{"id":160,"date":"2013-09-02T12:04:07","date_gmt":"2013-09-02T12:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shelter-associates.org\/blog\/?p=160"},"modified":"2016-01-27T12:07:44","modified_gmt":"2016-01-27T12:07:44","slug":"focus-group-discussions-are-added-to-the-model","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shelter-associates.org\/blog\/focus-group-discussions-are-added-to-the-model\/","title":{"rendered":"Focus Group Discussions are added to the model"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Shelter Associates understand that community participation is an essential component of inclusive planning. \u00a0It has been observed by the NGO that without effective community involvement, support and understanding projects fail to achieve tangible long-lasting change and ultimately fail in their objective of slum rehabilitation. \u00a0This is why Shelter Associates invest a significant amount of time and energy into establishing and nurturing effective working relationships with all stakeholders of their projects, especially the slum dwellers who are after all the end users of the designs and occupiers and caretakers of the projects. \u00a0These relationships are the unseen element of Shelter Associates projects; they are the &#8216;software&#8217; components which support the &#8216;hardware&#8217; interventions, such as new housing, new individual toilets and solid waste collection schemes. \u00a0Workshops are integral to the software component of the project and have now been expanded in scope to include FGDs.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The FGDs are informal gatherings of small groups of people who are of the same gender and approximate age. \u00a0This format not only allows for issues specific to that demographic to be discussed but, due to the informal and intimate nature of the gathering, it also means that more sensitive topics can be discussed; questions, statements and admissions that would not normally be said in a large formal meeting with all members of the community are freely relayed and discussed sensitively and compassionately with Shelter Associates social workers. \u00a0These sessions provide insight into the behaviour of people who live without access to toilets and\u00a0allows Shelter Associates to\u00a0ascertain the communities current experience, awareness and understanding of the issues of open defecation\u00a0including the associated issues of sexual harassment, menstrual health, nutrition, violent assault and gender insensitivity.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/slum.shelter-associates.org\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/large\/public\/FGD%203.JPG\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/slum.shelter-associates.org\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/large\/public\/FGD%201.JPG\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/slum.shelter-associates.org\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/large\/public\/FGD%204.JPG\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shelter Associates understand that community participation is an essential component of inclusive planning. \u00a0It has been observed by the NGO that without effective community involvement, support and understanding projects fail to achieve tangible long-lasting change and ultimately fail in their objective of slum rehabilitation. \u00a0This is why Shelter Associates invest a significant amount of time [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[32,1,35,49,40,44,33,31],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shelter-associates.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shelter-associates.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shelter-associates.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shelter-associates.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shelter-associates.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/shelter-associates.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":161,"href":"https:\/\/shelter-associates.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions\/161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shelter-associates.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shelter-associates.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shelter-associates.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}