Between 25-27 November 2018, the Ooze team joined their partners in India for the second local workshop of the Water as Leverage programme. The three day programme included site visits with Partners for Resilience, RVO and UN-Habitat, as well as interactive working groups and presentations under the direction of Henk Ovink, Special Envoy for International Water Affairs.
The workshop in particular provided a platform to test conceptual designs for our project 'City of 1,000 Tanks' with stakeholders and decision makers engaged in water issues in Chennai, including local government, academics, NGOs and community representatives.
We developed an interactive game to ‘put money on the table’, which was a huge success in prompting discussion among participants about the feasibility and bankability of each of the 5 designs – Mylapore, Chitra Nagar, Mambalam and Koyambedu, and a regional urban plan. From this we gained valuable input to further our designs as well as identifying the enabling environment required to get projects off the ground.
Nilofer Tajuddin from Ooze leads one of the workshops to present proposals for 4 sites across Chennai, and a regional strategy ©CynthiavanElk/WaterasLeverage
Coloured coins enabled different stakeholders to express their preference for projects ©CynthiavanElk/WaterasLeverage
Delegates at the second local workshop in Chennai ©CynthiavanElk/WaterasLeverage
Eva Pfannes, Hans Gehrels, Henk Ovink and Jayshree Vencatesan in conversation with the Greater Chennai Corporation, Deputy Commission (Works) M.Govinda Rao, I.A.S ©CynthiavanElk/WaterasLeverage
City of 1000 Tanks panel discussion moderated by Rogier van der Berg ©RVO/WaL
Field visit in Chitra Nagar, one of the proposed project locations of the City of 1000 Tanks ©Ooze