory dinner and provide small excursions while we were in town. Necessary precautions were taken in making this trip happen while COVID cases were on the rise, keeping the families informed on all that we were doing to keep our heroes safe.

But despite these efforts, there were circumstances that were out of our control. Our trip was scheduled for August 27 and two days before departure, Ida began her path straight for New Orleans. We ended up traveling with seven veterans since several canceled due to the storm.  One of the veterans who decided to join us was 100 years old and laughed at the idea that he would stay home because of “a little rain.” These men are tough!

As people from the Gulf Coast, we are familiar with storm paths and monitoring the models. We spoke to locals at the museum and decided that with the forecasted Monday afternoon landfall, we would go ahead and make this weekend trip happen for our veterans. We left at six o’clock in the morning on Friday with a full police and military motorcycle escort, who ushered us the entire six-hour drive to New Orleans. As we watched the storm intensify quickly, we had to make changes. We were able to get to the museum a day earlier and get clearance to leave after just one night in The Big Easy, but it was a trip these veterans whole-heartedly appreciated. The road home took 18 hours but they were on a comfortable bus with their families, fully stocked with food and water (and a bar because they LOVE to drink) as well as a bathroom, games, pillows, music and, most importantly, memories. Not only did they not complain once, but they got off the bus and asked when the next trip was leaving.

I was blessed to have this trip supported by ArchTam as well as my colleagues. My family was able to travel along with me and my sons, who are 14 and 16, told me it was an experience they will never forget. We all sat at dinner shedding happy tears, watching these great men who’ve done so much for our country, just enjoying the experience.

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Organizations around the world are now navigating a new, somewhat daunting task – how to bring employees back to the in-person workplace in ways that are safe, effective and accommodating. While it may not look the same everywhere, leading organizations are leaning into this transition by building in more flexibility and people-centric design into their workplaces. This focus is readying them to remain agile and resilient, no matter what the future brings.

Our global workplace advisory practice lead, Kelly Bacon, and workplace advisory design strategist, Nick Busalacchi, share four key points that every employer must consider in the months ahead.

Purpose-driven spaces

Changes to corporate culture and strategic investments in worker mobility have provided more flexibility for employees to work when and where they want, with many major organizations embracing hybrid work models in which employees can spend part or most of their time untethered from the physical office. This has generated a need to design diverse spaces that are better tailored to the activities workers need to perform. This means incorporating workstations and mobile technologies into the office setting that support workers’ ability to “plug-and-play”; workplaces that optimize collaboration and interaction; and regions that enable workers to move more freely among the spaces outside of the office where they can work, live and play most effectively. In our Sydney office, which is currently undergoing a major refurbishment, an entire floor will be dedicated to fostering collaboration and connection with our clients and each other — all anchored by technology. What’s more, we are aligning the office with our ESG commitments by using recycled furniture and selling excess office equipment, proving that creating purpose-driven spaces does not mean creating unnecessary waste.  

Driving social and environmental value

An indicator of a well-performing workplace is more than just the cost of space per person. Organizations that create truly successful workplaces focus on putting their employees’ needs first to generate positive returns for their company and the community. They are designing workplaces and organizational cultures with wellness in mind, including promoting greater worker flexibility, delivering workplaces that rank high in environmental quality, and extending investments into surrounding communities. The emergence of certification programs such as WELL, more comprehensive knowledge about human behavior, and tech solutions that monitor workplace performance in real-time have made wellness a central component of leading organizations’ workplace strategies.

In addition, investments in “smarter” buildings have made it easier than ever to track performance on factors such as interior environmental quality, workplace utilization, and facility sustainability. Leaders in this space are pairing this data with a sophisticated understanding of their occupants’ needs, enabling them to drive triple bottom line returns.

Organizational resilience

Smart organizations are re-orienting their cultures and their spaces to be more adaptable and resilient toward predicted or unforeseen challenges that the future may bring. These organizations are examining the way they function, working to incorporate agility into their day to day and year over year operations. Nearly 28 percent of large employers are targeting significant footprint changes in the next five years, with another 43 percent undecided.* They are doing so by encouraging greater flexibility for when and where their employees work; re-balancing their real estate portfolios to be more agile to social and economic change; and investing in spaces and systems that drive their missions, while shedding or re-purposing any excess. There is not a one-size-fits-all method or solution—leading organizations are making themselves ‘fit for the future’ by better aligning their businesses with new opportunities for agility.

Enabling systems

The way we work is not only tied to our workplaces, but also to the complex ecosystem of infrastructure networks and cultures that enable and support work and the work environment. Our evolving work structure has driven new demand in areas like transportation and utility systems, which both require a stronger focus on being more robust and adaptable. For example, the re-distribution of commuters across space and time has put new stresses on transit networks, and secure, high-speed telecommunications infrastructure has become an essential component of our increasingly mobile workforce. Regions and organizations that excel in these areas are making strategic investments in enabling infrastructure to support these demands, preparing themselves for future changes and responsibly enhancing experiences in the built environment.

In our increasingly unpredictable world, staying agile in the face of uncertainty will be the key to business success and longevity. This agility begins with a people-centered approach to workplace design and portfolio rebalancing. Organizations that embrace this approach will drive value across profit, people and planet, and create workplace investments that are fit for the future.

Read more about ArchTam’s Future of Work initiative here.

*Mercer LLC.

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A thriving relationship between ArchTam and The Ideas Partnership (TIP), a UK registered charity, was built from the humble beginnings of the Ethical Gift Bag Initiative in 2017 (an initiative where ArchTam supported charities around the world and, in return, they produced ethical gifts). After receiving donations via the initiative, the founder of One Kosovo and TIP reached out to us and the conversation about future aid blossomed into a potential project. We were asked to design and fundraise for a new sustainable community center for a group of vulnerable women and children in Kosovo.

After being rewarded with a 2019 Blueprint Travel Grant, I assembled a team of 10 and we flew to Kosovo to conduct site-selection review and an initial feasibility study for the center. During the excursion, the team performed public engagement sessions with the local community to identify their needs for the proposed center.

With an emphasis on sustainability, the team presented innovative solutions for the center to the community, such as solar power, which would reduce the overall cost to operate. Bringing in a sense of local personalization to the center, community discussions led to the idea of using recycled bottles as a symbol of the community where livelihoods largely revolve around litter picking.

The team fundraised more than £33,000 via The ArchTam Foundation, ArchTam’s UK-based registered global charity, and developed the conceptual design — pro-bono in collaboration with our partner, Western Williamson Architects. In addition to working and adapting through the uncertainty and unease of COVID-19 lockdown, the expanded team of 20 specialists persevered by volunteering outside contracted hours in their evenings and weekends to construct the final design deliverable successfully on schedule in July. Their drive to deliver on both social value commitment and high-quality output is commendable, particularly during a global pandemic and its associated challenges.

The final conceptual design allows access for local women and children to benefit from a safe, sustainable community center that focuses on education and environment, with a specific focus on the poor and Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities of Kosovo. In fact, 96 percent of these communities do not complete basic education — a cause and effect of poverty, exclusion and poor health. Education provides means to break the vicious cycle for families and communities. Access to education and drop-out rates among Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities mean that the parents of today’s children in the neighborhood of Fushe Kosove are likely to be illiterate.

We are so pleased to work with our fantastic partners, The Ideas Partnership and Western Williamson Architects, who helped pave the way for collaborative social value and local community inspiration. The tender process is now live. Once a contractor has been appointed and the technical design is completed, construction is due to start in early September and the center estimates its completion by late December.

The post Designing and Fundraising for a Women and Children’s Center in Kosovo appeared first on Blog.

As a recipient of ArchTam’s Blueprint Travel Grant, last September I was able to support Safe Water Network, a non-governmental organization working in Ghana to provide safe, reliable water to previously under-served communities.

This water sanitation project differs from a typical water installation project because we used a sustainable market-based approach for operating clean water stations. By investing in the next generation of engineers and scientists in Ghana, Safe Water Network helps provide opportunities to work on real-life problems facing industry partners. I was personally invested in and inspired by this project because it allowed me to help support the future of Ghana, my birth country.

I attended a four-day workshop organized by the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and Safe Water Network in Kumasi, Ghana, aimed at guiding engineering students in their applied research projects. The workshop aimed to ensure that their projects remain relevant to industry challenges, teach them necessary skills for a smooth transition into the workforce and improve gender equality in STEM education. Students worked in groups to solve real-life technological problems faced by Safe Water Network and other industrial partners by researching practical solutions to the problems. In addition to Safe Water Network, organizations including Engineers Without Borders USA, Feminist Data and Research Canada also participated in the project.

During the workshop, I connected with students to help them refine their research projects and provided them with training on effective project management and engineering skills.

These student projects were completed in collaboration with Safe Water Network and will have an impact on the country’s water infrastructure:

1. Water monitoring and control:

This project proposes a system for monitoring the water level in water tanks and automatically regulating the water level at home or in establishments that have two or three tanks. In this project, we created a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) using ZigBee and Global System for Mobile (GSM) communication modules.

2. Smart Level Monitor (SLeM) – Remote liquid level monitoring in water and septic tanks with remote pump control ability:

The students designed and developed a Smart Level Monitor (SLeM) to regularly monitor the level of liquid in water and septic tanks and remotely report level and pump status, where applicable, while providing detailed statistics and remote pump switching control ability.

3. Multi-sensor system for remote water quality monitoring

This project proposes a system that makes use of multiple sensors to monitor, remotely, the quality of water at targeted areas in Ghana. The target market for this project includes the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), water monitoring companies and fish pond operators.

4. Aqua-Tento – Real-time assay of water bodies for contaminants:

The primary aim of this project is to identify quality parameters and contaminants that can be easily measured. The system will send data to the responsible agencies, Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) and the Ghana Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), to aid in improving the quality of water supplied.

5. Leakage detection in water pipe systems:

This solution provides infrastructure for the real-time monitoring of water pipes within the distribution network of any water distribution company. Currently site inspections are periodically carried out to determine the conditions of the pipes in the distribution network and also check for leaks. If a leak happens after an inspection, it is mostly undetected until the next inspection cycle.

My experience volunteering with Safe Water Network was especially rewarding given the challenges the world is facing right now. My trip not only reminds me that it is vital that we use our time and resources to help those in need, but it is also important that we work together to make the world a better place.

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Thanks to ArchTam’s Blueprint Travel Grant, I was able to take part in an outreach project in Uganda — a project near and dear to my heart because I am South African by birth and Ugandan by descent. With five other ArchTam employees, I joined the WeDev NPO team to help an orphanage on the remote Zinga Islands collect, analyze and purify drinking water. The orphanage was one of five sites we visited during the service trip.

According to Drop 4 Drop, a global charity dedicated to alleviating the world’s water crisis, “Almost a quarter of people across Uganda do not have access to clean water and over 80 percent do not have adequate sanitation. Using and drinking unsafe water is one of the leading causes of death and disease across Uganda with 4,500 children dying every year due to having no other option but to drink this unsafe water.” This is a critical issue that the people of Uganda are facing.

Our team set out to tackle water sanitation-related issues in the most needy and remote areas of Uganda by using local, simple methods. Our goal was to build systems that could be used continuously and easily by the community. Our professional backgrounds ranged from hydrogeology and environmental technicians to cost, hydraulic and civil engineers. Our understanding of infrastructure, its workings and the associated costs helped us ascertain the best and least expensive solutions to the problems faced in the community. Teaching one another aspects of our jobs helped our collective effort to get as much done in the little time we had.

Over the course of two weeks we traveled by car, boat and even in the back of a small loading truck to five sites that included orphanages, schools and a home. Our group visited and analyzed these sites to create simple solutions for each unique situation. For example, to reduce the walking distance required to fetch water, we installed a pump into a well, set up gutters to collect rain water and added pipes so that water from springs would run into tanks. We also tested the water to ascertain the types of bacteria picked up in water pre- and post-purification using homemade chlorine. We helped provide a community with the resources needed to collect a basic necessity for themselves by:

• Connecting spring water to a tank using a gradient
• Making chlorine from salt with a solar powered battery to clean water from tanks and other water sources
• Connecting a pump to an 11-meter-deep borehole to ease the process of obtaining water

This eye-opening process highlighted the magnitude of challenges Ugandan communities face in accessing clean drinking water. Even if you can access and transport the water, it still needs to be purified in order to avoid contracting cholera and typhoid, which are deadly illnesses that impact residents and surrounding communities.

This experience was inspiring, but seeing my people in Uganda suffering was not easy. I’m fortunate to work for a company that empowers us to make a meaningful impact on people’s lives around the world through these types of projects. The response from the communities in the form of love, appreciation and keenness to learn and participate gave every one of the volunteers the feeling of being home. We call it “eka” in our language. Simple systems and a few hands go a long way, and this principle can be applied in so many areas of our lives.

In a world full of political unrest, social injustice and environmental depletion, this project inspired hope, not just to the people of Uganda, but to our team as well. We can make a difference — no matter how big or small — to the lives of others in the most beautiful way. I walked away from this experience with a new outlook on life and an appreciation for the humble, happy people and children of Uganda.

A massive thank you to Michael Ottensmann and the WeDev NPO team who allowed me to be a part of this wonderful trip.

“Webale Nnyo.”

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For four years, I’ve been working with Building Humanity, a nonprofit founded by a former ArchTam employee that provides varying forms of assistance to needy communities around the world. This fall, as part of our Blueprint Travel Grant program, I made my third trip with the nonprofit, joining 22 volunteers, including 14 from ArchTam, on a charity build in Peru to help indigenous teenage girls attend school. We worked in partnership with the Sacred Valley Project, an organization that builds dormitories for teenage girls from remote communities in the Andes so they have somewhere to live while they attend school. Some of these communities are a 15-hour hike from the nearest town. As a result, young boys often move to the cities to continue their education, but the same opportunity is not available for girls due to cultural expectations. Educating the female population has a significant impact on reducing poverty, so this service project was a particularly exciting opportunity to be a part of and learn from.

To put into context some of the difficulties these remote communities face, during the first weekend of our trip we drove for six hours to where the paved road ended and then completed a strenuous three hour trek to the Mendosayoc community, one of the furthest away from Calca. These families don’t have access to vehicles, so by foot this journey would take more than 15 hours — an impossible feat! Due to the terrain, even the girls who are from communities in closer proximity to the schools are unable to make the trek and return in one day.

Over the weekend, we learned more about the community, which is spread over numerous peaks and almost 50 families strong. The residents grow most of their own food on the mountain and sell the coffee beans that they produce. They have a primary school with two classrooms and the teachers live on-site and return home once a month, while the girls only return home once a year when the secondary school in Calca closes for the summer.

The Sacred Valley Project has two dormitories in Calca and Ollantaytambo that house 20 students each. We spent six days on-site at the dormitory in Calca building a greenhouse so the girls can grow their own food. The ability to grow your own food is pivotal to combating malnutrition and ultimately helps the young women lead healthier lives. In addition, students are encouraged to save money and potentially apply the new skills in the event that they wish to open their own market. They’re able to sell excess food to member of their communities, earning a modest income and ultimately relying less heavily on donations. While on-site, we completed other tasks in the dorm, including positioning some baking equipment, deep cleaning and setting up security cameras to ensure the residents have a safe place to live.

The original plan for the trip was to build a third dorm, but unfortunately, we encountered problems securing land, which delayed construction. We also faced other challenges during this trip, including overcoming altitude sickness and having to work around wildlife — such as tarantulas — that also call the area home. Our Blueprint Travel Grant covered the building materials and tools we needed for the greenhouse, and any excess will go toward the new dorm when they are able to secure land.

The most memorable part of the trip for me was the visit to the Mendosayoc community because it illuminated the diversity of how people live around the world. We also had dinner every night with the students who lives we were impacting and attempted to learn Quechua, the region’s indigenous language. I will never forget how accommodating the families were, how excited the girls were to show us around and how grateful the entire community was for the resources that the Sacred Valley Project offers. I have never met teenagers who are so happy to go to school! The girls’ passion for learning, drive to succeed and desire to improve the lives of people in their community left our team in awe and we can’t wait to hear about their plans after graduating from high school. As a result of the on-site dormitories, the Sacred Valley Project has allowed students to receive an additional two hours of tutoring every night. Some students have even graduated top of their class!

These types of trips are great for learning more about the built environment and the different issues faced by construction teams around the world — whether those constraints are weather, seismic, political or social, there’s always some variety! On each of my builds I’ve learned different construction techniques as well as how to solve problems and communicate in a way that’s very different from working in an office environment. It’s also great to meet talented and passionate designers and engineers from around the world and connect with both the people we are helping and the wider community in which they live.

My time away with Building Humanity has made me a lot more appreciate of the things most people take for granted and shaped the way I deal with problems in my everyday life. I can’t wait for the next opportunity. For anyone interesting in taking part in a similar trip, I would say go for it. The feeling you get from this type of hands-on work, seeing the impact you are making and how much joy you can bring to communities like this, along with the team spirit and enthusiasm while working together toward such an amazing end goal, is truly an incredible experience.

To learn more about the Sacred Valley Project initiative, check out this YouTube clip from 2018. For information about Building Humanity’s future trips, visit https://www.buildinghumanity.org/

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 A few months ago, I had the opportunity to travel to Uganda with Engineers for Overseas Development (EfOD), a UK registered charity that enhances young engineers’ careers through engagement in humanitarian work, to start the construction of a pilot project we have been designing in the UK in the last two years. This project, a building of Eco-Sanitation (Eco-San) toilets focus on the improvement of the sanitation system at Kumi Hospital, a facility located in eastern Uganda that formerly aided people with leprosy. Since 1997, the facility has operated as a general hospital with an increasing demand for use[1].

The pilot project aims to achieve the following objectives:

• providing sustainable, adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for the hospital’s patients
• expanding the knowledge about eco-sanitation, rainwater harvesting, recycling and latrines maintenance among locals; and
• supporting and strengthening local participation in improving their sanitation[2].

Upon assessing the current condition of the hospital’s sanitation system, it was identified that it is inadequate and in very poor condition. To improve the facility’s conditions and to work towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) related to Good Health and Sanitation, EfOD is fundraising, designing and building a block of seven Eco-San cubicles including a rainwater harvesting system for hand washing and cleansing.

The concept of the Eco-San system relies upon the separation of urine and excreta for separate forms of treatment and use. Beneath each Eco-San cubicle, there is a double vault to store excreta. After a period of dehydration, of around ten months, the excreta can be removed and used as fertiliser. The urine is collected separately and diluted before being used as fertiliser. This process “closes the loop” recovering and recycling nutrients from excreta and urine which are then applied to the soil, providing a sustainable and innovative approach in the hospital for the treatment and use of these types of waste.

[1] EfOD [cited 18/6/2018]. Accessed at: http://www.efod.org.uk/

[2] Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform [cited 20/6/2018]. Accessed at: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs

Eco-San toilets examples built in India

Another EfOD member and I travelled to Kumi for two weeks to manage the start of the Eco-San toilets building’s construction, thanks to the ArchTam’s Blueprint Travel Grant program, which helped towards the travel costs. Over the first few days, we focused on getting to know the local team that we were going to work with, visiting other Eco-San toilets in the area (that are mainly located at schools) and buying construction materials.

The Eco-San toilets building is being built in a sunny spot of the hospital fields, to help towards the dehydration process, with good access and close to the main yards with a footprint of around 13m by 6m.

Eco-San building foundations excavated and poured with concrete including the columns kicker

The following days involved soil digging, concrete mixing, concrete pouring, columns reinforcement and timber formwork building.

It was a very intense experience since we worked quite a lot to make sure we completed everything that we sought out to do. We managed a group of five local men on site, which was challenging at a times due to cultural and language barriers. We managed this through having open discussions together and being confident in our decisions taken while working on site since otherwise, they would do the work their own way. Overall it was a very rewarding, fulfilling and interesting experience; learning with and from them.

EfOD volunteers and local labour team

The construction will continue beyond my trip as other EfOD volunteers will travel to Uganda to continue with the project. The ultimate goal is for Kumi Hospital to have an improved sanitation system, which leads to better hygiene and enables a closed-loop system for the community.

I personally will remain involved in this project and perhaps go back to Uganda towards the end of the construction. One of my takeaways from this trip is how simple we could live and how priorities change based on that lifestyle. Kumi is probably the most remote and extreme place I have ever visited, and people have a very simple life there somehow. My other take away is that we need to change the perspective we have of developing countries, as Uganda. These cultures might still have some fundamental setbacks such as poor sanitation or an unbalanced diet, but I believe the communities should develop in their own way and not in the same way that other nations have evolved.

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How would you like a total stranger coming into your home and asking you invasive personal questions about your life? Think about that question for a minute before reading on.

Much of my time, like others’, was spent on my laptop in an air-conditioned café or at The Hive (Pollinate Headquarters, also our accommodation). My group and I decided early on that the way we could make the most impact was not to maximize time on the ground in communities, but to minimize it. The best outcome was to spend as little time infiltrating these peoples’ homes as necessary to deliver high-quality, insightful advice in our report on the TamRas water purifier.

There’s an element of naivety to the view that these disadvantaged people would be grateful for our presence, especially foreigners with whom they are unfamiliar. Yes, there may be an element of excitement upon entrance particularly in the kids; however, there were cases of frustration too. If they don’t see positive outcomes linked to our visits, then who could blame them?

Thus, our focus became minimizing disruption while acquiring the information we required to help Pollinate better serve these communities in the future. What community visits did I personally make?

• A pre-survey visit to get a feel for the communities — Cobra community (less than two hours)
• Initial survey roll-out visit — New Horizons community (two hours)
• Water sampling visit 1 — Manyata community (0.5 hours)
• Water sampling visit 2 — Light community (0.5 hours)

Of the 11 fellowship days, I spent no more than five hours on the ground in Bangalore’s informal urban settlements. Other fellows’ community contact time would have ranged from equal to perhaps double or even more — this variation was due to project requirements, delegation of work and personal preferences. During my brief visits, I still felt I had gained a sufficient understanding and feel for community life from my first-hand experiences and while hearing others recount theirs.

All up, it’s been saddening to deepen my understanding of the quality of life many people lack. On the flip side, most people said they were happy — they have a strong social fabric in their communities and lead a physically engaging life — arguably their lives are more aligned with how humans have evolved over millennia to live; food for thought. I must say I was also filled with some hope that things could improve for these communities. Contrary to my initial thoughts, most of these communities, at least in Bangalore, are composed of economic migrants who are there by choice (a heavily constrained choice) instilled a sense of hope. Hope that with rain and/or more egalitarian government policy for India’s regions, they might possibly return to their preferred homes and lifestyles.

In relation to my group’s project, we got some water sample results back. Of the communities tested, most exceeded the allowable calcium and magnesium concentration (however, not a significant health concern). Most notably, one community suffered E. coli contamination, which would be mitigated by the TamRas product. A further benefit of TamRas is that regardless of water quality at the source, the product helps to mitigate the risks of contaminating drinking water by poor hygiene and sanitation practices. It achieves this simply through adequate contact time with copper, the product’s purifying component.

We were able to deliver a framework through which to categorize communities by health priority and saleability to help focus Pollinate’s efforts in future. We also formulated insights and advice from our dealings with community members and Pollinate’s sales team. We endorsed the TamRas water purifier to enter Pollinate’s product suite for sale and identified further work for future fellows.

In all, we felt we achieved our problem statement, which for us and Pollinate was to, “understand the water lifecycle of urban informal settlements to improve community wellbeing in India.”

Take a look back at my first blog post about this trip.

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My first few days in Bangalore were spent acclimating and familiarizing myself with the hustle and bustle of this vibrant city and the cheerful and motivated group of fellows with whom I’m sharing the experience of Pollinate Group’s 50^th fellowship program.

By Wednesday, May 23, we had advanced our understanding of Pollinate’s operations and the nuance behind its mission: “To empower women to lead their communities out of poverty.”

It was now time to get going on our project briefs — the main benefit that we are to provide to Pollinate Group during our fellowship. Our ArchTam team are spread across the four projects:

Me (Gareth): Tam Ras Water purifier (a new water-treatment product developed in Bangalore)

Ed: Cashless transactions — mobile money

Juliette and Sam: Poverty Index

Suzanne: Data Validation Study — Salesforce

I was thanking my lucky stars that I got my first choice in the water-purification project. Why? Because poor-quality drinking water is the source of many illnesses and sometimes death, particularly in children under five years old. In addition, much of my time working for ArchTam has been spent under the stewardship of our ANZ Technical Director for Water Supply and Wastewater Treatment, Peter Hillis, so I felt I could make more impact through this project!

The self-defined problem statement of our project is: “How might we understand the water life cycle of our community members to improve their well-being?”

This will involve an options assessment of the Tam Ras purifier and other water-treatment products against varying needs identified across the slum communities of Bangalore.

We’re still fine-tuning our approach based on what is realistically achievable in our community dealings — these will form the basis for understanding the needs of the communities Pollinate Group helps. The overwhelming sentiment from our visits (we have visited two communities at time of writing) is the friendliness of the people, particularly the kids. Most of the families would best be described as economic migrants coming from rural regions for better work opportunities due to the growth of Bangalore and the drought in their home communities, which has been hampering their ability to make a living.

Thus far, developing our survey has been our priority. We have spent some painstaking hours writing our survey questions, which must maintain their precision through translation into the local dialect(s), mostly Kannada, but some Hindi. We have some local fellows to thank for doing an amazing job in this department — they’re also great people! Today, we piloted our survey in a particularly urban community with success — vindicating our back and forth in developing our questions.

Stay tuned for what happens next. My second blog will be published soon.

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The business model of Pollinate Group is based on providing access to life-improving products such as solar lights, water purifiers and cooktop stoves to communities within India and Nepal with limited access to clean water, and little or no access to electricity. Local women are provided with the tools, skills and products to sell to families within their communities and the products can be paid for over several months to increase affordability. In addition to directly impacting the lives of local women and their communities within India and Nepal, Pollinate Group also engages with volunteers from across the globe, exposing them to the projects and initiatives of the organization. One of the aims of the volunteering program is to inspire participants to continue to work on tackling global issues, such as limited access to essential services, once they return to their day-to-day lives.

As one of the five participants in a two-week service trip in India, I am in Bengaluru working with Pollinate Group to collect data on the demographics and aspirations of the communities. This information will help Pollinate Group identify the potential to increase or modify their product range, with a view to improving the living conditions of people within the migrant communities of Bengaluru.

Our approach to data collection is to meet with residents living in the slum communities of Bengaluru and invite them to talk about their current needs, as well as their aspirations and the hurdles they face. Where possible, the conversations lead to an understanding of the individual, acknowledging their past as well as their present situation. The vast majority of people we talk to used to be farmers in their native land; however, lack of rain has led to crops failing and been the impetus for their migration off the land into the slum communities of Bengaluru. Now, most people work in construction and as housekeepers, their eyes set firmly on the future, with the shared goal of providing their children with a good education.

A day in the life of one of Bengaluru’s residents

Met Nagaraj, a farmer from Manthralaya, who has moved to one of the slum communities within Bengaluru. The rains have been arriving at the wrong time for the crops so he has come to the city along with his wife to work in construction. On the days when there is work available, they earn 400 and 300 rupees each. Nagaraj gets up at 3 a.m. to collect water and likes the climate of Bengaluru, which is cooler than his hometown. His community of approximately 100 homes shares three solar fans. There is no toilet and no electricity. A railway line marks the edge of their settlement, where he has lived for five years.

When the unpredictable rains do arrive, Nagaraj returns home for up to three months to help tend the land and harvest cotton. He takes with him solar lamps purchased from Pollinate Group and leaves them with his native village. His three children have remained there and are at school in Years 6, 7 and 12. During school holidays, they come to Bengaluru to visit.

Tinsel lines the rafters of Nagaraj’s home. His wife’s bangles hang from nails and utensils are arranged in order of height. Our translator relays my description of the challenges faced by farmers in Australia. He recognizes the story; he knows it by heart.

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