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.

Zanzibar

After finalizing the report in Njombe and Dar, the whole group got together at the island of Zanzibar. This is an island just off the coast of Dar Es Salaam. On Zanzibar we travelled to a small town called Matembwe where much of our brainstorming and creative sessions took place over the week.

We started to set up the imaginary “perfect filter”. After that problems were listed and many solutions were thought in a divergent session. While converging again, we selected the most interesting solutions. Right now the phase of conceptualizing the different solutions has started.

While visiting the local clinic we were amazed to see a graph that showed that the amount of cases of diarrhoea had decreased significantly over the last couple of years in that particular town. Because of governmental programs and NGO’s people have started to boil their water and use chlorine which have led to this positive result.

Dar es Salaam

Last week our tutor from the TUDelft, Henk Kuipers came to join us in Tanzania. He visited both Dar es Salaam and Njombe. It was very nice to work with our teacher outside of the university. The Njombe team made a presentation on Monday at SHIPO. On Tuesday the Njombe team and Henk Kuipers, traveled to Dar es Salaam to meet up with the Dar team. On Wednesday we visited a university in Dar. It was really interesting to meet the students there who are also studying industrial design.

The remaining days of this week, the whole team will discuss their research and draw conclusions and design requirements. Coming weeks, we will finish the research phase and concentrate on the solution phase.

We are really enthusiastic and cannot wait for it to begin!

Focusgroup Njombe

We (Onno, Martijn en Greetje) also did a focus group, but this time in a village far away from Njombe; Igosi. We chose to do the focus group with women of different villages, therefore it took a while for we got everyone together.

In the beginning all women were a bit quiet, since it was the first time they every participated in such an exercise. We didn't anticipate that all women also would bring their children with them. On the left picture you can see how they working together and showing us with beans what they found important about their drinking water.

We also tried to understand what they find beautiful products. This proved to be difficult; the only things they found beautiful, were the ones they already knew and looked functional. We have to re-think how this can help us in our design process...

At the end of the day everybody was excited and they couldn't stop chatting while we brought them back to their villages. It was very fun to do and we learned a lot. Coming days we will report all the experiences we had the past few weeks in one single report.

Dar es Salaam

Last week we (Gijsbert and Louis Pierre) started a pilot version of the focus group session, with six volunteers. Patrick and Lydia, two Tanzanian students (wana funzi)of the university of D’ Salaam, helped us doing the session.

Although it was just a first trail we immediately got some interesting responses.
• They categorised their own water attributes with decreasing importance: Cleanness (most important), Type/brand, Taste, Price, Origin of the water (source), Surroundings in which the water is bought, Temperature and Appearance of the unit that contains the water.
• After we asked them the grade different water products (like bottled water, water filters, boiling buckets etc). They really had a strong argue with each other! Each of them preferred its own product, by several different reasons. Apparently this group had some diverse preferences for products.
• During Ramadan people urn less income, because many customers (40 % Muslims) of Dar consume a lot less.
• One participant suddenly asked whether she could use the filter for some time, to filter the water she is selling to her customers. She will use the filter for a week and will be interviewed afterwards.

In the suburbs of D’ Salaam we found different kind of water sources. Some people used wells, SimTanks, tap water, and the river Ruvu. We often see the Simtanks placed on roofs, which are used for water storage, sinking the sand and creating water pressure.