Time

Tapra

The time that you have an arrangement is the moment when perhaps you might consider to decide if you leave to that certain appointment. Our days exist of appointments that suddenly are no appointments anymore, take place at a different location and are suddenly arranged in the morning instead of in the afternoon. Time plays no role. Do what you like and see where you end seems to be the rule.

Wednesday the 1^st of December we planned to visit the daycare center in Ghior. At 9AM Roos and Aylin were ready. Suddenly, the team heard that particularly that Wednesday, there was a monthly meeting of all the employees of Niketan. So unfortunately, there was no daycare visit for us that day. As an alternative they went to the Ghior market to find materials for low-fi models.

World disability day

 Thursday Roos and Aylin scheduled a visit at the daycare center in Tapra, followed up by a visit at a factory and the day was planned to be wrapped up by a visit to Manikganj. When the team was waiting for the one who had to pick them up, they heard that he was waiting for them somewhere else. Eventually Roos and Aylin arrived at 11.30AM at the Tapra daycare center. Both collected their data and then waited for the next person who had to pick them up after lunch.  Two hours passed by and eventually at 3.30PM he arrived. Finally the team was able to visit the factory. After the visit, they did not go directly to Manikganj. Of course not. First Roos and Aylin had to sit down, drink tea and eat muffins. 

Friday the 3^rd of December can be seen as World Disability Day. The plan was to go with all the children (of all the daycare centers) to Dhaka. In Dhaka a culture show was set up which Sheik Hassina would join too.  
A couple of days before, it turned out that the Sheik was not available. Never mind.. The organizers still planned to go and celebrate this culture show. Thursday was decided that the children, Roos and Aylin went to Manikganj instead of Dhaka.

World disability day

Friday morning the organizers scheduled to leave at 9.00AM. Of course 9.00AM became 10.00AM and 10.30AM the children, Roos and Aylin were in Manikganj. When arriving they could immediately join a group protesting disabled people which lead them to a conference room where they had to sit down for one and a half hour and had to listen to Bengali speakers.  Here, time is hard to define.
 

Ghior

In Ghior is also a day centre from Niketan. We visited this place to do some user research. We also visited the Ghior market. This is a very big market where they have all kind of things. You name it, and they have it! 

Progressing

Niketan has 4 projects: 3 daycare center (one in Baniajuri, one in Tepra and one in Ghoir) and one permanent home called Afroza's place in Jabra. In future, Niketan will build another permanent home for the female disabled children, a home for the employees and a new home for the daycare center of Baniajuri. 

At the moment it is quiet here at Afroza's place - our home is for the next three months. This in fact there is a Muslim vacation going on called Eid. But tomorrow the 7 disabled kids that live here, will come back. These children live here since they want to and most of the parents are too old to take care of them.
Previous days we performed a lot of project work. Mainly material research and user research. We already know that the children here need a product and we figured out a certain design direction.
Next week we hope we can go to the Batexpo: a world fair for fabrics. This is a great opportunity to meet possible stakeholders and investors. Besides, it is a good place for researching the fabric innovations in Bangladesh.

We looking forward to the 3rd of December; World Disability Day. This is a great festivity in the environment we live in right now. Since Niketan is a leading project for whole Bangladesh some of the children will do a dancing and singing performance for the prime minister. We are invited to and would love to experience the event.

As you can see, there are many things going on right now, and we will keep in touch!