Landscape Architecture
From the Sandbox: Snippets on a Growing Movement
What does it mean to be building something with others, not just for them? Does it mean to sit in meetings searching for answers, listening deeply? To listen not just to people, but to the place? These updates are a snapshot of what happens when we try.
The Odisha Sandbox began as a quiet experiment in convening, and orchestration–of people, questions, and possibilities within a place. Over the past few years, this experimentation has slowly begun transforming itself into a movement. It has taken root across mangrove villages, rural marketplaces, and is all set to explore the tribal heartland of the state. What connects these distinct landscapes is not an orchestration piece, but a shared belief that real change starts in conversation, in context, and in community.
Inside these, one will find snippets of plastic-free villages, and community-cleaned ponds, of FPOs slowly finding their footing in market systems, of organisations with deep social capital leading with care and courage. One will also find something deeper–of organisations shifting how they think about their work, their responsibilities, and their abilities.
It is a living archive of what happens when we choose to stay present in complexity, harvest the collective wisdom of each landscape and act accordingly.
Welcome to the Odisha Sandbox, OSB as we call it. It is being built–with you.
The Odisha Sandbox is steadily growing its presence across the state - not by replicating programs, but by building context-specific partnerships that allow solutions to travel and take root.
Coastal Landscape I Nature’s Club Ecosystems
The work has consistently started in an exploratory mode, focused on demand discovery from the ground rather than pre-defined solutions. Platforms such as Mangrove Pathotsav, Kendrapara@2036, Bagapatia DPR, Gram Swabhimaan, Kendrapara Vikas Mela, and the District Convergent Action Plan served as live spaces where community aspirations, ecological priorities, and livelihood needs surfaced. These processes revealed how demand is generated through collective dialogue, place-based engagement, and institutional interaction.[image]
Responses were then plugged in through multiple channels based on scale and context, including Nature’s Club layers, District Convergent Action Plan orchestration, Mentopreneurs, Producer Groups Networks, Climate Champions, and Community. Together, these pathways enabled grounded demands to translate into coordinated, scalable responses.
Demand Discovery Spiral:
Climate Champions Cohort & Village Surveys (Nov 2024)
Trained 120 Climate Champions (primarily women SHG members) from Bhitarkanika and Mahanadi landscapes through a 30-hour blended program combining workshops, photo-walks, mindset-building, and green entrepreneurship modules.
Built grassroots capacities in public problem solving, community facilitation, village asset mapping, and green enterprise identification.
Enabled Climate Champions to conduct surveys across 30 villages, mapping natural, human, and institutional assets aligned with community aspirations.
Introduced assessment tools and a 300-hour extended pathway for mentoring, enterprise due diligence, and leadership in local climate action.
Gram Swabhimaan – Community Demand Discovery Model (May–Oct 2024)
Conducted three training workshops for ~115 Climate Champions on planning and facilitating Gram Swabhimaan meetings.
Facilitated 48 Gram Swabhimaan meetings across Kendrapara district with participation of ~4,800 community members (men, women, youth).
Surfaced 60+ community-identified demands including water body rejuvenation, plantations, skills, and livelihoods.
Enabled tangible outcomes such as creek clean-ups, mangrove restoration (57 ha), livelihood training, and post-cyclone community infrastructure repair.
Integrated community priorities into the District Convergent Action Plan (DCAP) and government-supported interventions.
COMMUNITY LED MODEL
90 sample villages surveyed, more than 100 villages experienced Gram Swabhimaan, all DANA affected villages supported with rehab kits, 17 km creek got rejuvenated at Julusnagar and more than 200 community ponds identified for rejuvenation led by Climate Champions writes one of the finest practices on community mobilization models of Nature’s Club in partnership with ECRICC, District Administration, Save the Children, Socratus and Goonj.
Mangrove Pathotsav & Mangrove Economy Building (June–July 2024) Organised Mangrove Patha Utsav, a three-day multi-stakeholder festival and dialogue platform in collaboration with the Odisha State Museum.
- Engaged 250+ actors from government, communities, CSOs, academia, and media to advance mangrove-centred ecological–economic narratives.
- Developed a Mangrove Ecological Repository and curated the Bhitarkanika Climate Recipes Exhibition featuring 22 adaptation solutions.
- Facilitated Citizens’ Jury deliberations and co-created action plans on mangrove restoration, governance, and alternative livelihoods.
- Initiated value-chain scoping for naliya grass, dry fish, honey, crab fattening, eco-tourism, and renewable energy solutions.
- Extended impact nationally through design support to the National Mangrove Conclave, influencing discourse on a National Mangrove Mission.