October was a very busy month for Wetskills. Three simultaneous events took place in Budapest, New Delhi and Kerala! The last two were organized with the occasion of the Royal Dutch visit to India and were honoured to hold their finals during the official trade mission programme.
Wetskills Kerala took off in Calicut (Kozhikhode) on the 7thof October with two days of field visits and teambuilding activities. The event’s theme being Integrated Water Management and Flood control, the group of 14 participants visited several flood and landslide affected areas in the Wayanad area near Calicut. In this Wetskills event, the teams worked on four case topics selected from the recommendations found in the DRR report ‘Kerala Integrated Water Resource Management’, commissioned after the devastating floods which took place in the last years. The topics covered women empowerment for flood resilience, smart and flood resilient cities, water footprint for better flood and agricultural management and long term dredging.
The bulk of the program took place at the JDT Islam campus, our wonderful hosting partner, where the participants had the occasion to mingle and interact with the attendants of various of the JDT colleges. The group was a mix of Dutch, Chinese, Hungarian and Indian participants coming from Calicut, Cochin and Trivandrum College of Architecture. After 10 days of field visits, desktop work, consulting with various experts and exploring the local culture, scenery and endless tasty food, it was time to move to Cochin/Kochi for the presentation of results.
The finals took place on the 17thof October, at the Grand Hyatt in Cochin, during the Maritime and Water Development conference organized as part of the Dutch business delegation visit. The pitches of the four teams were evaluated by a mix of local and Dutch jury members, chaired by the Special Envoy for International Water Affaires, mr Henk Ovink. The winning case was EduFlood – Empowering Women during Flooding, which focused on youth and education to make women and communities in the future more flood resilient physically and mentally. Congratulations to the team!
The awarding took place during the closing dinner in Fort Cochin, a lovely way to end two amazing weeks in God’s Own Country – Kerala. We hope to be back with a 5thIndia edition in 2020!
