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!

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.