Finally! Our Prince Came!

Fisher undergraduates Hanna Atiyeh, Roni Groebner, Elizabeth Navarre, Adela Pang and Joe Wimer share their cultural and professional development experience during their 3-week Global Projects Program in Jaisalmer, India.

When we arrived in India, the team believed that the scope of our project was to come up with a way to preserve the fort as a historical and cultural monument while increasing tourism and helping the multiple bodies of fort’s management to better communicate with one another. However, after interview multiple locals, we realized that the problems facing the city of Jaisalmer are more complicated and engineering based. The most prominent issue is the water seepage throughout the fort’s walls that is breaking down the infrastructure. The team identified this slow erosion and destruction as the most pressing issue. Essentially, if this problem is not fixed, the Jaisalmer Fort will slowly crumble away; and, without the fort, the main attraction of Jaisalmer for tourism will be gone. Furthermore, the residents living inside the fort are adamant on staying within the Fort because of their familial connections to the history of the fort. Their homes have been passed down within families for centuries. How they identify culturally and religiously is based on living inside the Fort;  it means everything to them to stay.

Global Projects Program India team

After hearing the locals’ concerns, researching possible solutions, and touring the Fort to see all the problem areas regarding the water seepage and sewage system, we devised a tentative solution: find the best, non-biased group of engineers to come and evaluate the condition of the sewage and draining system and apply for grants or find a source of funding for the infrastructure study. While we thought our tentative plan was feasible, we needed to wait on our meetings with our client, Crown Prince Chaitanya Raj Singh, to hear his feedback.

We met Prince Chaitanya the last week of our time in Jaisalmer. After a dinner where we got to know each other a little bit better, we were able to understand his situation more fully. We met multiple times over the next few days and began to work through how we could offer value-add deliverables.   After much discussion and brainstorming with the Prince, we propsed that the team:  1. Create a persuasive argument and presentation for Prince Chaitanya to use for future awareness and fund sourcing presentations; 2. Generate a strategic partnership analysis that outlines all of the possible sources of funding, engineering groups, and a timeline for the project; 3. Draw a map of key players/stakeholders and their relationships concerning the Fort and outlining roles and duties as well as suggesting ways to improve and clarify roles.

Global Projects Program India team

After returning to the USA, we will continue to communicate with Prince Chaitanya to further focus our plan. Through our class with Professory Tansky in the upcoming fall semester and with the help of our project Faculty Advisor, Heidi Eldred, we hope to create something of value for Prince Chaitanya and the city of Jaisalmer.

Adela Pang

Fisher undergraduates Hanna Atiyeh, Roni Groebner, Elizabeth Navarre, Adela Pang and Joe Wimer participated in a 3-week Global Projects Program in Jaisalmer, India, working with Prince Chaitanya Raj Singh. Adela is a finance major at Fisher.