The first unit that we visited was in the Fortaleza neighbourhood of Parangaba. We visited the unit on Tuesday 18 March.
The Parangaba unit actually hosts 3 separate IDT units - the Parangaba unit itself (which serves the neighbourhood), the Centro unit (which has temporarily been relocated to Parangaba due the main building being closed), and the specialist unit for people with disabilities. This means that the unit is very busy. We discussed some of the issues that the new system could help to solve with the unit's manager, Berence (second from right):
We also met the head of the unit for people with disabilities, Fatima (second from right):
She showed us a book to which she had contributed several articles:
On Thursday 20 March, we visited two more units. The first was another urban unit, this time in the Fortaleza neighbourhood of Messejana .
Again, this is a very busy unit. Clients queue from very early in the morning to access services as soon as the unit opens.
We saw some of the job advertisements posted in the unit:
Finally, we went to visit a more rural unit in the town of Maranguape, just outside Fortaleza.
We met the manager, Wilson, and discussed some the differing issues that the Maranguape unit has compared to those in Fortaleza.
Clients travel from a very wide area to visit the unit - from up to 100km away. Clients also tend to queue from early in the morning - often due to the public transport schedule.
We were able to see the cabins that the clients attend:
The fact finding visits were very useful, and provided valuable information to help us to define the objectives of our engagement with IDT.
