Reflexive Development Practitioners: The 4th Wave of the DPU/ACHR/CAN interns announced

Learning by doing is at the core of promoting socially minded development practices. As part of a long-standing partnership between the Asian Coalition of Housing Rights (ACHR), the Community Architects Network (CAN) and The Bartlett Development Planning Unit (DPU), the DPU Alumni internship program aims to offer experience and on-the-job-training for junior development practitioners throughout South and Southeast Asia. This partnership is based on the shared institutional purpose of fostering people driven development while advocating for planning for socio-environmental justice.

In this context, the internship program is one potent facet of the partnership and is envisaged as a collective learning process with the aim of encouraging knowledge sharing and innovation in development, grounded in the partners’ collaborative interventions and local experience. In particular, the 4th wave of interns’ activities and reflections are framed by the ACHR/CAN's ongoing exploration of the role of development practitioners in galvanising processes of city wide upgrading in different contexts. The four selected interns will be working for about six months at Women for the World in Yangon, Myanmar and Sevanatha Urban Resource Centre in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Thus, this programme provides a unique experience for DPU alumni to cross-fertilise professional knowledge on community-led grounded planning and design practices.

The interns will start at the beginning of January 2018.  An inception workshop will be conducted and a mid-term workshop in mid-February.

The interns that will join Women for the World in Yangon, Myanmar will be:

Shoko Sakuma (BUDD 17) and Saptarshi Mitra (BUDD 17)

The interns joining Sevenatha in Colombo, Sri Lanka will be:

Ruchika Lall (BUDD 17) and Alun Cledwyn (ESD 16)

The Wave 3 booklet is out now!