OAN Grants Program- 2021 Fellows
OAN Grants Program- 2021 Fellows
2021 OAN Grants Program, India
OBSERVATION & ACTION NETWORK (OAN) Grants Program is a collaboration with the Center for the Living City, the Urban Design Collective and NASA India that invites students who are extremely passionate about transforming their cities/towns for a better tomorrow. This program utilizes skill-sets and tools that both inform action and support students’ developing voices. The OAN strives to create a network where students can involve themselves directly with identifying and solving real urban challenges with people in their neighborhoods while also connecting with other creative leaders throughout the world. The Grants Program is an inaugural part of the OAN.
In 2021, the second annual OAN Grants Program received 150 project ideas from across India. We selected five winning projects for OAN Grants Fellowships. Each of the winning individuals or teams are awarded up to ₹ 1,25,000 per proposal to implement and realize their project ideas, ₹ 10,000 per proposal as mentor fees and ₹ 15,000 per proposal as Prize money on successful completion of the fellowship.
Aranyakam
Kalawani
Pehchaan
Udyaan
Vangad
We are grateful for the support and financial commitment made by Asia Initiatives and Public Landscape + Urbanism Studio (PLUS) towards this 2021 OAN Grants Cycle.
2021 OAN GRANTS PROGRAM JURY PANEL
oan grants program founding partners
ABOUT THE CENTER FOR THE LIVING CITY
Launched by a group of activists, practitioners, and academics in 2005, the Center for the Living City holds the singular distinction of being the only urbanist organization founded in collaboration with Jane Jacobs. In the years since its founding, the Center has become a leading global urbanist organization. Advancing social, environmental and economic justice forms the core of its purpose. The Center works to invite all perspectives, particularly those of the marginalized, to participate in the creation of solutions that are empathic, responsive, and community-based.
ABOUT URBAN DESIGN COLLECTIVE
A collaborative platform for architects, urban designers and planners to create liveable cities through participatory planning. UDC was founded in 2011 as a platform to mobilize those who want to change the way our cities are built. By providing an open platform for young design professionals, who otherwise as individuals are excluded in the city building process, to create and disseminate content, we give them a chance to voice themselves as change-makers for better cities. As a result, UDC has come to be a global community of architects, designers, engineers, artists, writers, photographers and many others who are passionate about cities.
ABOUT NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF STUDENTS OF ARCHITECTURE (NASA India)
Headquartered at School of Planning and Architecture, NASA India is one of the largest Architectural Student Organizations in the world with student participants from more than two hundred colleges all over India and countries around the world. The main objective of NASA India is to create a platform for architecture students to learn and interact, engage them directly and indirectly through both online and offline platforms. NASA India conducts events, conventions, seminars, workshops, design competitions & trophies and many other activities.
2021 funding PARTNERs
ABOUT ASIA INITIATIVES
The mission of Asia Initiatives (AI) is to leverage the power of social capital to improve neighborhoods, healthcare, education and livelihoods for under-served communities, striving to bring positive change in the quality of life of people. With a particular focus on women, girls and their families, their initiatives utilize transformative methodologies and technologies to empower people to realize their full potential, and become key stakeholders of their own success.
ABOUT NARAYANAN FAMILY FOUNDATION/ PLUS
The Narayanan Family Foundation's goal is to improve lives through investments in education, culture, and the environment. The foundation provides seed funding to several social impact projects.
Public Landscape and Urbanism Studio (PLUS) and The Narayanan Family Foundation have a joint initiative to focus on making our shared spaces ecological, equitable, and livable.
PLUS hopes to create a platform for landscape architects, allied professions, nonprofits, public agencies, and communities to address urgent challenges in India's built environment due to rapid urbanization, climate change and rising sea levels, and increasing social inequity.
Aranyakam
Aranyakam
team members
Richa Rachael Kurian
Maria Tessa Bobby
Arundathi Anil
Joseph J Zacharia
Reneta Paul
Mentor: Ar. Lekshmi Jayakumar
social media
idea
The Kuruma Tribe have long been the inhabitants of the forest regions of Muthanga, a small town in the Wayanad district of Kerala, India, agriculture and cattle rearing being their primary occupation. They are one of the five main indigeneous tribal settlements in Wayanad and believed to be the descendants of Vedars, the region’s ancient rulers.
The community has, since olden times, been farmers and hunter gatherers. They were even vital in the revolt against colonists during the rule of the famous king Pazhassi Raja, India’s first freedom fighter against colonial rule. In 1952, they were forced to occupy land given by the state according to the Forest Policy Act (1952) and the Wildlife Protection Act. To this day, they continue to occupy these lands and tend to these fields while rearing cattle.
However, they have fallen far since those times. Most families have sold off their cattle and few remain who still do, their agriculture also declining. We hope to change that soon, raising the current annual income of Rs. 7000 to Rs. 3 lakhs.
THE PROBLEM
Since ancient times, the Kuruma Tribe have been rearing cattle and cultivating their fields - it is the tradition which has been followed for many years, through generations and defines their lifestyle and culture. Their main source of income was from selling the dung produced by the cattle and also selling the produce from their fields. In addition to selling the dung, they also used it for themselves as manure in their fields, negating the need for chemical fertilisers.
Due to irregular rain patterns and COVID-19, they experienced drought, famine and floods, leading to an agricultural loss and the small profit they used to receive from selling the cow dung was incomparable. As a result, most families sold their cattle herds as it was not economically feasible.
The effort right now is to uplift the community and lift them out of their hard times while still preserving the community’s culture and tradition.
THE SOLUTION
Wayanad cows are indigeneous to Wayanad in Kerala. They are comparatively smaller and fall under the endangered species category due to cross-breeding and are on the verge of extinction as well.
The cattle raised by the families in the community are taken to graze in the forests everyday in the morning and only return in the evening by 6 PM. Their primary food intake consists of the forest vegetation and they are not fed anything else - there is no need for another source as the forest greens are more than sufficient for their growth.
Kalawani- The Voice of Art
Kalawani- The Voice of Art
idea
The project aims at setting up a Skill Development Centre for women in Kanawani, an urban slum in Indirapuram, Ghaziabad. It provides an opportunity to the females of the community to come together and create something meaningful while nurturing skills through interpersonal teaching and guidance. The design intervention, imposed on an existing structure, includes a crèche facility as well. The proposal follows through till the marketing stage, helping the women acquire raw materials and establish a network of clientele to support their families and instill in them a sense of self esteem.
Pehchaan
Pehchaan
team members
Samriddhi Khare
Pranita Varma
Anshika Khandelwal
Srilalitha Ravuri
Deeptam Das
Mentor: Mahira Qureshi
social media
WEBSITE
The transgender community has a powerful historical presence in India, a country acknowledged for its diversity in culture, history and beliefs. And yet, a country that holds pride in its tradition, has ignored to acknowledge the presence of the transgender community completely. Instances of crime and violence against the transgender community grow more frequent every day.
To create a safe space for the transgender community in Delhi, we, a group of creative thinkers, established Pehchaan. Pehchaan is a social campaign that uses trans rights advocacy, public space interventions and art as catalysts to create awareness and inclusive space for the people of the community. We conduct engage with the community through surveys, discussions and research to understand how the community wants to be represented and their expectations from public spaces
idea
Prejudice against transgenders in India has pushed the community into near-complete digital and physical obscurity. Often denied the right to formal education (as a consequence of harassment or gender dysphoria), a large section of the demographic pursues performing arts as their career. However, many talented individuals from the community do not have access to a platform to demonstrate or practise their skills.
Our team, “Pehchaan”, which translates to “identity” in English, is rooted in the fight against the invisibility of the transgender community in Delhi’s public spaces. The primary motivation of Pehchaan is to affirm their right to gender identity, equality and public space. We want to help them build their artistic capacities and sensitize the common public to the lives of the transgender community using collaboratively designed art.
Overcoming the lack of online resources, the team organized interactions with multiple NGOs, transgender activists and the community itself, which facilitated a deeper insight into the dearth of accessible information. We discovered a local NGO, the Community Empowerment Trust (CET) and were able to establish a mutually beneficial exchange of resources and community presence. CET’s sustained engagement with the transgender community in Jahangirpuri for the last six years through relief camps and welfare drives has made them an influential presence withing the trans community in North Delhi. Together, we conducted a series of interactive exercises with the transgender community in Jahangirpuri, New Delhi. Through the cycles of community consultation and collaborative design, the team was able to capture the essence of the rich culture and tradition of the community which was distilled into the proposal. While also working with people on the site, the team was able to expand its virtual presence with Instagram, Linkedin and a website boosting awareness and attracting more volunteers who wished to work for the cause.
The team’s design proposal is based on creating public space infrastructure that caters to the community’s needs. The solution is a modular stage apparatus that can be used by the collaborators as a performing art venue, or to organize relief activities without having to go through the expensive process of leasing halls and tents. The apparatus is composed of panels that depict the community’s artwork, incorporating their essence and creating a holistic, collaborative design. Supplementing the design proposal, the team aims to challenge hetero-normalcy across the country through a series of identifying labels (stickers, posters), designed to emulate transgender art and culture. The stickers can be positioned across city cafes, mediums of public transportation, identifying themselves as safe spaces for queer communities, ensuring safety and acceptance. With the proposal, the team aims to create inclusive public spaces and bring about real actionable change in the perception of the trans community.The city can become theirs as much as it is for the cis-gendered majority. The transgender community can identify with their city through Pehchaan.
Udyaan
Udyaan
team members
Dhruv Bhatia
Ayushi Srivastava
Garvit Sehrawat
Saswat Pati
Saloni Arora
Mentor: Deepesh Sangtani
social media
idea
The proposal seeks to provide a recreational solution for the people of Aruna Nagar - an informal settlement around Majnu ka TiIla. Understanding the context and community, the author realise a lack of communal grounds and danger the children face playing on the streets. In designing, the proposal identifies an abandoned space near the settlement and attempts to reactivate and rejuvenate it with an intervention designed as per the needs and spreading awareness about road safety.
Our intervention revolves around the young generation from the settlements as well as from around the basti in Majnu ka Tilla, who look for a 'breathing space' in the tightly packed housing patterns. The need of open spaces call for such intervention where we try to prevent the out-spill of children on the streets looking for any recreational space possible, and bring together a safer society.
vAngad
a work in progress
vAngad
a work in progress
team members
Ayesha de Sousa
Gyles Ferrao
Mark Vas
Raveena Deshpande
Saavi Natekar
Mentor: Tallulah D'Silva
social media
idea
The Vanarmare tribe finds itself situated just outside the city of Ponda, on community land, in Nirankal Gawakiwade. While the settlements around, belonging to other tribal groups, have permanent houses, developed vehicular access and electrical connections, this treatment seems to have forsaken the Vanarmares.
Perhaps the most damning testament to the way the tribe is seen is the electricity line that runs over the settlement, yet the tribe is dependent on donated solar panels, as they do not have house numbers. Development has forced them to settle, but they still carry vestiges of their nomadic past, which otherise them to the people that surround them.
Vangad means together. Under this initiative, we aim to develop a deeper understanding of the community and a human connection with them. This will culminate in a project that that we design and build along with the community, vangad.