A family working hard to make a living selling paper bags
Photo by Larissa Andrews
Stepping Stones...
to engineering a better world!
Posted by Dani Barrington to Western Australia Chapter, 28th April 2010, 6:21pm
In March, the first Stepping Stones workshop for 2010 was hosted by the EWB WA Chapter in Perth. The event was well attended by around 40 enthusiastic people keen to find out more about EWB and gain some basic skills and insights into volunteer development work and capacity building.
After a brief introduction by the WA Chapter President Dani Barrington, the group launched straight into the first of two simulation activities aimed at highlighting some of the challenges that need to be overcome when volunteering on a development project. This activity demonstrated to the group that language barriers can make communication a challenge (but not impossible) and that it is important to remain open-minded when interacting with unfamiliar cultures, as our first impressions of unfamiliar behaviours can turn out to be quite inaccurate!
Dani then presented the various ways in which it is possible to get involved with the WA Chapter, after which the second simulation activity, ‘Basti Life’, cranked into gear. Attendees were split into groups of 4 to 5 people, each representing a family inhabiting a shanty in an Indian slum. Each family was given a small amount of money with which to buy necessities and materials to make paper bags to sell to one of two shopkeepers – the local money-making industry. One shopkeeper would pay a higher price for the bags, but was also more stringent on quality control, leaving the families with a decision to make – which shopkeeper is better for business overall? Various opportunities which the families could decide to accept or ignore, and challenging situations which needed to be overcome, were introduced at different times throughout the activity. Communities that fell into financial trouble were forced to move ‘under the bridge’ to work for the oppressive Mr Dheepadet, but could work their way out and back to their homeland if focussed and determined enough. The de-brief at the end of the activity included feedback from participants about their experience, and highlighted that opportunities for education and training, even if for only one member of the community, can greatly benefit an entire developing community. The simulation also emphasised the difficult decisions faced daily by families living in urban slums throughout the developing world.
This concluded the Stepping Stones events for the day, at which point Kim Axworthy facilitated an information session on EWB volunteer intake 6, and Julius Susanto, a recent EWB WA Chapter overseas volunteer to Laos, entertained the crowd with his stories from the field.
Story by WA Chapter committee member Jonathon Dyson.
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