5.24.17 (W): Back in Mae Chan and Needs Statements Narrowing

Ava here! After a 3 hour drive from Chiang Mai and a delicious meal of Pad Thai and Pad See Ew, we arrived back to Mae Chan District.

The team met at the Mae Chan municipality offices to discuss our needs assessment progress with Long Daeng, the Chiang Mai University students, and a couple other people in the Mae Chan government, before we began our second assessment in Mae Chan.

Tay and Benjamin presented about the BLUElab gate process, our needs assessment process and our four needs statements that we are focusing on for this second trip. You can view our presentation in Thai and English here:

The BLUElab Gate Process

For those that are not familiar with the BLUElab Gate Process, this is a project formula that involves getting to know the needs of the community, developing a project, iterating the prototypes, implementation, and evaluation of implementation.

Our Four Focus Needs Statements

1. A way to control the opening/closing of the 11 drainage points in Mae Chan city.

2. A way to keep debris from entering the drainage system & a way to safely remove the majority of debris (garbage and crop waste) from the gates guarding entryways.

3. A way to clear large debris inside the pipes

4. A faster way to open and close weir gates

After, reviewing and updating those officials, we met Khun Na’korn and local volunteers clearing sediment in drains, taking measurements and observing/clearing the build-up.

As a project leader, I was so proud to see Tay and Benjamin present about what we have been working on these last few weeks. The government officials seemed to like our four project proposals, saying they four proposals work together to address the overarching topic of flood mitigation. I now feel more optimistic and excited for what this project will bring us.

-Ava