From opposite sides of the world, two student groups working through the development organization Building Understanding Through International Learning and Development (BUILD) in India and Nicaragua have dedicated parts of their college careers chase the goals of sustainable development and local involvement in projects from toilets to . While the two Institute for Global Leadership (IGL)?sponsored BUILD teams share a mission statement, they diverge in their goals and structure. BUILD India
Tufts has served as the base for a student?run BUILD project in Thottiyapatti, Tamil Nadu, India since April 2010. The volunteers have contributed to projects to improve education, public health and the economic situation in the village. Its participants originally struggled to find a compatible nongovernmental organization (NGO) to partner with in the community, eventually settling on an NGO called Payir. According to its website, the NGO's mission is to "facilitate the transformation of Indian villages into socially stimulating, self?sustaining, growth?oriented communities."
"Our philosophy as BUILD and Payir's philosophy really meshed well together, so that is why they settled on this [NGO]," BUILD India member AngadBagai, a sophomore, said.
According to BUILD India participant JahnviVaidya, a sophomore, the program strives to allow for communal ownership and continuity of its projects.
"Sustainability is a big part of our philosophy," she said. "We work through our projects with the intent of leaving Thottiyapatti in a couple of years. We want the projects to be completely sustainable and successful even once we're gone."
Bagai added that the BUILD projects are designed to avoid the pitfalls of short?lived, disconnected development projects.
"A big part of our work there has been making sure that the community understands that they have to have ownership of whatever is taking place there," he said. "It's not that we want to go there and throw ideas and projects at them. It should be what they want, and it should reach a point where whatever happens there belongs to them."
A committee of local Thottiyapatti stakeholders formed a year and a half ago has pushed for community ownership of the various programs that BUILD and Payir implement there. According to a Sept. 21 release on the IGL's website, the committee consists of three women, four younger men, and one elder man who developed a constitution with a mission statement, rules of membership, and a plan for keeping in touch with BUILD as the projects' implementation progresses.
Vaidya emphasized the importance of local involvement by both Thottiyapatti residents and Payir in BUILD's projects.
"It's best having local people involved because we usually don't know any better than people on the ground, and there's a language barrier as well," Vaidya said. "[Payir] is very accepted and respected in this village. Its sort of awkward for us to sort of otherwise just show up."
BUILD India began several of its programs in the summer of 2011. This included a laptop and computers donation program called the Learning Center.
The group also began a campaign for ecological sanitation (ECOSAN) toilets with the help of SCOPE, an NGO based in Tamil Nadu. The projects' toilets provide composted material that can be reused as fertilizer for agricultural purposes.
Bagai said cultural norms meant the toilets weren't readily accepted at first.
"It's taken a long time to clarify in the village whether toilets are something they desire because open defecation has been practiced for a long time," he said. "We had to make sure that this is something they wanted."
After receiving a $3,000 grant from the Tufts Energy Conference in the spring of 2012, as well as receiving approval from the local government, the ECOSAN project is now under construction.
BUILD India's third project focused on generating income for locals through silk production. According to Vaidya and Bagai, this project has been particularly challenging because the profits did not match the amount of effort and the cost that went into producing the silk. According to Vaidya, the group is considering partnering with two NGOs that specialize in financial literacy.
Until the next trip this summer, BUILD India will continue to contact the administrators, NGOs, and villagers at its weekly meetings in order to keep in touch about the projects' progress and feel connected to the community.
"I only went to Thottiyapatti this winter," Vaidya said. "That was a really interesting experience to finally see our projects in reality and meet the people we've been talking about so much. Now I feel like after the trip the connection is a little more there ... but in terms of the disconnect, and the ethics of being outsiders ... we talk a lot about this during our meetings." BUILD Nicaragua
BUILD Nicaragua has struggled with disconnect from its community, which contributed to its 2011 transition from its original base in Guatemala. The Guatemala program, which began in 2007, was ultimately cancelled due to security concerns.
"Before last year we realized that our project in Guatemala was having a lot of issues," sophomore BUILD co?director Ben Berman said. "It was time for us to transition out of that project, which we did successfully last year."
Like the students working with BUILD India, the students working in Nicaragua, have committed to creating a sustainable relationship with their partner community.
"Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a night, teach a man to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime ... Except what we've found is that teaching a man to fish takes a lot more time than two weeks a year, and fishing in Nicaragua is a lot different than it is in the United States," Berman said.
Berman acknowledges the cultural and geographical gap between the partner community and the students working to improve it.
"There are variables that you can never be prepared for unless you're living there full time, which is why even NGOs that are there have so much trouble implementing these projects," Berman said. "Things like ecotourism and a massive computer lab and agriculture were great ideas for the community, but they were hard to follow through on because we were so far away."
BUILD Nicaragua partners with the Asociacion para el Desarrollo Integral Comunitario (ADIC), Association of Volunteers for Community Development (AVODEC) and the Centre for Education in Health and Environment (CESESMA). The chapter is in the process of altering its operational structure in order to connect more with the partner community and move on from difficulties in Guatemala.
"BUILD India has done a much better job than BUILD Guatemala did in terms of keeping in touch with their community," Berman said. "Things have changed a lot in the past year [for BUILD Nicaragua] and it's a testament to the amazing group of students we have now."
BUILD Nicaragua includes an Experimental College course that teaches the theory of monitoring and evaluating sustainable projects in developing countries. The course features speakers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston University, Harvard and Tufts who will discuss their own sustainable projects, according to Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Daniele Lantagne. All members of the group are enrolled in this pass/fail, half?credit course this semester.
"The concept now is that students will spend a year academically learning about the theory and practice of development in the classroom in addition to learning about BUILD's processes in Nicaragua and the country of Nicaragua itself," Berman said.
"It's not just students ...talking about projects," she said. "It's all rigorous evidence.The goal is to give a rigorous theory? and example?based course so that as students move forward with BUILD they'll be able to implement projects better and evaluate past projects better," Lantagne said.
Lantagne, who sponsors the course, is new to Tufts this academic year. She has worked with projects in developing countries in the past, such as in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, and focuses on water treatment projects.
According to Berman, the course will be followed by the opportunity to intern with one of BUILD's partner organizations in Nicaragua over the summer. This past winter, five students went to Nicaragua to spend ten days meeting with NGOs, in order to strengthen their relationship and outline BUILD's structure and direction in the Ex?College course.
