High population growth, a lack of wastewater treatment plants and poor wastewater management are major challenges in wastewater management in Timor-Leste (East Timor). One of the approaches of the government of Timor-Leste is to separate wastewater into greywater and blackwater from domestic, commercial, residential, and industrial areas. Three methods were applied to obtain insight into the locations and discharge of grey- and blackwater to develop a cost-effective wastewater strategy: a field survey and data collection, interviews with over 130 participants from local authorities and communities, and the open-source mapping of locations of wastewater discharge. This research concluded that 47.7% of the grey wastewater is discharged into open sewers connected directly to the sea. Most communities discharge their wastewater directly due to the absence of wastewater management, policies and regulations, and lack of communities’ understanding of the possible health impacts of wastewater. The impact of poor wastewater management showed that most of the children in these communities have suffered from diarrhea (73.8%), and in the rainy season, there is a high possibility of infection with waterborne diseases. The literature review, field mapping, and interviews show that there is high demand for a cost-effective wastewater strategy for health improvement. Low-cost nature-based solutions such as constructed wetlands and bioswales can be implemented with local skills and materials to improve the wastewater situation and address other challenges such as biodiversity loss, heat stress, drought, and floodings. These installations are easier to rebuild than large-scale grey infrastructure given the multiple hazards that occur in Timor-Leste: landslides, earthquakes, strong wind, and pluvial and fluvial floodings, and they can serve as coastal protection.
LINK
Om de binnenstad tegen hitte en wateroverlast te beschermen zijn er veel meer bomen nodig. Als natuurlijke airco's zorgen ze voor afkoeling door schaduw en verdamping en vangen ze bovendien veel water op. Maar er is één probleem: al die wortels passen nauwelijks in de volle bodem van de binnenstad. In dit onderzoek gingen we daarom op zoek naar een boom zonder wortels.
LINK
In het programma ‘Agency arrangeren’ onderzoeken we welke elementen in activiteiten voor en met jongeren (12-18 jaar) deze jongeren ondersteunen in het ontwikkelen van ‘agency’. We richten ons daarbij op jongeren die in een achterstandspositie verkeren en/of anderszins kwetsbaar zijn. Het ervaren van agency draagt bij aan zowel het persoonlijke welzijn als de maatschappelijke participatie en betrokkenheid van jongeren. In hoofdstuk 2 komen we op basis van literatuur tot een eigen definitie van en visie op agency. In hoofdstuk 3 gaan we in op de vraag hoe omgevingen gearrangeerd kunnen worden die ruimte bieden voor agency van jongeren en die de ontwikkeling van agency stimuleren, Tot slot brengen we in hoofdstuk 4 kort samen hoe we uit te literatuur tot een onderzoeksfocus komen voor de volgende fasen van dit programma.
MULTIFILE
Dutch society faces major future challenges putting populations’ health and wellbeing at risk. An ageing population, increase of chronic diseases, multimorbidity and loneliness lead to more complex healthcare demands and needs and costs are increasing rapidly. Urban areas like Amsterdam have to meet specific challenges of a growing and super divers population often with a migration background. The bachelor programs and the relating research groups of social work and occupational therapy at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences innovate their curricula and practice-oriented research by multidisciplinary and cross-domain approaches. Their Centres of Expertise foster interprofessional research and educational innovation on the topics of healthy ageing, participation, daily occupations, positive health, proximity, community connectedness and urban innovation in a social context. By focusing on senior citizens’ lives and by organizing care in peoples own living environment. Together with their networks, this project aims to develop an innovative health promotion program and contribute to the government missions to promote a healthy and inclusive society. Collaboration with stakeholders in practice based on their urgent needs has priority in the context of increasing responsibilities of local governments and communities. Moreover, the government has recently defined social base as being the combination of citizen initiatives, volunteer organizations , caregivers support, professional organizations and support of vulnerable groups. Kraktie Foundations is a community based ethno-cultural organization in south east Amsterdam that seeks to research and expand their informal services to connect with and build with professional care organizations. Their aim coincides with this project proposal: promoting health and wellbeing of senior citizens by combining intervention, participatory research and educational perspectives from social work, occupational therapy and hidden voluntary social work. With a boundary crossing innovation of participatory health research, education and Kraktie’s work in the community we co-create, change and innovate towards sustainable interventions with impact.
