The advent of Microcredit in developing countries, where the threshold of loan restrictions are low, is giving new entrepreneurs with low credit ratings and minimal or non-existent collateral a chance to apply for small loans to start a business. With the chance to better their families' lives, women are also taking on the role of income providers. However, their place in society is still the caregiver of the family and they must meet their families' daily needs with efficiency to free up a small bit of time to tend to their new businesses.
The Present
Radhika Bhalla is a stand-out student of Product Design at the Art Center College of Design, where in the Design for Sustainability class, her project was to design a product that would ease some of the burdens of transportation for women in rural India. She presented her design at the Art Center Summit 2009.
The mandate she gave herself encompassed design for the emerging economies that would contribute rather than strip the foundation by replacing centuries old ways of living. From her thesis "By seeking input from the users of the products and services we are designing, designers can improve lives as well as strengthen the economy...The challenge would be to improve the existing environment not architecturally, but by designing new products and interactions for the same space; to create a dynamic experience that would be unique to each user."
Radhika travelled through India during her year with CKS, a new media company that develops for emerging economies - into remote villages and observed that a large fraction of a woman's day goes into collecting firewood and water over long distances. The means of transportation was rudimental at best, one mode of transportation couldn't accommodate the other. Radhika chose for her project to help solve that problem by designing a cart that would transport water, firewood and goods. Radhika named this project Samarth, which is the Hindi word for "empower".
The Samarth
Radhika designed a trailer that hitches onto a bicycle that can be manufactured from local materials and techniques already in use by local women. In the design it has three different functions:
1. Closed to carry water
2. Upright to carry passengers, such as children to school.
3. Open to carry goods and firewood.
The Future
By combining the uses into one mode of transportation, the Samarth can free up to five hours a day for women to pursue activities such as entrepreneurial enterprises or go to school. To borrow Radhika's opening phrase on her presentation "Empowering Women Through Increased Mobility"; it is not just the physical burden she is easing, but the window of time she is giving to the women of rural India to look beyond the present into the future, if a fourth function was added to this cart, it would be "A ride into the future."
Photos
Top: Closed to carry water
Middle: Open to carry goods and firewood.
Bottome: Upright to carry children to school.
To read more about Radhika Bhalla go to her amazing and inspiring blog: ideasyncrasy
To read about the Art Center Summit 2009 / Expanding The Vision of Sustainable Mobility go here.
Photo Credit : Radhika Bhalla
Radhika Bhalla is a stand-out student of Product Design at the Art Center College of Design, where in the Design for Sustainability class, her project was to design a product that would ease some of the burdens of transportation for women in rural India. She presented her design at the Art Center Summit 2009.
The mandate she gave herself encompassed design for the emerging economies that would contribute rather than strip the foundation by replacing centuries old ways of living. From her thesis "By seeking input from the users of the products and services we are designing, designers can improve lives as well as strengthen the economy...The challenge would be to improve the existing environment not architecturally, but by designing new products and interactions for the same space; to create a dynamic experience that would be unique to each user."
Radhika travelled through India during her year with CKS, a new media company that develops for emerging economies - into remote villages and observed that a large fraction of a woman's day goes into collecting firewood and water over long distances. The means of transportation was rudimental at best, one mode of transportation couldn't accommodate the other. Radhika chose for her project to help solve that problem by designing a cart that would transport water, firewood and goods. Radhika named this project Samarth, which is the Hindi word for "empower".
The Samarth
Radhika designed a trailer that hitches onto a bicycle that can be manufactured from local materials and techniques already in use by local women. In the design it has three different functions:
1. Closed to carry water
2. Upright to carry passengers, such as children to school.
3. Open to carry goods and firewood.
The Future
By combining the uses into one mode of transportation, the Samarth can free up to five hours a day for women to pursue activities such as entrepreneurial enterprises or go to school. To borrow Radhika's opening phrase on her presentation "Empowering Women Through Increased Mobility"; it is not just the physical burden she is easing, but the window of time she is giving to the women of rural India to look beyond the present into the future, if a fourth function was added to this cart, it would be "A ride into the future."
Photos
Top: Closed to carry water
Middle: Open to carry goods and firewood.
Bottome: Upright to carry children to school.
To read more about Radhika Bhalla go to her amazing and inspiring blog: ideasyncrasy
To read about the Art Center Summit 2009 / Expanding The Vision of Sustainable Mobility go here.
Photo Credit : Radhika Bhalla
5 Comments
Inspiring! Go, Radhika!!
HI emily!
Radhika is one of those amazing students that I am lucky to cross paths with.
:O) ophelia
Ophelia, Thank you once again for all the great things you write.
And thank you everyone else. It's always nice to have people cheering you on!
Dear Radhika
I am inspired by you and the students at Art Center. I look forward to seeing what you design in the coming years.
:O) ophelia
-
Make Your Mouth Water
Soup is straightforward in theory. It's complexity lies in the execution... in how you build flavors and the first flavor layer can come from a mirepoix. Unlike "soup," "mirepoix" is fun to say and it's the colors of the Irish flag, which makes me like it even more.
-
Gov. Brown Sworn In, Faces Tough Job
Our new/old Governor Jerry Brown is inaugurated into a job that promises to be more trouble than even this old pol can skillfully navigate.
-
Empty
These are the empty days. Their hours are filled with blank stares past cubicle walls and through tinted windows. The end is not over and the beginning is far from started.
-
Why Does it Take 20 Years to Build A Shopping Center in South Central?
The 20-year struggle to get a shopping center built at Slauson and Central reveals long-standing problems with the politics of development in L.A.
facebook.com/KCET28
@KCET
RSS: Full KCET Feed
Raveesh says :
Way to go Rads!!!