Category: Featured

Design and Illustration- Tourism Training Nepal

The High Impact Tourism Training (HITT) program provided informal sector workers – especially women, young people and the unskilled and semi-skilled – with market-oriented, vocational training. Enhanced skill levels enable such workers to gain better job positions, higher wages, and greater employment security. At the same time, they develop the know-how and contacts to capitalize on opportunities and help grow the sector in which they work, in a sustainable and pro-poor way.

It was equally important for these training modules to be translated into suitable media and easily comprehensible ways that effectively bring about the changes in behaviors and practices. Sanjay was commissioned to research the local culture, people, and their practices; their ability (and sometimes lack thereof) to understand complicated technologies and techniques; the possibility of locally producing these media economically and on large scales. Following the on-the-field research and several workshops with SNV’s local staff, he took on the task to find ways for the practical sessions and information to be delivered effectively, to illustrate the techniques, create flip-files, flashcards, handouts, and other training tools. Upon testing of these tools, first in small and then larger groups, several sessions of altering the training mechanisms and tools were conducted.

The HITT for Jobs and Income (HITT) program was implemented in Nepal which aimed to provide practical market driven training opportunities to informal workers in the tourism sector, resulting in a virtuous circle of better qualifications and skills, a higher number of clients and increase in income received by these informal workers. Furthermore, other effects included better services provided to tourists, and job creation in the tourism sector.

Branding, Brochure and Photography

Nepal Made is an Apparel and Lifestyle produce manufacturing and trading company that stitches together the essence of Nepal’s culture, ethnicity, colors, forms, and its religious richness along with the fashion needs of modern, cosmopolitan, and busy European clientele.

Sanjay designed the branding and logo of Nepal Made, keeping in mind the ‘handicraft’ nature of the products and at the same time making them amply appealing to European folks. The logo shape is arrived at by symbolizing a ‘weave’. The colors of the logo are zeroed down from the colors of most of the products.

Later, Sanjay also designed a brochure for the company. To trap the colors and shapes of Nepal, a team of photographers and models travelled to several historical locations within Nepal. Pictures were chosen based on the variety in the attire and woven into a multilayered interactive brochure by literally weaving several sheets of paper together.

Posters Designs on Human Trafficking

The illegal selling and buying of girls is one of the major social crimes in Nepal that is being closely monitored by international agencies. In human trafficking, innocent and illiterate girls from rural areas are sold within Nepal and overseas for prostitution and forced labour. These posters were designed by Sanjay to highlight the trafficking issue, raise awareness, and to trigger a dialogue.

Illustrations and Publication Safe You & Safe Me

Safe You and Safe Me, a happy book written for girls and boys between the ages of 7 and 12 years old, is a tool to train children enabling them to protect themselves from sexual abuse. Several packages were designed to accommodate two books and a CD. The jacket style cover was finalized so that the books interact with kids and could be put prominently on display. The ‘jacket’ design depicts the hidden aspect of violence against children and accommodates a CD inside it.

Sanjay also illustrated characters to facilitate ’acting’, exaggeration and ease of understanding. He took extreme care while specifying (and not specifying) gender and ethnic background. Childlike illustrations and colors were used to attract children into reading the book. Drawing from the real stories told by children about their personal experiences, two comics were woven into the book. Later, the book was translated into 47 languages across the globe.

English: View
Spanish: View
Kurdish: View
Arabic: View

Film Documentary on Indigenous Media

Aimed at improving communication methodologies between knowledge generators and knowledge seekers in the Greater Himalayan region, the project was to examine and promote the use of traditional media for passing on relevant agriculture and livelihood-related information to grassroots communities. Indigenous Media being a pilot project, Sanjay needed to exercise careful judgement in selecting project sites and partners that could provide representative samples of the regions of the Greater Himalayan region. Cultural attitudes, languages, currently used Indigenous Media and capabilities of local NGOs and institutions, were the basis for selecting partners and sites.

Along with the training of the use of the Indigenous Media process and creating prototypes in the project areas, Sanjay scripted and directed a documentary film about the project to be used as a reporting tool.

Throughout the project, Sanjay hired a photographer and a videographer to assist documentation of the activities and to interview key partners. At the end of the project, Sanjay scripted and storyboarded the documentary and produced it in a story form.

Project Report on Indigenous Media

Aimed at improving communication methodologies between knowledge generators and knowledge seekers in the Greater Himalayan region, the project was to examine and promote the use of traditional media for passing on relevant agriculture and livelihood-related information to grassroots communities. Indigenous Media being a pilot project, Sanjay needed to exercise careful judgement in selecting project sites and partners that could provide representative samples of the regions of the Greater Himalayan region. Cultural attitudes, languages, currently used Indigenous Media and capabilities of local NGOs and institutions, were the basis for selecting partners and sites.

At the head office, Sanjay checked the possibilities of replicating the Indigenous Media process and prototypes and assessed the responses and impacts. He also held workshops to see future courses for Indigenous Media efforts and to write proposals.

At the end of this pilot project, Sanjay extensively wrote a 400-page report explaining the timeline, methodology, and findings of the project, the relevance of using indigenous media in technique and message dissemination, the role of religion and culture in message dissemination, and the potential use of the digital media in such endeavors. The role visual communication plays in effective and precise technical knowledge transfer in absence of literacy was thoroughly researched and presented. For future reference, he defined and documented the Process Design of Indigenous Media production with sensitivity toward cultures, languages, religions, and issues.

Poster Designs Silver Jubilee

With rapid population growth, economic development, urbanization, high rates of out-migration, and consequent feminization of rural activities, the Greater Himalayan region has experienced huge changes in the past years. In particular, the mountains have gained greater attention as hotspots for climate change. These changes pose challenges to traditional livelihood strategies and coping mechanisms. At the same time, the mountains have been widely recognized for the ecosystem services they provide. ICIMOD Nepal has been working to enable sustainable and resilient mountain development for improved and equitable livelihoods through knowledge and regional cooperation.

On the silver jubilee of ICIMOD’s existence, a series of posters depicting the areas of ICIMOD’s efforts to bring safety and better incomes to the people of the Greater Himalayas were created by Sanjay.

Interactive Digital Program- Violence Against Women and Girls

In 2004, the United Nations Secretary-General’s Study on Violence against Children estimated that every year between 41 and 88 million children in South Asia witnessed violence at home – the highest regional total in the world. Evidence also showed that half of the world’s child brides lived in South Asia, and around 44 million children were engaged in child labour in the region. Sexual abuse and exploitation, as well as child trafficking and corporal punishment, were also the major concerns for countries in South Asia.

This interactive CDROM is aimed at training the local officers of UNICEF in understanding, preventing and /or helping the traumatized victims. The project required Sanjay to sensitize himself to the gender issues in Asia. He took extreme care with the kind of photographs published, and the interactivity in CDROM was simple considering the diverse age groups and cultural sensitivities of users and the quality of computers available to the trainers.

BeeCause- Street Theatre, Object Animation

Aimed at improving communication methodologies between knowledge generators and knowledge seekers in the Greater Himalayan region, the project was to examine and promote the use of traditional media for passing on relevant agriculture and livelihood-related information to grassroots communities. Indigenous Media being a pilot project, Sanjay needed to exercise careful judgement in selecting project sites and partners that could provide representative samples of the regions of the Greater Himalayan region. Cultural attitudes, languages, currently used Indigenous Media and capabilities of local NGOs and institutions, were the basis for selecting partners and sites.

To showcase the effective use of indigenous media to disseminate complex scientific processes and matters, Sanjay built a team of young talented college students and wrote, designed, storyboarded, choreographed a street theatre production ‘BeeCause’.

Sanjay trained the team in acting, puppet playing and puppet making. Emphasis was given to the fact that these productions were also to be replicated in impassable villages of the Greater Himalayan region; thus, producing these with minimal use of props and ensuring that the props were to be easily sourced locally. The production was designed such that each member of the team got to play each role on a rotation basis, i.e., the lead actor became the director the next day and the accountant the next day and so on. This ensured total focus of the team and ensured the smooth running of the production in case of any member’s absence.

This creative technique also trained each member to go to several villages and be able to reproduce the theatre all by themselves with the help of local talent and resources.

Another pioneering technique of animating the props to impart otherwise technically complex processes was used for this presentation.

Project Lead- Indigenous Media

A drastic turn of events had Sanjay competing with 300 candidates and being interviewed amongst five by the Ford Foundation to leads its pilot Indigenous Media Project in five Greater Himalayan countries. In two months’ time, Sanjay had to disassemble his established life and don the cap of a Development Professional, with pleasure, of course.

With the onset of New Media (i.e., usage of television, computers, and mobile phones) the communities were broadly beginning to be divided into haves and have-nots. Simply put, those with access to electricity and these new gadgets were at the front line of receiving new and useful information. However, those without access to electricity and new gadgets, most of whom were already illiterate or semi-literate, were increasingly being left behind. In effect, on the one hand, the world was developing leaps and bounds, and on the other, a large section of the underdeveloped population was being pushed back into the dark ages. Waiting for this section of the community to become literate and/or have access to new media would further widen the void. This alarming void needed to be addressed urgently.

Aimed at improving communication methodologies between knowledge generators and knowledge seekers in the Greater Himalayan region, the project was to examine and promote the use of traditional media for passing on relevant agriculture and livelihood-related information to grassroots communities. Indigenous Media being a pilot project, Sanjay needed to exercise careful judgement in selecting project sites and partners that could provide representative samples of the regions of the Greater Himalayan region. Cultural attitudes, languages, currently used Indigenous Media and capabilities of local NGOs and institutions, were the basis for selecting partners and sites.

Having selected appropriate partners, and visiting each of the project partners in India, Nepal and Bangladesh, Sanjay trained partners in creating Indigenous Media prototypes, visual communication, composition, storytelling, entertainment, problem-solving, acting, puppet making, prop making and directing and producing presentations disseminating livelihood and agriculture-related messages and processes.