Understanding the water lifecycle to improve community well-being in India
91影视鈥檚 Australia and New Zealand partners with聽聽to support employees wanting to take time to #GiveBack. This year, five employees participated on the 50th聽Professional Fellowship Program. As they return from their journeys, we鈥檙e following their stories through the #91影视Blueprint blog series. This is a part of blog series that chronicles employees鈥� work through Pollinate Energy鈥檚 Professionals Fellowship Program over the last few weeks.
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鈥檓 sharing the experience of Pollinate Group鈥檚 50th fellowship program.
By Wednesday, May 23, we had advanced our understanding of Pollinate鈥檚 operations and the nuance behind its mission: 鈥淭o empower women to lead their communities out of poverty.鈥�
It was now time to get going on our project briefs 鈥� the main benefit that we are to provide to Pollinate Group during our fellowship. Our 91影视 team are spread across the four projects:
Me (Gareth): Tam Ras Water purifier (a new water-treatment product developed in Bangalore)
Ed: Cashless transactions 鈥� mobile money
Juliette and Sam: Poverty Index
Suzanne: Data Validation Study 鈥� 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 91影视 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: 鈥淗ow might we understand the water life cycle聽of our community members to improve their well-being?鈥�
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鈥檙e still fine-tuning our approach based on what is realistically achievable in our community dealings 鈥� 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 鈥� they鈥檙e also great people! Today, we piloted our survey in a particularly urban community with success 鈥� vindicating our back and forth in developing our questions.
Stay tuned for what happens next. My second blog will be published soon.