Project description

Roos & Aylin are two students from the Technical University Delft and the Technical University Eindhoven who are currently participating the minor International Entrepreneurship & Development at the Technical University Delft. A Dutch foundation called Niketan is supporting a Bangladeshi initiative to take care of mentally disabled children. Roos & Aylin are working on a design project under supervision of Niketan. The students have to face the problem that children are not toilet trained and there is no possibility to make use of diapers in case this would introduce a waste problem. An extra problem is constituted by the fact that the Bangladeshi culture deals with the caste system in which disabled are part of the lowest grade. This means when local helpers clean diapers of disabled children they are acting below their grade. These norms and values make exist a situation in which local helpers refuse to clean the disabled. Children are walking around naked which leads to an unhygienic situation. With both hands Roos & Aylin accepted the design case and immediately booked a trip to Bangladesh from the start of November till the end of January. With their design background they will investigate the country, foundation and user group with the intention to work towards a successful prototype.