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Stewardship Lab

Community Development in Nepali Brick Kilns

An interdisciplinary team seeks to understand the challenge of poverty in the brick kilns of Nepal, and finds that community members hope to improve air quality, critical infrastructure, and education.

Students from Civil and Construction Engineering, Anthropology, Life Science, and Sociology at BYU were joined by students from Kathmandu University's Community Development program to understand the interrelated social problems connected to extreme poverty. This community analysis project is connected with a larger BYU field study project, led by faculty in the Department of Public Health, who are studying the long-term effects of near-constant exposure to hazardous air (PM 2.5). The study locations are the brick kiln factories of the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal, where thousands live in conditions of extreme poverty.

The purpose of the project is to understand health and well-being impacts and work toward proposing sustainable interventions to improve living and working conditions. However, for solutions to be truly sustainable, it is necessary to first understand a comprehensive picture of the broader community context. This project seeks to follow the Ballard Center's Social Impact Cycle to ensure that proposed solutions are sustainable and effective.

BELOW YOU CAN READ ABOUT HOW THE TEAM HERE AT BYU IS FOLLOWING THE SOCIAL IMPACT CYCLE:

THE SOCIAL IMPACT CYCLE:

  • Love the One

    SPEND TIME WITH THE PEOPLE YOU SERVE

    The biggest part of loving the one is spending time with the people we want to serve. During our trip to Nepal, we asked individuals in the brick kilns questions to learn what is most important to them. This allowed us to know the needs of the community. As we’ve analyzed data, read articles, and developed more questions, these responses have guided our work.

    LOVE THE PROBLEM NOT THE SOLUTION

    In social impact work, we often hyper-fixate on the solution and fall in love with the solution itself. The social impact cycle, however, teaches that there is a more effective way. Rather than focusing on the solution to the problem from the beginning, it is better to focus on the problem and fully understand it before acting. We have focused on learning about the people and the interconnected issues facing them before trying to come up with solutions to fix anything.

    MEET BINSA

    Meet our friend Binsa. This profile is a fictitious individual who represents a member of one of the brick kiln communities in Nepal, whose story is very similar to many others in her village:

    You can learn more about our efforts to love the one by following the link below:

    Additional data and documents

  • Identify and Understand

    BUILDING A FRAMEWORK

    At first, this problem as well as the ideal standards and system for understanding it were very ambiguous. As we looked for a standard to guide our research and understanding of what types of improvements needed to be made, we found the U.N Sustainable Development Goals to be a good reference point. We used these 17 goals to shape our questions and focus during the research-gathering process.

    FIRST TRIP TO NEPAL

    The most difficult part of this project has been determining the scope of the issues facing the Brick Kiln Communities of Nepal. We initially went to Nepal planning to focus on air pollution and COPD, but after talking with community members, we determined that we needed to widen our vision and let go of our preconceived notions. During the first trip to Nepal, we interviewed over 100 people to understand their needs and identify the scope of the challenges they were facing. Throughout our time there, we spent over 250 combined hours observing and recording what we noticed in the community. Our research also included studying the environmental conditions that could impact these people. To accomplish this task, we tested the soil and water for nutrient levels and other parameters such as pH and e. Coli (for the water).

    ISSUE MAPPING

    After returning, we worked on mapping the problems we identified based on our observations and personal interviews. This allowed us to visually connect the myriad of issues facing that community. As a team, we have spent dozens of hours cleaning up our data and working to identify themes from the responses we collected. Eventually, we concluded that the main problems that we need to focus on during intervention design are Air Pollution, Infrastructure, and Education.

    SECOND TRIP TO NEPAL

    To further refine our understanding of needs within the brick kiln communities, we reworked our data collection instruments and returned to Nepal. This time we collected over 100 responses to surveys and interviews. We focused on different kilns and tried to gauge what changes matter most to people living in and around the kilns. We are currently analyzing this data and working with local partners to co-create interventions.

    You can learn more about our efforts to identify and understand by following the link below:

    Data and Images from March 2023 Trip

  • Specify Outcome

    NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES

    During our trips to Nepal, we observed things such as sickness, injury, and poor health that are directly attributable to poor air quality. We also observed things such as low levels of literacy and children playing in dangerous areas. These are the negative consequences of a lack of access to education. We also observed respiratory health issues which are a negative consequence of poor air quality. Determining Negative consequences faced by individuals is important so that we know what to measure and target when implementing interventions.

    CONTRIBUTING FACTORS

    Most problems have many factors that collectively cause both the issue and the subsequent negative consequences. To determine which factors are causing issues such as bad air quality and poor education, we took the data gathered during our trips to Nepal and created interconnected maps to visualize things that could be changed to improve these issues.

    OUTCOME GOAL

    This project aims to improve the living and working conditions of those living in brick kiln communities. That is a lofty and rather ambiguous goal. To decide what our desired outcome is, we took the negative consequences and contributing factors into consideration to focus on what needs to change to achieve our outcome goal of improved access to education, improved health, and improved infrastructure.

    You can click the link below to learn about our efforts to specify an outcome goal:

    Additional Information and Data

  • Co-Create an Intervention

    WHY IS CO-CREATION IMPORTANT?

    We are trying to understand and help solve problems within the brick kilns as outsiders. To give our interventions the best chance of sustained success it is important to work alongside those who are closest to the issue. Working with local partners to design an intervention also helps to ensure buy-in from our partners in Nepal who will do much of the implementation.

    Interdisciplinary Perspectives We firmly believe that diversity of experience and expertise is important in developing robust and sustainable interventions. The lab at BYU is comprised of individuals from different professional backgrounds. We are also actively pursuing partnerships with organizations in Nepal that have diverse specialties and goals.

    HUMAN-CENTERED DESIGN

    The social impact cycle starts with a focus on the people affected rather than the problem itself. In line with that focus, we are using a human-centered design method to develop potential interventions. The human-centered design model places the affected individual(s) at the center and focuses on actions that can be taken to alleviate the negative consequences of social problems. Beginning with pilot HCD workshops at Brigham Young University, the team has implemented this style of designing interventions in workshops at Kathmandu University and hopes to do the same with other local partners.

    HOW ARE WE COLLABORATING WITH LOCAL PARTNERS?

    We have established relationships with individuals in the community development department at Kathmandu University, the Brick Kiln Association, local government, and other Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs).

    You can click the link below to learn more about our efforts to co-create interventions:

    Addition Information about Co-Creating Interventions