Indo-Israel Projects 2019
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Indo-Israel Projects 2019
CONTEXT Israel and India are nations that have deep trust and respect for each other. Recent agreements between the two countries outlined cooperation in the areas of health care, water, technology, and space science.
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Israel is committed to innovations that are aimed towards humanitarian concerns and recent bilateral agreements focus on piloting sustainable and affordable Israeli technologies in India.
Indo-Israel Projects 2019
ACADEMIC PARTNERSHIP – ISRAEL AND INDIA A collaboration between Tel Aviv University (TAU) and Amrita University (AU) was started in 2016 by two UNESCO chairs. Dr. Rafi Nachmias is the UNESCO chair in technology, internationalization, and education at TAU and Prof. Bhavani Rao is the UNESCO chair in Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality at AU. Both are committed to research excellence, social upliftment, academic rigor, and international collaborations. Amrita University has developed successful community engagement models to build relationships with rural villages in India to ensure that projects are feasible, culturally accepted, and sustainable for the successful implementation of new technologies. Israel excels in water resource management and has been instrumental in developing game changing, low cost water purification technologies that have been deployed around the globe.
The NUF water filtration system developed at TAU will serve as the first technology field tested through the joint venture between TAU and AU aimed at implementing and documenting the application of Israeli innovations in resource-limited settings in India. Together the two universities are strongly positioned to dramatically improve the lives of marginalized communities and to also design robust studies to pilot, refine, and scale technologies at a national level throughout India. Additionally, the projects selected will aim to directly supporting six of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s): Goal 3: Good Health and Well Being Goal 4: Quality Education Goal 5: Gender Equality Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation Goal 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure Goal 17: Partnership for the Goals
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Indo-Israel Projects 2019
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Indo-Israel Projects 2019
CURRENT AREA OF NEED IN INDIA
Water reserves in the state of Kerala were severely impacted by the 2018 floods that contaminated much of the drinking water supply and left almost all water resources in the state polluted and unsafe for use. The devastating flash floods, landslides, and the release of various dams across the state took the life of approximately 483 people and displaced nearly a million people from their homes. While state government water distribution channels exist, the intense flooding forced a number of water treatment plants to cease pumping. The non-availability of state supplied drinking water and the contamination of local bore wells resulted in the emergence of water- borne communicable
diseases, including 350 suspected cases of leptospirosis, a concern for cholera outbreaks, and widespread E.coli bacteria in drinking water supplies. There is immediate need for a low cost water filtration system that is capable of removing suspended solids, pathogens, bacteria, viruses, and organic matter from water. It’s also necessary that the system is designed to be easily maintained with a self-cleaning mechanism for mechanical backwash that expels pollutants built-up on filtration membranes. The NUF water filtration system developed at TAU is an ideal solution for communities in Kerala that are still consuming highly turbid and E.coli contaminated water.
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Indo-Israel Projects 2019
ADDRESSING THE PROBLEM
AMMACHI Labs at Amrita University is leading the NUF water filter project. AMMACHI Labs strategically identifies villages across India for sustainable development projects using a seven-pronged strategy concentrating on health, water and sanitation, education, agriculture, income-generation, and ecofriendly infrastructures. AMMACHI Labs centrally focuses on women’s empowerment across all project areas. Four villages were selected to receive NUF water filters and installation was completed at three villages in the Alappuzha and Pathanamthitta district that have Coliform contaminated water sources. The fourth village is located in the Wayanad district, home to the larg-
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est tribal communities in Kerala. These marginalized communities were devastated by massive landslides during the 2018 monsoon that destroyed most of their agricultural land. Successful installation of filters systems would typically take multiple visits to complete at a village. Driven by Ammachi Lab’s technical experts and effective models for community engagement, installations were completed in just one day per village by 12 personnel - masons, plumbers, social science researchers, and students from Amrita University. Ammachi Labs also provided 1000 liter water tanks, electric pumps, water piping, flow meters, and steel encasings to secure the NUF filter from theft.
Indo-Israel Projects 2019
EMPOWERMENT Focusing on women’s empowerment, Ammachi Labs identified 8-10 women from each village to lead community engagement efforts. These women participate in culturally responsive train-thetrainer education series to learn about the causes of waterborne illnesses and the value of using purified water from the NUF system. The session highlighted on topics such as why and how the local water sources get contaminated, discussion on the connection between
water quality and health and explaining the difference between improved and safe drinking-water. Villagers were also provided hands on training on how to use NUF filtration and maintenance of the NUF system to ensure its sustainably, specifically how to backwash filtration membranes. Amrita University students also conducted research activities such as community mapping and NUF acceptability study within the community.
Figure 1: Training Session on Causes of waterborne illnesses and the value of using purified water from the NUF; Figure 2: Training Session on Maintenance of NUF
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Indo-Israel Projects 2019
LEARNING LESSONS
Lesson 1
Lesson 2
Simple solutions for complex problems
Some villages draw water from bore wells while other villages receive piped water provided by the local government, but piped water flows inconsistently. To address this issue, the 1000 liter tanks are filled when piped water is provided. Communities can use water from the tanks whenever piped water is not being provided by the government.
Government supplied water may be delivered by trucks when wells go dry during drought seasons, but government supplied water in treated with heavy amounts of chlorine that is unsafe for long-term consumption. To remove cholerine, water from trucks will be transferred into the 1000 liter tanks that Ammachi Labs installed with NUF filters. Water will be pumped from the tanks through the NUF filters to remove chlorinated hydrocarbon solvents in the water.
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Indo-Israel Projects 2019
Lesson 3
Lesson 4
More water for more people in less time
Keeping an eye on sustainability
Communities in Kerala are averse to using the NUF manual hand pump because it requires too much labor to produce the amount of water needed for a household. The villages have electricity ten hours per day, so Ammachi Labs installed NUF with an electric pump. Electric pumps push a greater quantity of water through the NUF system compared to hand pumps, and subsequently decreases time spent waiting at the tap to fill household water containers.
Routine backwashing of NUF filter membranes is essential for the system to work correctly. The trainings Ammachi Labs provides to communities include simple and easy to understand instructions for backwashing. To monitor that backwashing is done correctly, Ammachi Labs requested that women leaders in each village routinely collect samples of source water and filtered water for dipstick testing. The test results will help confirm that contaminates are being successfully removed from water as an indication that backwashing is successful.
TESTIMONIALS “We had a camp for the 2019 floods since this was the only area which was high up and did not get flooded. We were able to get water for use from the filter for drinking and cooking.” -Mohanan Resident, Thalavady Panchayath Alappuzha “There was water shortage in the village for a week during 2019 floods. We stored water in the tank and used the filter for drinking water.” -Puspa SHG Member, Aruvapalm Panchayath Pathanamthitta
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Indo-Israel Projects 2019
NEXT STEPS
NUF filters will provide access to clean drinking water for a total of 1,480 people from 202 households across 5 villages in Kerala. Of the five NUF filters purchased for this project, three were installed in May and the last two will be installed in September. Of the remaining two filters, one will be installed at a village in the Wayanad district. A fi-
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nal NUF project report will be shared with stakeholders at the end of September. Dr. Rafi Nachmias and Prof. Bhavani Rao are currently discussing future plans to continue the Tel Aviv University and Amrita University partnership for implementing innovative Israeli technologies in India.
Indo-Israel Projects 2019
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Indo-Israel Projects 2019
WISE PROJECT
The environmental impact of the Kerala floods has been significant. Top soil in most affected areas has been completely washed off. The dwindling tree cover that barely held the top soil in place has been drastically reduced, triggering and triggered by landslides. Rivers and ground water sources have been polluted by debris, human and animal carcasses. The Western Ghats was already deemed a fragile ecosystem, and fauna like snakes that were washed out of their habitats and survived the deluge were slaughtered by the thousands in fear and desperation to reclaim property. This post-disaster scenario, if not
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addressed sustainably, can only lead to larger disasters in the future. Experts proclaim that Women’s Empowerment is the key to true sustainability. Traditionally, rural women are the natural caretakers of the environment. They often tend to their families, livestock, fields, water sources and even the forests that surround the village thereby effectively protecting the entire ecosystem on which the community subsides. The monitoring and maintenance work women do in their villages is an integral part of sustainability of their natural resources.
Indo-Israel Projects 2019
OBJECTIVES
The purposes of the WISE project are Amrita University’s Center for Women and Girls’ Empowerment and AMMACHI Labs has been working to address the issues that surround disappearing traditional practices towards sustaining the environment by women with the following ideas: By recognizing and financially supporting the sustainability work rural women are already doing, we could help to ensure traditional sustainable practices do not die out. To quantify the quantity, quality and use of a resource with the help of technology, that would help provide a basis for measuring economic value. The project proposes to empower women as sustainability officers in their community. Selected
women in identified communities will be taught to maintain, monitor and replenish any one natural resource, using latest technologies. If we used water as an example, the women would monitor water levels in their community, water use, and water quality. In order to achieve these goals, we started by (1) selecting two sites to implement our project. We then (2) carried out various activities and (3) collected initial data regarding these activities. From our activities and initial data, (4) some inferences were made regarding one of the communities. The following text details these four aspects of our work.
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Indo-Israel Projects 2019
1. Site Selection
As part of the site selection process we conducted pre-study at 9 different flood affected communities in Kerala. Our goal was to select 2 communities from among the 9 communities. In so doing, we took into consideration the factors such as community size, Amrita presence in the community, presence
Was the area affected by recent Kerala floods
of active SHGs, availability of women, and availability of local administrative support. In the end, we chose 2 communities: Moolakkayam and Thamarasseri. A list of variables that guided our choice of these two communities are found in Table 1. Community 1
Community 2
Moolakkayam
Thamarassery
Yes
Yes
Panchayath GPS Coordinates
Along the banks of Pamba river. sloppy hilly area. cultivational land. Silt deposit , Mainly agricultural loss ward 12, Angel Valley panchayath Erumeli 9.42550N 76.97550E
Contact Person
Lilly kutti, Asha Worker
Description
Ward
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Nearby Pampayaar, soil erosion, mud deposit, animal husbandry. ward 11, Arunoottimangalam panchayath Thiruvaarppu 9.57586N 76.48792E Sumesh and his Wife, Latha
Indo-Israel Projects 2019
Opinion on how the community recovered from flood (to Soja Chechi and Sumesh)
Flood Effects Before - Cultivation, Animal husbandry, and fish farming. After - Fish farming, cocoa, Rubber relatively survived but very little milk, Rumboottan & jathikka trees dried
Before – Daily wages, SHGs After – Daily wages , Material, Sanitation issues
N
Y (filled up sock pits, wells, households. sanitation issues resolved to an extend) N N
Y
N
Loss of vegetation or cultivation
Y
Loss of farmland Loss of houses and housing land Animal Husbandry effected Reduced water table
Y Y (houses partly destroyed) Y
Small vegetations at household backyard N Y [Data not collected]
Quality of drinking water Materials loss leading to financial crisis
Y (Wells are contaminated) Y Y (wells contaminated, but recovered to an extent) skin diseases Other Info 20 - 25 houses (total 195 Households)
Was the community submerged in water during flood
partially
Silt Deposit Landslide or Land slips Land Subsidence (sinking or settling of land, disfiguring slopes)
Y (high)
Water Scarcity, contamination Health Community size (100-150 individuals)
Y Y Y (wells contaminated)
25-30 (total 54 Households)
Neighbourhood
Houses are scattered
Close nit houses, every house is built in a 4-cent of space
Amrita presence in the community
Yes, Mrs. Soja
Yes, Mrs. Soja
Is there an active SHG Chances of having 7-10 supportive women Availability of Panchayath Support
Yes, Active
Yes, Active
high
high
Can be done
Yes
Political affinity
UDF (A political party)
Major group (tribe, caste, religion) Drinking water source Does the community have Auxiliary Nurse Midwifery(ANM)
Christians, Hindu Household well yes
35 years of LDF (A political party), last 3 years UDF Christians, Hindu Household well Data not collected
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Does the community have ASHA workers Main crops/cultivation
yes, strong
Data not collected
Cocoa(survived flood), Kappa Rubber, Jaathikka (lost in flood. Trees gets dried due to silt
Not an agricultural land
Moolakkayam Community Immediately After the Flood & Now
[Figure 1: Two images from Moolakkayam community shows the same location near the river. Left side image is 3 days after the flood and right side is 7 months after the flood]
The image on the left shows the Pamba River that flooded due to the dam water. The river had never dried up before the flood. But in the image (on the right) taken in April 2019, we can see that the river has dried up.
[Figure 2: The image from Moolakkayam community given above shows the silt that got deposited on the land.]
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2. Activities Conducted So Far 1. Pre-field visit for community mobilization 2. Identification of households and the population of women who can participate in the work. 3. Decide on the research objectives 4. Planning the field activities 5. Completion of the Participatory Capacity and Vulnerability Analysis in both Table 2 presents the activities that were taken in the two communities and the objectives we attempted to reach. [Table 2: Activities Taken and Their Objectives] Action Items 1.
2.
3.
Objectives
Pre-field visit for community mobilization – phase 1
To interact with the influential people and some of the active women in the community. To help us understand the general lifestyle of the people and their approaches towards the implementation of our projects. Pre-field visit for community To gather the women in the entire community as a whole and conmobilization – phase 2 duct a meeting to help them understand the WISE project. This helped us to better understand the availability of the women in the community. Decision on the research Dr. Sophia, Mrs Wafa Singh and three of the MSW (Masters in objectives Social Work) students are part of the team. Given the projects and its requirements the research team designed the research objectives for the effective implementation of the project. Below are the project’s research objectives. 1. Village women’s implicit mental models of sustainability and environmental protection and their implicit mental models about their role as agents for change (Some implicit traditional knowledge is already geared towards sustainability and therefore useful, but some mental models might be counterproductive) 2. Mapping the assets of the village women and linking these assets to the respective SDG indicators; showing how these assets can aid in their work to promote sustainability 3. Combining the village women’s own knowledge about their assets, knowledge about what they are already doing for environmental protection, and knowledge about what they could be doing with experts’ knowledge; thus educating them and enabling them to design a five-year plan.
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Indo-Israel Projects 2019
4.
Planning the field activities
5.
Conducting PCVA for the 2 communities
Given the conditions of the communities, the availability of the women, and the research objectives we planned to conduct Participatory Capacity and Vulnerability Analysis (PCVA) in order to understand the needs of the community. The list of field activities to be implemented on both communities were thus designed. The list includes 9 Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) activities to be conducted within the duration of 9-10 days. The implementation design, mentoring and monitoring of the field work was done by Mrs. Wafa Singh who has 6+ years of experience in the domain of PRA activities and academia. Including her, a team of 7 visited the community and stayed there for 10 days. The first community visited was Thamarasseri, in the 3rd week of June. Later in the 1st week of July the team visited the Moolakkayam community.
Nine tests were administered so as to obtain data that would help us understand the situations in the two communities. Table 3 shows what the 9 tests were. Table 3: Participatory Capacity and Vulnerability Analysis (PCVA) PCVA Conducted
FGDs
Historical Timeline
Problem Tree Analysis
Preference Ranking
Transect Walk + Geo-tagging of assets
Objective / Solution Tree Analysis
Resource/ Asset Mapping
General impressions by the field teams regarding our work in the communities. 1. Wonderful participation from the community 2. Enthusiastic participation 3. Mrs. Soja and Mr. Sumesh helped us in the field. We saw how critical it is to have an influential person to bridge between the community and the field team. 4. From an overall perspective, it emerged that the community is facing a set of vulnerabilities. However, interestingly, it has an equal set of strengths 5. Our action plan in the project will be devised in a way to address their vulnerabilities while building on their strengths.
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3. Data Collected Data were collected using the 9 tests presented in Table 3. We now present qualitative data for each of the 9 tests.
1. Focus Group Discussions
• The women in the community actively participated in the discussions. A general mental model that we observed at a glance is that all the women uniformly say that they do not face any problem in their life. . But, in contrast to that, they do face a serious problem which is the lack of drinking water and it has become a fundamental problem within the community. • During every rain the surrounding land of their households gets immersed in water due to the fact that it is a low land. To address this some of the households invested in raising their land using mud. But in so doing, they failed to understand that this they put other houses at even more risk. • The women in the community are generally aware of the ill effects of plastics. They conveyed that other communities do not consider them as equals. Due to this social stigma they often felt that others exploit them by dumping the waste in their community. • Many households have the habit of growing vegetables on the rooftops or raised areas. Owing to the nature of flooding in the area rain water gets accumulated and ends up being stagnant for a long duration of time. Any vegetation planted Page 19 of 30
Indo-Israel Projects 2019
on the ground will not sustain this condition. So the natives always grow vegetables on raised areas. • During the discussions about the timeline and the changes that it brought within the community groups mainly discussed how the drainages were transformed into roads which had the effect of increased chances of flooding. 2. SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats)
Sample groups of youth (girls), middle aged women, and elderly women participated in for SWOT analysis. 9-12 participants were chosen on the basis of their age to form 3 groups and the analysis was conducted on each group separately. Participants themselves wrote their own strengths, weakness, oppor-
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tunities and threats in the chart papers. They especially noted village resources, in particular, water resources. From this the researchers observed the women’s perceptions about how they identify the assets and resources in their village, and how they are managing them. Below are the questions that were asked to them.
Indo-Israel Projects 2019
Strengths 1. What are the strengths of the village people and culture? 2. What unique skills or resources can the village draw on? 3. What do others see as the village strengths? Weakness 4. What would you improve in the village ? 5. What are the biggest challenges? 6. Where does the village have fewer resources than others ? 7. What are outsiders likely to see as weaknesses? Opportunities 8. What opportunities are available? 9. What opportunities could you take advantage of? 10. How can the village transform its strengths into opportunities? Threats 11. What threats could harm the village? 12. What threats do the villages’ weaknesses exploit? 13. What threats prevent the village from improving? Page 21 of 30
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3. Resource Mapping
The women in the community were encouraged to plot down the assets that they are aware within the community. Women in three age groups were asked to draw their village, village assets and resources including five capital assets - natural, human, physical, social and financial assets. The participants themselves drew their village and village
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resources in a chart given by the field team. This is a PRA technique used to integrate researcher knowledge and community knowledge. It is a group effort where they discuss among themselves to finalise the drawings of the village. It only differs slightly from one group to the other.
Indo-Israel Projects 2019
4. Transect Walk
Five ‘real’ capital assets natural, human, physical, social, financial are analyzed through a long walk throughout the village within women’s participation and involvement. In this women had walked
with the project team they themselves explained and pointed out their assets and resources, especially water sustainable resources.
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5. Historical Timeline
Based on the discussion with women group, the team noted down the major changes that the community has gone through from their beginning. Changes like increase in the number of houses,
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developments like drainage converted to roads etc were noted down. It is done to find their indegneous knowledge on environment protection.
Indo-Israel Projects 2019
6. Problem Tree Analysis
The group of women discusses together to come up with 9 problems of their village. The group then discussed the causes and effects of these problems
which helped us to understand their understanding too. The process is explained in detail below.
The community as a whole ( almost 40 participants) were pointing out 9 problems they have as a community. And it is drawn as a tree with it roots being the
cause for the problem and the branches being its effects. Every response is made after the majority approves on a point.
7. Priority Ranking
The identified problems are given a score out of 10 on the impact that the problem has on the community, 10 being the highest. Each score is given after agreement of the majority.
Then the problems will be ranked from 1 to know the priority of the problem they are having.
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8. Objective Tree Analysis
Here the community is said to assume the problems to be solved and the situation where the problem is solved is written at the trunk of the tree, at the root the measures that should be taken
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to achieve at that situation is written and at the branches the positive things that can happen because of the problem being solved is written.
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INFERENCES FROM THAMARASSERY (COMMUNITY 2) After the fieldwork for 9 days and the interaction with the women in the community, Mrs Wafa Sigh and the other members of the team collectively came
up with a set of inferences. It included the list of vulnerabilities, list of strengths and the possible set of actions for the community benefit.
List of Vulnerabilities
List of Strengths
Social
Social Capital - Even Though the community lacks external support they are willing to support each other and has a good network among themselves.
Resource/Asset
Basic Resilience - While facing many adversities frequently, the people have built good resilience by adapting their life style.
Environmental
Individual Potential - Most of the women have experienced many adversities and have developed a positive approach in facing them.
Economic
Environmentally Aware - The women are generally aware of their problems that they are facing and how it is related to the environment.
Demographic
Middle aged women are motivated to work as a larger group for the welfare of the community
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Potential Action Agenda – Suggested by Mrs Wafa Singh
a. Organizing the community eg: Self Help Groups. b. Awareness Building. c. Selecting SDOs (Sustainable Development Officers) & Building their capacities. d. Technical expert plan for targeted interventions. e. Formal sustainable development plan. f. Monitoring, follow-up & support to SDOs. Closing Reflections
a. Community is unique with respect to its energy, enthusiasm, interest & passion b. The research team is quite concerned about their collective problems & associated environmental issues c. Increases the responsibility and accountability as researchers d. A periodic follow-up can be done to keep the community in loop throughout the project cycle
PLAN AHEAD 1. By July 15 – Complete the data collection and transcription 2. By 31 July – Rough mental models need to be ready 3. Start some engagement activities with the ladies • Initiate formation of Self Help Groups • Select the potential SDOs as candidates from the group • Training the candidates in water testing • Installation of Jeevamrutham water filter if possible • Conduct awareness sessions on waste management • Conduct clean up drive with the local support • Deploy waste management solutions through SDOs 4. Every week, one activity in the field so that we consistently keep engaged with the community.
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Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham is a multi-campus, multi -disciplinary research university that is accredited ‘A’ by NAAC and is ranked as one of the best research universities in India. The university is spread across five campuses in three states of India - Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, with the University headquarters at Ettimadai, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. AMMACHI Labs is an academic and research center at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham that brings an interdisciplinary approach to addressing societal challenges. We envision a world where technology is designed and used to empower people. We create innovative educational tools and skill development solutions to help uplift entire commu-
nities. We are as excited about community outreach solutions as we are about our focused research and development for Computer-Human Interactions (CHI), robotics and automation, haptic technologies, and applied robotics. Through the use of CHI technology, AMMACHI Labs aims to augment skill development, life enrichment education, healthcare, disaster risk reduction, and much more. We began in 2009 as a small research lab located on the beautiful Amritapuri campus of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham in Kerala, India. Today, our team consists of over 100 towards the common vision of bettering society through technological innovation. We are a diverse and talented family.
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