The end of our field study

The field work in Tanzania is almost over. After doing research in Tanzania for three months, we have learned a lot about the culture and values of Tanzanian people. Our knowledge of the culture is of course still nothing compared to that of local people themselves. But we are convinced that by being in Tanzania, we were more able to know (mainly by asking and testing) what is important for a waterfilter in Tanzania. Next to being here, we are also convinced that is essential to cooperate with people from Tanzania as stakeholders in the project. After the holidays, we will finalize our project and we hope that this project will continue and that more and more Tanzanian stakeholders will cooperate to make it as successful as possible.

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Concept testing Dar

Last weeks we have been busy developing and prototyping new concepts for the water filter. It is of course very important to know whether people in Tanzania will really like our ideas. No better way than to directly ask them...

In Dar es Salaam we tested this by doing some (5) focusgroups. We discussed with them our new concepts for a water filter, but also asked their opinion about the promotion; 'What do you find most important about such a waterfilter?' The results were inspiring; again we learned a lot. People seem really aware of their current water situation, but miss tools to improve it.

Besides asking the users, we also visited some interesting parties. We discussed with Dr. Mjengera, related to the Ministry of Water, the possible future developments for this product in Tanzania. At Simba Plastics we could observe the Tanzanian production capacity. It is really interesting to collect their (critical) opinions. We think it is valueable to have many stakeholders in the project who can contribute to make it succesfull.

Next weeks we will draw conclusions from our observations and use this to make our final design proposal...

Prototype building

Back in Dar es Salaam we started looking for the possibilities of producing a prototype to test different ideas that have come up in the creative phase.

The University of Dar es Salaam provided us with the opportunity to use their workshops and expertise to produce the prototype. During the time of one week we produced a prototype. We provided the CAD drawings and the experts in the workshop produced the prototype together with us.

The prototypes will be used to test the ideas during field visits in the rural area of Njombe and the urban slum area of Dar es Salaam.





We would like to thank Dr. Nshama, Mr.Rwega, M.r Mwinuka for all their help and assistance.