Purpose of the meeting

1. To review progress on funded GCRF research projects and plan ways forward;
2. To experience an evidence and evaluation workshop delivered by SCHOOL

About GCRF research network

Global Challenges Research Fund is UK government funding to promote SDG development in LMICs. Canterbury Christ Church University funding to promote development focused research network activity in India, with collaboration between different organisations and disciplines.

Session Details

The symposium comprised an update on existing research projects and discussion of ways forward, as well as a workshop on research capacity building led by SCHOOL.  This report is primarily focused on the research network. The slides from the SCHOOL workshop will be shared via the shared drive.

Day one: 31^st Jan 2020

Session one: Welcome and introduction

Esther Coren welcomed the participants. Further she talked about the existing research projects and the need to focus on potential implementation ideas. She also spoke about the importance of collaborative approaches within two of the 4 ongoing projects: (Child Marriage; Chennai Transport); Other research projects are: Child Wellbeing; and Child Hearing. The collaborative projects are Child Marriage and Chennai Transport.

Dr. Esther also introduced the facilitators of the workshop part of the meeting   – Dr. Benazir Patil and Dr. Pawan Pathak from SCHOOL. The slides from the workshop will be shared via Google Drive.

The key aspects that were covered during the workshop:

• Existing Evidence and Gap Map – what do we need to know more to improve our programmes?
• The role of staff/human resource in undertaking research and generating evidence
• The use and applicability of varied research methods

Session two: Update on the GCRF projects

The participants shared details about the collaborative research projects they are involved in. Four projects were presented.

Project 1

Sustainable social development of Economically Marginalized Families in Chennai Metropolitan Area through Effective Transportation Planning

Project Team: Anna University, Stella Maris College and Loyola College

Project Area: Semmancheri (6,764 families)

& Perumbakkam (19260 families) settlement area

Purpose of Study: To understand the barriers to sustainable social development in the context of displacement and resettlement with specific reference to access to social infrastructure through transport planning for the Economically Marginalized Families in Chennai Metropolitan Area.

The interdisciplinary link between various aspects relating to sustainable development along side of transport was studied. It was shared that this was first time that the Transport Engineers in the University were taking up a study relating to the social impact of transportation.

Key highlights of study findings are:

56% reported lack of safe/affordable Transport as reasons for Health-related problems (see below)

50% reported Transport-related issues as Reasons for Children Dropping out from School or Pursuing Higher Education

78% reported that their family earnings became considerably low due to lack of affordable/safe transport

Transportation influences

• The discontinuation of school/college – illiteracy
• Health issues – lack of proximity to bus stop and share auto stand and high cost thus reducing access to health services eg hospitals
• Increase in poverty – decrease in earnings because of lack of affordable/safe transport; higher proportion of income spent on transport
• Anti-social behavior and risk of addictions and law-breaking

Issues within the settlement/accommodation

• Lack of doctors within PHCs
• Distance of nearest hospital
• Lack of health and hygiene
• No elevators
• No running water
• Lack of safety- no streetlights

Several solutions were suggested by the communities as well as potential transport improvements to be explored; NGO activity to promote housing improvements

Way forward – Next steps

Further data analysis on this data set and proposal for further research work to be developed within 4 weeks.

• Needs & support for travel of economically marginalised families can be understood & quantified
• Analysing the issues influencing travel
• By lowering travel cost for economically marginalised families, Increase the mobility & Improve standard of living
• Conducting detailed study on a larger scale to support the findings with more accurate statistics
• Advocacy for better future planning
• Peer reviewed publication to be developed collaboratively

Project 2

Early Detection of Children with hearing impairment by Save the Children, India: Research proposal

Project team: Dr. Benazir Patil and Dr. Pawan Pathak

Location: Mumbai

• Mapping the journey of a child with hearing impairment
• Qualitative research- in preliminary stage of research design
• Identifying key stakeholders in the process of identification of impairment to cochlear implant stage
• Policy changes within organization
  • Need for identification of impairment to be earlier
  • To increase sensitization within the community
• Challenges within the organization
  • Documentation was new to the group
  • Scaling up- not used to doing things within a research mode
• The financial aspect of a cochlear implant is the biggest challenge
  • Many families drop out before this
  • Need to bring in government schemes and have more collaboration

Next steps

Proposal to Esther within next weeks

Consider funding options for completion of study

Consider how to share and disseminate findings in collaboration/negotiation with STCI

Project 3

Prototype Children’s Well Being in India

Project Team: Mr. Suresh Rao

Project Area: Lallubhai Urban slum and Shilonde  rural community in Mumbai

Method: Art as a Method to Assess Well Being

• Research study conducted by EDUCO
• Used art to assess wellbeing
• There were both positive and negative findings
  • Environmental
  • Relational

Next steps

• Aim to create a national hub focused on child wellbeing sponsored by EDUCO

Project 4

Project Study: Attitude & Behavior Change of Early Married Girls As a Result of IMAGE Initial data analysis

Team: Terre Des Homes Netherlands, Madras School of Social Work and Gonzaga Arts and Science College for Women

Location: Rural and Tribal Villages at Chamarajnagar, covering 83 early married girls (whole project scope is more than 3000 girls)

• Scope- health, family planning, education (empowerment)
• Aim: to create lasting behavior change
• Objective: to understand the attitude and behavior change
• To address issues like girls (and husbands) being unaware of their basic rights and unaware of conception and contraceptive methods, health and hygiene
• Study looked at various aspects of Early Married Girls and families such as:
  • No. of children
  • Rural vs. tribal
  • Literacy levels
  • Family size
  • Occupation
  • Income
  • Access to toilet/ separate room
  • Age of marriage
  • Spacing of childbirth
  • Place of delivery
  • Seeking support to clarify with ASHA workers
  • Violence inflicted by spouses/in laws

Findings from individual interviews (brief summary of key findings):

• A lot of data generated, including:
• Strong awareness of value of girls’ education (75% attended school)
• Mixed knowledge about birth spacing and contraception
• High attendance at skills training
• Majority of families are supportive of skills training/employment though some (25 girls’ families) still reluctant
• Strong awareness of handwashing hygiene
• 55 girls never subjected to violence by spouse/in-laws; 29 sometimes experience it
• Majority do not have marriage/birth registrations or access to govt schemes

Focus group reports seem v biased towards IMAGE so not included in this report

Next steps

• Further analysis of patterns and relationship in the data within two weeks
• Discussion of comparison with earlier data held by TDH
• Dr Raja Samuel to look at this to see which variables may be compared
• Project report to include these comparisons as they add value
• Plan project report and peer reviewed publication

The report of the research workshop is contained in the annexures to this report and the slides uploaded to the Google Drive.

Conclusion of Symposium: Discussion to understand strengths, weaknesses, challenges and opportunities

A detailed discussion on strengths, weaknesses, challenges and opportunities of each organization was held.

The participants were given time to discuss their proposal as the actionable to create an impact of their earlier research project. There were group discussions. The group felt that they need more time to finalise their proposal. They agreed to mail the proposal post the symposium.

Nirmala shared that the groups now need to look at collaborating as a network for grants and use learnings from each other. Suggestions were solicited for sustaining the impact of the network and working together. It was expressed that this network be a hub for knowledge and resource for other organisations through collating research information and maintaining a repository of research tools, study and literature. The professionals within the network were also to connect on assignments. 

Nirmala also shared that SCHOOL will be available for any proposal development assignments if needed to be able to bid for grants in a timely manner.

Esther shared her appreciation for the study and quick turn-around done by all the participants.