Team:AshesiGhana/Human Practices
Integrated Human Practices
The main aim of human practices is to investigate how the people interact with the problem(s), and how they respond to the solution proposed.
"Human Practices is the study of how your work affects the world, and how the world affects your work."
— Peter Carr, Director of Judging
This year's team mapped out a journey to understand how coastal erosion and plastic pollution affect not only the people living in coastal areas but also the rest of Ghana. Furthermore, we looked at how the people of Ghana were contributing to these two pertinent problems (coastal erosion and plastic pollution). The path to understand the people in the environment of our problems is shown below.
People and the Problem
During our project ideation process, even as the team members were presenting their ideas, we started to think about challenges that Ghanaians and Africans in general face in their environment. The two major challenges that came up were plastic pollution and coastal erosion. Plastic pollution was unsurprising but we were not entirely sure if coastal erosion was a major issue in Ghana.
Thereafter, we proceeded to investigate if these two were crucial problems. Due to the ongoing pandemic (COVID-19) and restrictions that were brought about, we had to carry out virtual interactions with our stakeholders. This was particularly difficult, however, because most of the people that are greatly affected by either coastal erosion and/or plastic pollution do not have internet access. Nevertheless, we sent out a form through various channels and waited for responses from the general public.
How we chose our stakeholders
In choosing our stakeholders, we made sure to look out for people who live in or near coastal villages in Ghana and in Africa. This is because an implementation of our solution would directly affect those living in these areas before it affects other people.
Survey & Interviews with Major Stakeholders
To get in contact with our major stakeholders – people living in coastal villages - we created an online survey to seek their permission to be interviewed. Out of 138 responses we received, 13 people from the different parts of Ghana were willing to be interviewed by the team. Thus, we set out on a journey to find out from our stakeholders whether we were on the right track and if we needed to pivot and think through our idea again.
All 13 people we interviewed over the phone confirmed the intensity of the two problems we chose to tackle. Their confirmation validated our assumption and we quickly began to refine our problem statement and solution to fit the information we'd been given.
From one stakeholder, Robert Boateng, we learned that most of the people who throw the rubbish on the sand believe that the sea will wash the plastic away to safety. We also learned that between now and 10 years ago, a large percentage of land has been washed away in that particular city due to the menace of coastal erosion. People have had to pack up and leave the only place they call home because the land is being washed away continually. These sad statistics further strengthened our resolve to find a solution to the issues.
People & the Solution
After validating the problems, we began to work tirelessly to get a solution. Once the solution was set in place, we had to find out how other people perceived the solution, given that it was genetically modified.
From previous surveys that had been sent out, we knew that a good percentage of Ghanaians did not trust synthetic biology solutions simply because they did not understand them. Thus, we decided to also create some outreach materials that would help people gain a basic understanding of what we aimed to do.
Upon initially discussing our project idea with some relevant stakeholders, we realized that there were some gaps to be filled in terms of explaining what exactly our project does and how exactly we hope to solve the problems at hand. Given the fact that we were also not in the lab, it made it difficult for us to explain to these stakeholders that we didn't have a lab result yet that proved our solution would work. Nevertheless, their advice and input were useful to us because they shaped how we continued to think about our project and how we continued to think about the solution.
Initially, we had wanted to place the bioconcrete tetrapods in the sea, closer to the waves than to the shore. However, after speaking with stakeholders, we realized that it would make more sense for the tetrapods to situated partially on the land and partially in the sea as well. Thus, we settled on placing the tetrapods at the intersection between the sand and the sea (the shoreline). This shift in design also caused us to start thinking about what would happen if the waves continually beat against the tetrapod and caused there to be microcracks. It was also how we started thinking about using the biocementation feature of the tetrapods to make them self-healing.
We were also asked about the aesthetic element of our tetrapods. Through these conversations, we realized that it would be prudent to add bioluminescence to the tetrapods so that we could beautify the coast and perhaps introduce another stream of tourism revenue.
Meeting with the EPA
We had a virtual meeting with Godson Kudjoe Voado of Ghana's Environment Protection Agency (EPA) to explain our project and seek validation of our solution in relation to its safety and whether or not it follows the laws guarding the environment. Mr. Voado, though unconversant with synthetic biology mentioned that he is excited about our solution and would love to see it materialize.
During this meeting, we learned that some researchers had performed a coastal sensitivity index mapping on the coastline of Ghana, and that this index provides information as to whether or not the coastline is susceptible to oil pollution, coastal erosion, etc. From this research, it was found that about 50% of Ghana's shoreline is vulnerable to coastal erosion. As such, it is clear that our solution is urgently needed to protect the vulnerable coastline.
Mr Godson believed that our solution was a viable solution to the plastic pollution problem and, to some extent, the coastal erosion problem. He gave us some advice by saying that we should practice the solution in a small way before we upscale to creating the tetrapods, and we agree with him completely. His suggestion has been noted down for next year's team to consider.
Finally, Mr Godson let us know that in order for us to move this project forward and garner support, we should speak with the Ministry of Environment and the Environmental Protection Agency. More information about our proposed implementation can be found here.
UCL Partnership
The team had a human practices partnership with the UCL team. Together, we created a comprehensive survey that sought to understand people’s attitudes towards our solutions. We also sought to find out the different ways in which recycling is conducted as well as information about irrigation and freshwater scarcity.
A summary of the results can be viewed here.
From these results, we realized that 63.6% of respondents believe that the plastic pollution issue is very severe in their country of residence, and that most of these people believe that their country's plastic waste management systems are very poor. From these results, it was clear that our choice to focus on plastic pollution as well was a good choice as it is an issue many people are frustrated about.
A thorough analysis of the survey showed us that most people do not trust synthetic biology because they barely know about it. Therefore, we (both Ashesi and UCL) decided to create a brochure to educate people about the benefits of synthetic biology and to raise awareness about it.
We also helped the UCL iGEM team in obtaining a contact for a farmer in Ghana so that they could speak with him concerning irrigation in Ghana and some of the issues that he potentially faced.