Ahmedabad – Gian Office – Friday 28 of October
Finally the whole group is together. Juan David (JD) arrived the night of Divali, which is New Year in India (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diwali ). Today at night we will be going again to spend some nights with the farmers in Rajula (http://g.co/maps/4kq3w). Working in projects in a different culture and in extreme poverty, requires that the first steps of the design team, are focused on deep understanding of the community for which the project is being done.
This initial part of the project, which we can call the sensitizing phase, is what makes specially interesting the Base of the Pyramid projects. All the previous knowledge about culture, community, interaction with the environment, interaction with physical objects and whatever might bias our learning has to be left aside. To be able to find the information we need, a series of tools and workshops have to be developed. However we cannot abruptly break into their lives and normal activities, we have to first be accepted and gain their sympathy.
Our task for the next days will be to construct over the previous visit and now start documenting this findings with some interviews, workshops and activities we have planned. We plan to make them company in a whole day of activities, and if they allow us stay a night with them. Its also a very special visit as we are explaining all what we have done to JD as fast as possible (the sleeping bus to Rajula, will probably be a good time to share more of the experience). We are really excited about this field trip, as we already told, we wont have any connection to internet, so we will get in contact as soon as possible.
Meanwhile we will like to share a picture from the trip of JD to India. (Alps from the sky, thanks again to our Swiss Air Friends). When we come back, pictures of Divali and the field trip.