The Thinking Caterpillar: An ecosystem for citizen action

By 2030, projections show that 590 million people will live in urban India. 68 cities are predicted to have a population of million plus (McKinsey Global Institute, 2010). In 2019, we are already experiencing India’s cities as being under duress, strained for resources, polluted and becoming more and more difficult to navigate and live in. The Thinking Caterpillar (TTC) focuses on Indian cities with the hope to address their current untenable trajectory by provisioning a fresh approach and mapping a citizen’s route to a cityscape that aspires towards embodying holistic well-being. 

Well-being is evolving internationally as a matrix of significant areas of concern intertwined with each other, far broader than the GDP approach used thus far, to understand holistic growth and prosperity of a region. By using this framework and bringing in new areas of thought and action, we hope to re-invigorate citizen imagination, engagement and action in cities.

Between 2018 and 2050, the UN Revision of World Urbanisation Prospects (2018) says, Indian cities will add another 416 million residents to become home for 60% of the nation’s population, overtaking China in 2025 to become the largest urban population in the world. There are already signs of serious trouble brewing. WHO data showcases that 14 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in India. Water crises have already made their presence felt in multiple cities, a fate expected to extend to 21 more cities over the coming years as per the NITI Aayog. Meanwhile, a World Bank report (2018) says climate change could cost India 2.8 percent of GDP, and lower living standards of nearly half of its population by 2050. In such a scenario, as the recent UN IPCC (2018) and IPBES reports (2019) on the climate crisis indicate, nothing short of ‘transformative change’ will do. Yet, in the face of such large-scale challenges, citizens often find themselves isolated, overwhelmed and paralysed. As city-dwellers ourselves, we asked the question: How can we, as citizens and communities, begin to assimilate, respond or participate in this process of transformative change so urgently required in cities?

TTC hopes to be available to any urban dweller looking to find ways, small and large, of making the city-space more conducive to the well-being of all. In particular, it targets and attempts to bring together three sets of people. The first, are the multitude of individuals, communities, institutions etc who are already undertaking innovative action which challenges and inspires us to new and more inclusive and sustainable urban living. The second, are the vulnerable and marginalised within urban spaces whose voices and experience hold much needed perspective. The third are the middle class, who in India are recognised to be the growing aspirational and consumptive class, endowed with access to greater resources often setting the political agenda in cityspaces. Our study of country-wide well-being data alongside focus group conversations and a small qualitative survey all showcase that the concern for living standards in these growing Indian cities is shared across classes. Also, shared is a sense of powerlessness in the face of large-scale challenges. TTC envisages equipping people with the information, knowledge, skills and experiences which help them break out of despair and begin to enact change and then become teachers, facilitators and leaders in their own communities. 

TTC envisages to be a space that builds a path to present and future holistic intergenerational well-being of individuals, communities and ecosystems through practices of reflection, education and action. Our organisation emerged from putting together two areas of research. Firstly, well-being based indexes are being created recognising that a complex set of variables, socio-economic, cultural, and environmental, lie at the foundation of any space. It is a valuable lens to rethink cities in a fresh and holistic manner. Secondly, research in arenas of social capital, positive psychology, etc. are showcasing how civic engagement, pro-social behaviour are fundamental to both individual and community well-being and resilience.

As an ecosystem that uses blended learning, a combination of online educational material and opportunities for interaction with traditional place-based methods, TTC brings together the best of both. It is a strategy that emphasises ‘doing’ and being present in the world actively, in order to cultivate grounded care. Alongside, we recognise the valuable potential of online mediums. According to the report Future of Online Education in India, the online education market is expected to grow to $1.96 billion by 2021, with 9.6 million users. Viewed along with the increase in the podcasting space, 335,828 NPR podcasts downloaded in India in 2018, up from 81,789 in 2015, there is an opportunity to use these mediums to foster community building and local action.

TTC has four mediums:

1. Podcast: The podcast will ‘explore urban living and being’. It will take an expansive look at various innovations, ideas and perspectives around issues that are central to urban lives.

2. Learning Management System: An LMS based education platform will help learners and community developers extend their sense of curiosity and desire to contribute by taking them into the realm of deeper learning and doing. 

3. Events and outreach: The podcast and LMS are deeply linked with the events and outreach programmes expanding on or implementing the skills covered by either or both. The idea is to foster a local community of learning and engagement around shared concerns. 

4. Phone Application: This is envisaged as a one-point facilitator to the three arenas mentioned above; facilitating, in particular, the ability to enhance an individual’s engagement with their immediate environment and community.  

TTC in this manner aims to bring together: quality content, build community and connection, bridge conversations and provision communication on the core issues surrounding urban India.

Our solution focuses on re-imagining and examining our cities with a much required well being lens. This implies finding new ways of defining shared prosperity beyond economic means, and recognising that inclusiveness enables a happier more cohesive society. We wish to do this by creating quality content and experiences using cutting-edge pedagogy that not only enables citizens to critically examine the various facets of well being but also learn how to engage with these issues within their homes, local communities and the natural world. 

Each of the technology mediums we have chosen to utilise facilitates this building of connection and meaning. For instance, the podcast will serve as a mass feed to spark interest on issues that affect city living (such as garbage) and for listeners to connect with each other on a virtual platform to share learnings and experiences. The Learning Management System will then deepen knowledge on this subject and provide tools and models that offer solutions (like community waste disposal through composting, understanding circular economy, consumption etc). To ground this knowledge and knit it together with real-world practice, hyper local community based action will be taken through events and outreach (be it through visits to dump grounds, supporting clean-ups, interacting with sanitation workers). The application will serve as a space to facilitate these engagements and interactions. 

What makes this approach innovative is using these existing technologies in a bouquet form where they interact and are interconnected to create a publicly accessible holistic learning ecosystem focused on citizens.

The learning ecosystem that TTC envisages to create consists of: (a) podcasts (b) an LMS based platform (c) a phone application (d) events. These are to interact with each other in terms of intent and content. They are then connected to social media spaces to cultivate and engage a stable community of learners and doers. The consideration behind these choices was to hit the ground running by: (a) using spaces that are already accessible to and frequented by a large number of Indian users; (b) recognising the online learning related technology formats and spaces that are growing and becoming familiar to Indian users.  

Of these, when funds allow, we want to create an LMS based space that is particular to TTC and is customised and structured around the central tenets of the organisation: (a) encouraging co-creation, facilitation and collaboration (b) embedding pedagogical elements related to attention-building, reflection and action. We also hope to increase the number of podcasts we host, to cater to different sub-groups. It is also our intention that in order to increase access across the country, all these online spaces: (a) will diversify from English and Hindi to other languages (b) will be designed to ensure access to people with disabilities. An integrated mobile application will bring together this ecosystem experience on the mobile and make it more local through the use of GPS. 

TTC envisages creating publicly accessible quality content, build community and connection, bridge conversations and provision communication on the core issues surrounding urban India in order to empower citizens to co-create a city oriented to the well-being of all. For example, TTC could cover the issue of circular economy by having podcasts on research, innovation etc in the field, create courses which allow people to discover and build skills on how they can live more responsible lives, organise: drives for cleanups/plantations; workshops on calculating consumption footprint, composting; visits to dump-yards/ STPs; discussions with researchers, sanitation workers etc.. It opens up a plethora of ways that individuals and communities can find their unique way back to reconnecting with their local context and environment. 

A wealth of research in areas such as social capital, pro-social behaviour, human-nature connection etc are pointing to how the mere act of connecting and nurturing one’s community and environment are fundamental building blocks to human flourishing, meaning and well-being. In the short term the act of ‘REFLECTION. EDUCATION. ACTION.’ could imply breaking harmful patterns of loneliness which is becoming a problem in cities across the world; or, spending time greening one’s home and neighbourhood which has immediate holistic health benefits. In the long-term, the increased cohesiveness of communities due to working together could lead to augmentation of trust in society and overall well-being alongside having unlocked new modes of living and being in the city that are more inclusive and sustainable.

The organisation is in its prototype phase currently, hence has not had a chance to roll out its work and reach people as of now. Based on multiple viabilities, we are starting our work by rolling out the podcast and the events, even as we continue to work on raising funds for the development of the other technology spaces involved and build a network of partners and collaborators. We plan to start releasing episodes for Season 1 beginning the end of the year and combine them with related local events and actions alongside. We plan to map reach as these spaces get activated.

In terms of the potential to serve people with our solution, the online education market in India is projected to grow rapidly over the next few years. According to the report Future of Online Education in India, the online education market is expected to grow to $1.96 billion by 2021, with 9.6 million users. Viewed along with the increase in the podcasting space, 335,828 NPR podcasts downloaded in India in 2018, up from 81,789 in 2015, it points in an encouraging direction in terms of potential reach.

The UN IPCC and IPBES Reports released through 2018 and 2019 speak of the climate crisis with grave urgency and put their full scientific weight behind the need for ‘transformative change’ in the coming decade. We carry the weight of this urgency, while recognising that the first few years of an organisation are fragile and chaotic. That said, we are also hopeful that the urgency of the issue will fuel the support and momentum for the organisation in the coming years. 

For this year, we are hoping to launch the first season of The Curio-city Collective podcast alongside holding events related to the episodes to build communities of practice. As we do this, we are also simultaneously working on building a network of individuals, communities, organisations and institutions that are working towards the same goal. The aim is to set up long-term collaborations so as to qualitatively build deeper, grounded engagements for citizens. Through the learning management system, for instance, it will mean co-creating curriculum for courses. In the next 5 years, we envisage deepening and broadening this network and its activities as per our model to include vibrant communities of practice (virtual and real) in different metro cities in India, across at least English and Hindi languages, which take up campaigns, commit to actions such as understanding the natural environment, participating in city clean-ups, etc. 

As an organisation in its infancy, the following are barriers to overcome in the years ahead:

1. Funding: Running a system which has the capacity of reaching and qualitatively engaging a large population will require raising adequate capital to support it. We have started the organisation by pooling a small amount of capital between the four of us. We are now trying our best to map and reach funders and incubation spaces in order to manage our risk and meet the organisations needs.

2. Eco-system: While India seems to have an abundance of incubation spaces across institutions and private organisations for for-profit and social entrepreneurship ventures, there is a dire lack of such support systems for start-up NGOs. This means we have lesser access to networks and individuals who can provide vital guidance and support through this period of inception. 

3. Technical: We are primarily from the development sector and while we have in some capacity worked with ICT related spaces, we do not have the technical skills for creating such platforms and will need to hire accordingly. Also, we are keen on using FOSS as a base for any systems we might develop ahead and accessing skilled FOSS technicians can be difficult.

4. Socio-cultural: India is a vast and complex country where reaching people involves negotiating a wide range of societal differences such as those based on: class, language, region, education etc. requiring a greater investment of people and skills.

We are conscious of the barriers listed above and hence are attempting to address and plan for them even as we understand that some challenges are in the nature of the field and the politics of our times.  

For the purpose of garnering funds and for accessing eco-systems and networks - we are trying to research and track spaces which support endeavours such as ours and/or are open to non-profit ventures sharing space alongside for-profit ventures. We have been trying where possible to make the case for institutions to hold equal space for not-for-profits which have historically played an important role in building conversation and action around public good. We hope that working with like minded people and organisations to create content will also support financial challenge. We are also planning to use crowd funding models like Patreon.

To work around our technical and socio-cultural concerns, we have decided to take it step by step and break our goals down. For example, we plan to begin with English and diversify into Hindi at the earliest and there on work towards adding other languages. Similarly, till we are able to raise the capital and skills for running an LMS from scratch we might work on building content modules on those spaces that are already available and hosted by other organisations such as Udemy. 

Currently, with the organisation being in its inception phase, three of its founders are working full-time and one is working part-time.

We are four women working in the field of development, education and communication. In our combined more than four decades long experience with international and national development spaces and movements, we have worked in the arena of women and child empowerment, disability rights, human rights education, urban ecology, information and communication technology, etc. By living amongst, breaking bread with, listening to the stories and becoming a part of the struggles of myriad people from different walks of life, we were given unique opportunities to move beyond our social bubble, deconstruct our prejudices and assumptions and be inspired and humbled by the possibilities of individual and collective action.

TTC, is for us, an outcome of immense churnings. Having worked in the development sector for a while, we were in different ways prompted to observe and ask ourselves important questions on what promoted and facilitated holistic well-being of individuals, communities and eco-systems; and, why it was vitally missing from our immediate surroundings - the cities each of us grew up in. The organic flow of learning and yearning to respond, lead to the ideation of the organisation. We do not believe that we alone can indeed solve the complex interrelated issues that cities are enveloped in. This is why TTC is structured on ideas of co-creation and collaboration across a myriad set of citizens and communities. It is pivoted on our belief and experience that an inspired set of people equipped with the right knowledge and skills can bring about change.

We are currently building Season 1 of our podcast and are using that opportunity to create our network. We are looking in particular for: (a) Practitioners: Individual/communities who have been able to resolve or respond to any urban issue in a qualitative and sustainable manner (b) Scientists/Researchers: Individuals/organisations/institutions working towards understanding or resolving urban issues in a qualitative and sustainable manner (c) Writers/Poets/Artists: Individuals/organisations/collectives using art in innovative ways to give voice to/ build conversation on/ resolve urban issues in a qualitative and sustainable manner (d) Indigenous communities: Individuals/organisations/collectives that are showcasing existing socio-cultural thought and practice that are relevant to understanding/ building perspective/ resolving urban issues in a qualitative and sustainable manner. In this manner, we wish to reach out and bring the full force of our past, present and future to reflect, educate and act on the most urgent issues of our times.