Last Tuesday, we pitched our group project proposals to alleviate poverty in an area of our choice. My group formulated a plan to increase water access in the Colonias settlements of Texas by building a community center that would build social power so the community could work towards addressing this issue through workshops and meetings. Come presentation day, we were essentially told that our project wouldn't work because of the bureaucracy in our country that would not allow for such a building to be built in a town that is not an official city. There was also an apparent disconnect between our community building activity and access to water. I initially thought that this was the worst possible thing that could ever happen in a group presentation. This brought to life my personal fears. But then things changed when I caught an idea that one of the GSI's said in passing. He told us that we should have done a rainwater collection system instead. I didnt have time to say this then, but I thought this was a simple yet genius plan that never crossed our minds. Maybe we were so caught up on trying to address every layer of this complicated issue that we didn't think of just harvesting natural water. His idea has been floating in my mind since then so I decided to look into it....
The WaterAid America website explains this really well. The rainwater harvesting tank that this organization brings to impoverished communities around the world is a 12 by 12 cylinder that stands 5 feet high. It collects rainwater during wet seasons and filters it through a net. This system collects naturally filtered rainwater that is supposedly cleaner the tap water that is piped in to some of these communities only on a sporadic basis. Some studies from the University of Arizona have shown that this system is effective in bringing down water costs and providing a sustainable water access alternative in the Colonias (although their study was done in Arizona rather than Texas. This solution makes so much sense especially since our research showed that the Colonias we chose did experience a lot of rain despite their lack of access to water. This would have also solved our issue of dealing with government bureaucracy or exploitation by big businesses.
How we completely missed this solution in our research is beyond me. Even if our proposal is done and submitted, I'm really glad that the criticisms we received allowed me to look at this issue from a different perspective. It is fitting that right before I wrote this blog post, I read Antonina's post on how cynicism can hinder us from growing. Since we've been taught so much about critically analyzing solutions to poverty, we may shoot down our own ideas before we even build it up. My groups experience has shown that the beauty of pitching an idea is that it allows these ideas to be seen with a fresh perspective. Whether the idea just came up from doodling in class or it has been built it into a 10 page paper, there will always be something to improve. It is a matter of sharing these ideas and motivating ourselves to follow through so that the best solutions can be found.
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side-note: this is our blog's 100th post! I think that's pretty cool :)
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| Rainwater harvesting from the WaterAid America website |
How we completely missed this solution in our research is beyond me. Even if our proposal is done and submitted, I'm really glad that the criticisms we received allowed me to look at this issue from a different perspective. It is fitting that right before I wrote this blog post, I read Antonina's post on how cynicism can hinder us from growing. Since we've been taught so much about critically analyzing solutions to poverty, we may shoot down our own ideas before we even build it up. My groups experience has shown that the beauty of pitching an idea is that it allows these ideas to be seen with a fresh perspective. Whether the idea just came up from doodling in class or it has been built it into a 10 page paper, there will always be something to improve. It is a matter of sharing these ideas and motivating ourselves to follow through so that the best solutions can be found.
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side-note: this is our blog's 100th post! I think that's pretty cool :)
thanks for this post, Dominique!
ReplyDeleteand very cool that this is post #100! :D
With working on this same project, I really liked Dominique's point about how important the feedback we were given was. Looking back on the project and what we did, we did make a lot of major changes but within in the same big idea we had started with and not looking into several big ideas/approaches. This just shows how important it is to collaborate with multiple people from a variety of places with different approaches, etc. Especially since we were taking on a fairly difficult issue and trying to directly fix it rather than taking some more round-about ways.
ReplyDeleteWhat I learned most from this project was how difficult it really is to come up with something that might work, there are so many complexities within one thing and it is a tedious process. It made me appreciate the work others put into projects and programs. it seems like it could be a frustrating process but as long as there is always support, collaboration and constant feedback through out the planning process, it would be hard to come up with an idea that is not good. For our hypothetical project, we were given just a few weeks and we essentially worked among our little group of three. What we came up with were good ideas, but not good enough. We also were taking on an issue which we lacked the insight someone else would have that has worked in water sanitation and with communities living in such areas. If we had this as a project for the entire class in which all of us would work on one issue instead of having several groups and worked on this for most of the semester, we probably would have had come up with so many more ideas and have better insight. And if we had been able to work with people from the colonias, we may have come across this rain water idea Dominique has blogged about. This project has only given me a sample taste of what project planning is like and as intimidating as the process can be, I look forward to the future challenges. As long as we incorporate many different people, including the community in which the project is to be implemented, continually receive constructive criticisms, and constant challenge our own ideas, we can do no harm.