Opinion Essay on Impact of Development on Marginalised Populations

Objective: To equip students with the skills and sensitivity to work on developmental content creation and to highlight the experiences of marginalised urban populations affected by development projects 

Outcome: Students will be sensitive and view the larger impact on the vulnerable populations of the city owing to our current development paradigms. This will foster sensitivity and holistic perspective in their own design approach and projects. 

Requirements:  

• Connections with an NGO working with people impacted by any large infrastructure and development project in the city, by the slum redevelopment project,
• An understanding of information that will support the NGO and the people that can form the basis of data collection for students as part of their essay writing project. 

Prerequisites: Knowledge of the project beforehand, skills of conducting interviews empathetically.

Procedure: This activity is designed as a support mechanism for the organisation who is already working for the marginalised populations in the city. The identification of NGO and collaboration to be set accordingly between the institute and the organisation.

Step 1: Form a few groups of students (as required) and are informed about the field visit to the community that are affected due to the development project and need to write an opinion essay ( 750- 100 words max.) based on their observations and interviews with relevant stakeholders.  

Step 2: Students are connected with a grassroots organisation working with vulnerable and marginalised population 

Step 3: The grassroots organisation shares information about their work with the community and  shares pointers for documentation with students that will be useful for the representation of the narrative of the impact on vulnerable populations by large development projects 

Step 4 : Students frame questions for interviewees based on the information needed by the NGO partner and information they need for the essay. 

Step 5 : Students visit the site, make a note of their observations and conduct interviews and focused group discussions with the support of the organisation  

Step 6 : Students are given two weeks to submit the information they documented to the NGO partner besides  working on their opinion essay and submitting it for evaluation.