Social impact projects are not measured through lens of profit but through the positive change it is able to create. Good design should ultimately empower, facilitate and support the user. “Gomi” is an effort to improve hygiene and sanitisation in the rural communities of India. It is a tool designed to help young girls and women, by limiting direct contact with infectious manure. Over two-thirds of India’s 1.3 billion people continue to rely on dung-based fuel for cooking, due to a lack of access to clean fuel. The prolific use of manure causes staggering damage to human health, especially to the women and children of the house who spend much of their time
collecting fresh cow dung for this purpose. Anmol dedicated three months of her life to conducting intensive research on this phenomenon in the villages of Rajasthan where she gathered information through interviews and experiments. She learnt about the manure gathering process and numerous ways rural women used this substance domestically. Anmol’s goal was to provide these women with dignity as they performed this laborious task
by creating a product that would inhibit contamination. She went back and forth between prototypes and ideation to tackle the challenge of keeping the design as simple as possible in aspects of usability, manufacturing and maintenance.
Gomi’s two part design is simple to use and easy to manufacture. It features two ergonomic handles; a horizontal handle for carrying heavier loads for longer distances and a vertical handle for better leverage while dumping. The scraper while not in use attaches to the hook provided in the cavity of main body and rotates out when dumping. Fabricated out of mild steel and weighing under 1 Kg. It is durable and can supports up to 8kg. Anmol’s inspiration for Gomi was the ‘Wello wheel’- A container that can be rolled to and from remote places to collect water. Anmol used a design strategy called system thinking to identify and address the root cause of the problem in a sustainable way.
Project by:
ANMOL GUPTA
School of Design
Cohort: IPD 2013-17
