Community Engagement-Tagging Green and Blue in the Environment

PRIA is embarking on a co-creation process with two urban informal settlements in India - Ghata (Gurugram) and Gautampuri (New Delhi) - to understand better the impacts of climate change on the availability and quality of water on daily lives there. The use of this knowledge of risk and vulnerability will help to inform future action research to motivate stakeholders in low-income neighbourhoods to plan for water security. 

A community-university interaction session titled "Community Engagement-Tagging Green and Blue in the Environment" was organised on 14^th March 2022 for members of the community to interact with Sushant University staff and faculty. Prior to that, staff and students spent the day with the community learning about issues surrounding water. After their visit, they developed spatial analysis maps that help them better understand how urbanization and climate change impact low-income urban communities. Participants were encouraged to have an opportunity to interact with university students and adolescents and women from the community. 

Both communities provided a brief introduction to water issues during the meeting. In the session, university students gave presentations about maps and explained their opinions as well as gave information about the phenomenon. Residents of both Ghata and Gautampuri were involved in the discussion. University experts explained in lay terms what 'green' and 'blue' mean in terms of the environment to members of the community. The staff and faculty of the University held a discussion after the analysis of the maps; the members of the two settlements engaged in a dialogue to identify common issues and clear their doubts.