Promoting local building cultures in Haiti

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Promoting local building cultures in Haiti

Mismatches Functional adequacy Services Vulnerable groups Demographic/Urban growth

Policies and regulations Local policies Regulation Building capacity Governance

Promotion and production Public promotion Participatory processes Innovation Cooperatives Management and maintenance

Main objectives of the project

Rebuilding Haiti

Rebuilding a country that has been devastated by natural disaster is a huge job. Rebuilding it in a way that reduces future risk to human life and dependency on external aid is an even bigger one. This is the task the organisation CRAterre set itself following the catastrophic earthquake that hit Haiti in January 2010.

The magnitude-7 tremor and subsequent aftershocks killed hundreds of thousands of people, left millions homeless and destroyed much of Haiti’s infrastructure. CRAterre – which leads global research, training and action in the field of earthen architecture – was enlisted to lend its technical expertise to multiple international and local organisations involved in the post-disaster rebuild.

The lack of national building standards and poor construction methods needed to be addressed urgently to cope with future natural disasters. CRAterre recognised this need for a more unified approach and favoured improving existing local construction techniques over the standardised industrial methods typically employed in post-disaster rebuilds.

By studying and then adapting local building practices, training Haitian construction professionals and distributing educational materials, CRAterre promoted safer, more effective and locally sustainable building techniques.

When Hurricane Matthew hit in 2016, thousands of homes and dozens of public buildings constructed using these practices suffered less damage than other buildings, demonstrating how CRAterre’s methodologies can improve resilience and response to natural disasters and ultimately save lives.

Date

2013:

Stakeholders

Promotor: World Habitat

Location

Continent: North America
Country/Region: Haiti, Port-au-Prince

Description

In January 2010, a devastating earthquake shook the Caribbean nation of Haiti to its core. The disaster and subsequent aftershocks killed an estimated 250,000 people, injuring 300,000 and displacing 1.5 million people, whose homes collapsed. Much of the country’s infrastructure was also destroyed as the magnitude-7 tremor reduced schools, hospitals, government buildings and roads to rubble. The country was left in crisis, its people living in makeshift accommodation, vulnerable to food shortages, poverty and rapidly spreading disease.

International humanitarian organisations responded en masse to help with the enormous relief effort. CRAterre – an organisation leading international research, training and action in the field of earthen architecture – already had a presence in the country and was asked to provide technical assistance to multiple local and international organisations involved in the post-disaster response and rebuild.

Rethinking construction

Prior to the earthquake, no building codes were enforced in Haiti. Many of the country’s structures were poorly built and simply disintegrated when disaster struck, leaving a massive death toll in their wake. The fragmented response efforts of numerous aid agencies and difficult terrain meant the rebuild process was particularly challenging.

Against this backdrop, CRAterre recognised the need for an alternative approach to the standardised industrial building techniques usually employed by international aid agencies involved in post-disaster response. Rebuilds are typically a very top-down process, where big aid organisations come in and build houses with a standard approach, all too often ignoring local traditions and techniques, and creating a secondary ‘aid’ economy, which excludes local workers.

CRAterre used its research to promote a more unified approach that took into account the hugely varying physical, social, environmental, economic, cultural and governance factors across the country. It believed that by promoting improved local building techniques – known as Techniques de Construction Locales Améliorées, or TCLA – the country could become more resilient to natural disasters and improve its response when they occurred. The organisation was directly involved with 25 contracts for technical assistance and training and was asked to collaborate on numerous other projects, giving it scope to influence a wide range of organisations.

CRAterre’s focus was mainly on rural areas across Haiti, where resources and needs differ greatly according to the availability of materials, transport, facilities and climate. The hugely varied geography of Haiti also affects the approach to building foundations and the supply of water and sanitation. CRAterre’s team of experts began by evaluating traditional local building techniques, which vary widely, then refined them using the findings of their scientific research and local observations. Haitian builders were therefore able to apply their existing knowledge with improved techniques, resulting in safer buildings that they could construct themselves.

While most organisations became convinced of the benefit CRAterre’s TCLA approach, some resisted dialogue about these methods. In some areas NGOs continued to propose building larger houses with reinforced concrete and concrete blocks, rather than using local building techniques.

Environmental and social impact

The environmental impact of the rebuild was a key factor in CRAterre’s work. Materials used in the building process – mainly earth and stone – are low energy and only a small amount of cement was used where necessary. Timber was imported when not locally available or abundant enough for sustainable use. In mountainous areas 95 per cent of materials were extracted locally, reducing transport and greenhouse gas emissions.

Throughout the process, care was taken to preserve the traditional mutual support culture in Haiti known as ‘Kombit’ to encourage community resilience and avoid future dependency on external aid. CRAterre’s participatory approach also paid special attention to the inclusion of women. By embracing and building on local knowledge, the organisation was able to strengthen social ties and support local people to make informed choices.

It is estimated that the total cost of the work CRAterre was involved in is around USD$19.8 million, however, because it linked to multiple projects with many partners that were funded from a variety of sources, a ‘traditional’ budget is hard to obtain. The results of its work, however, can be seen on the ground. Technical support provided by CRAterre enabled the construction of 1,150 new buildings and the repair of 500 following the 2010 earthquake. Twenty-five community and public buildings were delivered with support from the organisation and 850 local building professionals were trained in addition to staff in 15 international organisations. The reconstruction and repair projects were carried out in communities where people could not afford to rebuild themselves.

CRAterre also developed teaching materials, which were made available to vocational schools, and wider adoption of building techniques promoted by the organisation by self-builders and wealthy individuals has led to the repair or rebuild of around 6,000 homes since 2010. The team also helped develop and shape advocacy campaigns, carried out educational activities and supported professional networks across Haiti.

By providing technical assistance to a spectrum of different organisations involved in the rebuild, CRAterre was able to achieve some much-needed continuity in rebuilding methods with far-reaching results. Local building techniques have been widely accepted and adopted throughout Haiti, including by government departments. In 2012 the Ministry of Public Works Transport and Communications certified a system for building timber frame houses, which was promoted by CRAterre.

The effectiveness of CRAterre’s approach was put to the test when Hurricane Matthew hit Haiti in 2016. Homes rebuilt using TCLA methods suffered significantly less damage than others, leading to wider adoption of the techniques by UCLBP, the government body responsible for national housing policy. Following the hurricane, a further 800 households were supported by CRAterre to repair their homes.

The future

Since 2010 Haiti’s recovery has been compounded by further hurricanes, storms, drought, disease, and political, economic and social disruption. The country’s recovery and efforts to rebuild continue under intense scrutiny.

While no further funding is in place to extend CRAterre’s TCLA project in its current form, the concept has been adopted by UCLBP, the Global Shelter Cluster (a global platform coordinating post-disaster response) and other humanitarian organisations working in Haiti. Its influence is also being felt at policy level and it has submitted documents to the Ministry of Public Works Transport and Communications to establish national construction standards across a range of building types.

CRAterre is still working in Haiti, collaborating with government authorities, universities and vocational centres and providing technical support, training and expertise to projects led by its partner organisations. Recognition and adoption of TCLA is expected to increase across Haiti and CRAterre continues in its quest to promote the TCLA approach at a global level.

View the full project summary here – available in English only

Authors:

Fundació Mies van der Rohe Barcelona

World Habitat

Pakistan Chulahs: The smokeless stoves empowering women and changing lives

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Pakistan Chulahs: The smokeless stoves empowering women and changing lives

Mismatches Vulnerable groups Demographic/Urban growth

Policies and regulations National policies Global frameworks

Urban Design Quality Liveability Inclusion Equity

Promotion and production Participatory processes Materials Self-management Management and maintenance

Main objectives of the project

The smokeless stoves empowering women and saving lives

A programme to build low-cost smokeless stoves is helping to improve women’s health and alleviate poverty in rural Pakistan, where four in every five households lack access to a clean, safe cooking resource.

Smoke from traditional open-flame wood-burning stoves can cause serious respiratory infections and eye problems, while food cooked on these floor-mounted stoves is easily contaminated leading to diarrhoea, especially in children.

The Chulah programme teaches marginalised women to build a hygienic, sustainable, smokeless earthen stove, which not only improves their health but also empowers them to earn a living by marketing and building stoves in other villages.

The programme is run by the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan, which has trained 35 ‘Barefoot Village Entrepreneurs’ (BVEs) in Chulah construction. BVEs act as master trainers, charging USD$2 to teach other women to build their own Chulahs out of mud bricks and lime. Materials cost an additional USD$6, bringing the total cost to USD$8.

Chulah stoves use 50 – 70 per cent less firewood than traditional stoves, reducing deforestation and saving valuable time for women, whose job it is to collect fuel.

Since 2014, more than 40,000 stoves have been built, improving the health of 300,000 people. The Heritage Foundation aims to expand the programme to build 100,000 Chulahs per year, bringing the health and economic benefits of the stoves to millions more disadvantaged women and their families.

Date

2018:

Stakeholders

Promotor: World Habitat

Location

Continent: Asia
Country/Region: Karachi, Pakistan

Description

Food preparation is an essential part of daily life but for women living in impoverished rural Pakistan it is a time-consuming and arduous task that puts both their own health and that of their family at risk. This is because millions of rural households depend on open-flame wood-burning stoves, which fill homes with smoke causing acute respiratory infections and eye problems. Food cooked on these floor-mounted stoves is easily contaminated with dirt – a major cause of diarrhoea, particularly among children.

Women suffer most, as they are the ones who cook for their families. In rural communities where there are high levels of poverty and illiteracy, women are very disadvantaged and restricted to the domestic sphere, looking after their family as well as livestock and crops. They spend hours each day collecting firewood for the stoves, which are inefficient and require large amounts of fuel.

In 2013, non-profit organisation the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan launched a programme to improve the lives of the estimated four in five rural women who lack access to a clean, safe cooking resource. The programme teaches women to build a hygienic, sustainable, smokeless earthen stove known as a ‘Chulah’, which not only improves their health but also empowers them to earn a living by marketing and building stoves in other villages.

How it works

The Chulah is a low-cost, fuel-efficient double stove on an elevated earthen platform. It is built from sun-dried mud bricks and strengthened with lime render. The design is Disaster Risk Reduction compliant, meaning it is more robust than traditional floor-mounted stoves, which are easily damaged by earthquakes or washed away by floodwater, leaving families without the ability to cook in emergency situations.

An air regulation pipe transfers heat from the first stove to the second, improving efficiency by making it possible to cook two pots from the same fire. When the fire is lit, the Chulah’s chimney emits smoke at a high level, eliminating the damaging pollution associated with traditional open-flame stoves. Better hygiene is promoted with the inclusion of handwashing facilities as well as storage space for cooking utensils.

Women construct the Chulahs themselves under the guidance of a Barefoot Village Entrepreneur (BVE) or ‘Stove Sister’. The Heritage Foundation initially trained 35 BVEs – mostly women with very low literacy levels who, after implementing the scheme in their own village, visit neighbouring communities to market the product. BVEs charge a fee of USD$2 to teach women to build a Chulah. This is paid in two instalments: half in advance and half once the stove is finished. This system helps with affordability and ensures the self-built stove is functioning properly as the BVE can check its performance once completed. BVEs also provide hygiene training to encourage handwashing prior to handling food.

The total cost of building a Chulah is low at around USD$8 and is paid for by the household. This includes the training fee, USD$3 for a bag of lime, and USD$3 for sand and gravel. Clay and earth is locally sourced and freely available and there are no labour costs because the women carry out the work themselves. It takes two days to build a Chulah and another two days to decorate one, making each stove a personal work of art.

Since 2014, more than 40,000 stoves have been built, mostly in villages in Lower Sindh, benefitting more than 300,000 people with improved health and better food. The popularity of the stoves has grown mainly via word-of-mouth recommendation. For example, friends and relatives who visit a home with a Chulah often express an interest in building one for themselves and BVEs take these opportunities to market the product and spread the technique.

The scheme has minimal running costs, aside from USD$5,000 spent on training the initial 35 BVEs, which was paid by the International Labour Organisation.

Clear benefits

In spite of the Chulah’s clear health benefits, implementation of the programme has not been without its challenges. In conservative rural communities, men are not accustomed to women working independently and some women initially faced opposition from their male partners, until they learned that a BVE could earn substantial income. In some cases men have joined their wives in the venture, which has ultimately contributed to the success of the scheme. One BVE named Champa and her husband have helped others to build 20,000 stoves and earned USD$40,000.

The opportunity to earn money is not the only way the Chulah scheme is empowering marginalised women. The stove’s large raised platform achieves greater dignity for women by enabling them to cook and carry out other household tasks while standing rather than crouching on the floor. The stove improves cooking efficiency by around 25 per cent – saving valuable time – and can also become a focal point in the village, where women from neighbouring houses can meet and interact, strengthening social ties.

The Chulah also benefits the environment by reducing the use of firewood by 50 – 70 per cent. The use of agricultural waste, small twigs or sawdust bricks as fuel helps to prevent further deforestation and environmental degradation and also means women no longer need to spend excessive time collecting wood.

Since launching the programme, The Heritage Foundation has learned that many families use the Chulah to keep warm in the winter. The organisation recognises the potential benefit of this dual function for impoverished families and hopes to develop a new design that would better direct heat from the stove into rooms.

The Chulah’s future

The Heritage Foundation believes the Chulah programme has an important role to play in the alleviation of rural poverty both in Pakistan and in other countries where the materials needed to construct the stoves are readily available.

It is working closely with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in the construction of 40,000 zero carbon shelters in Pakistan. Through this programme, Chulah training has been given to women in other parts of the country with mixed success.

In Upper Sindh, 100 teams of men and women were trained and 7,000 Chulahs have been built. In Shangla and Dera Ismael Khan, however, just 150 and 50 Chulahs have been constructed respectively. This is due to restrictions on women leaving their homes or villages, which has hampered marketing and training opportunities.

The Heritage Foundation remains committed to the programme and aims to build 100,000 Chulahs per year. The organisation is currently seeking funding to carry out large-scale training of new BVEs in different regions of Pakistan. This would enable the Chulah to be used in even the most remote corners of the country, providing a source of income, lowering living costs and improving the health of millions of marginalised women and their families.

View the full project summary here – available in English only

Authors:

World Habitat

Hemsworth Court

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Hemsworth Court

Policies and regulations Governance Evaluation and impact

Urban Design Inclusion Equity

Promotion and production Public promotion

Main objectives of the project

Hemsworth Court is a purpose-built, supported housing development for people with dementia and cognitive impairment. Based in Lower Shankhill in Belfast, a deprived area affected for many years by civil unrest, it has become the first dementia-friendly community in the city.

With the number of dementia diagnoses set to rise to over one million in the UK by 2025, Hemsworth Court shows how to successfully develop dementia-friendly housing. By providing 24-hour care with dementia-friendly facilities which help to avoid potential confusion and distress, residents are supported to live independently within their community.

Awareness of dementia in the local community has increased through Hemsworth Court’s wider work with charities, faith groups, schools and local businesses. This means that local people understand and interact more with residents and many take part in social events. Lower Shankhill, an area heavily affected by the conflict in Northern Ireland, continues to face challenges in health, education, employment and housing. Hemsworth Court has provided a positive boost to the whole community through training and encouragement to interact with, understand and support its residents.

Date

2017:

Stakeholders

Promotor: World Habitat

Location

Continent: Europe
City: Belfast
Country/Region: Belfast, United Kingdom

Description

Project Description

Hemsworth Court, which opened in 2013, is a purpose-built, supported housing development for people with dementia and cognitive impairment in Lower Shankhill, a deprived area in Belfast, Northern Ireland affected for many years by civil unrest.

In 2009, the city’s public sector health and social care provider Belfast Health and Social Care Trust needed to provide a new facility in this part of Belfast to replace an existing building. They wanted to take a community-focused approach so the Trust worked with Helm Housing (now Radius Housing Association) to develop an exemplary, dementia friendly scheme involving much more than the building itself. The Hemsworth Court project involved a holistic approach to working with the community. The new building was delivered alongside community-wide training, with a team employed to lead on community integration. This work made Lower Shankhill – an area that for some time had suffered significant deprivation and had a poor reputation – the first Dementia Friendly Community in Belfast.

The majority of the funding for the project came from Supporting People (a public-sector programme run by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive which promotes independent living). The project was a response to a range of strategies and plans within Northern Ireland designed to improve the way the needs of older people and people with dementia are met.

The UK charity Alzheimer’s Society also advised on the development, which was completed in 2013. There are 35 modern apartments with communal facilities including a coffee bar, cinema and games room, library, cookery room, gym, hairdressers and gardens. Although Hemsworth Court itself has many facilities, that doesn’t mean that it is separated from the local community, quite the reverse. Local people are able to use many of the facilities at Hemsworth Court and social activities are arranged which involve residents and the wider public alike.

Hemsworth Court has been designed to promote independence. Support is also in place so residents can carry out everyday tasks like shopping and other activities. The people who live at Hemsworth Court are supported to live independently in their local area with 24-hour care available, so they can carry on with their lives with all the support they need in place. This is really important to the people living there and their families, as the onset of dementia and the disruption it causes to many aspects of people’s lives can be highly distressing.

Aims and Objectives

The main aim of Hemsworth Court is to provide a quality home for people with dementia that allows them to live happily and independently alongside their community. They also aim to:

Empower adults with dementia to maintain independence, wellbeing and social inclusion.
Educate and create awareness of dementia in the local community, to increase the safety and well-being of dementia sufferers.
Reduce the loneliness and isolation of people with dementia.
Reduce the stigma associated with the condition.

Context

Dementia is a term which describes different brain disorders that trigger a loss of brain function. There are 850,000 people with dementia in the United Kingdom, with numbers set to rise to over one million by 2025. A 2013 report by the Alzheimer’s Society indicated that Belfast has the highest rates of diagnosis of dementia in the UK.

Hemsworth Court is located in the Lower Shankhill area, which has been designated for regeneration by Belfast City Council. Predominantly a Protestant/Loyalist area, Lower Shankhill was heavily affected by ‘The Troubles’, three decades of civil and political unrest and conflict in Northern Ireland which began in the 1960s. The Troubles are deemed to have ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, but the after effects are still felt in many communities. In Lower Shankhill, deprivation is high in terms of health, education and training, crime, employment, income and housing. The community suffers from high unemployment and negative perceptions of the area. A high proportion of the local population are on low incomes and have few formal qualifications. Many people who lived through and are survivors of the political conflict live in the area and have experienced problems with their mental and physical health. This has contributed to high health and social deprivation.

Services for older residents, and in particular residents with dementia, are in high demand in Northern Ireland. Research by the Alzheimer’s Society found there are over 20,000 people living with dementia across the country. In 2009, when the Hemsworth Court project started, there were 158 people with dementia on the waiting list for Helm Housing, of which 103 were considered in housing need. At that point there were no facilities available to provide supported housing for people living with dementia in Lower Shankhill. There is an ever increasing demand for this type of comprehensive facility and today Hemsworth Court is full and has a long waiting list.

Key Features

In order to make sure that Hemsworth Court really became part of the local community a strand of work called the Hemsworth Court Community Integration Project was set up. This was developed through partnerships with the Alzheimer’s Society, faith groups, older people’s groups, community policing, local charities, schools and businesses. The impact of these activities has been to ensure that Hemsworth Court and the wider neighbourhood responds positively to the needs of dementia sufferers. Before and after the building was completed activities took place within and beyond the Lower Shankhill area to raise awareness about dementia and include local people in the project. These activities had a strong intergenerational and cross community focus and included:

The ‘Social Sofa’, a colourful concrete sofa designed and decorated by residents which toured the area so people could sit, have a chat and share memories and ideas. This activity also worked to bring dementia into the public eye and stimulated discussion amongst residents and via the media.
The project became involved in the Belfast Walkability Project, which engaged older residents in conversations about how public spaces can be better designed for them.

A key feature of the development of Hemsworth Court was about understanding how dementia has an impact on everyday life and making appropriate decisions about design at an early stage to accommodate these needs. Research has shown that the cognitive impairment affecting people with dementia can be aggravated by building design. For this reason an interior design company specialising in design for dementia were used. All design and materials are dementia friendly, chosen to be familiar to residents to avoid potential confusion and distress.

Including and beyond the three main organisations (Helm Housing, the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust and the Alzheimer’s Society), partnership working was key to the success of this development. Stakeholders with an important role in influencing the work included:

People with dementia themselves and their families.
Local businesses who have learnt about the needs of their customers and service users with dementia, enabling them to provide the appropriate support.
Specialists in design and construction.
Public bodies involved in providing funding and applying best practice including:
- the national government in Northern Ireland;
- Belfast City Council;
- the Northern Ireland Health Executive;
- the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority and the Dementia Services Development Centre.

What impact has it had?

Lower Shankill is a traditionally ‘hard to reach’ area, with many households affected by high levels of deprivation and isolation. This project has contributed to increasing social interaction locally. There is greater cooperation amongst residents, local communities and local businesses. Dementia friendly training in the local community has helped to reduce the stigma associated with the condition and being one of the first dementia friendly communities in Northern Ireland has created a sense of pride in the local community. Public awareness of dementia has increased through the wider activities like the Social Sofa art installation, which succeeded in attracting attention and addressing the stigma of dementia as an issue.

Hemsworth Court has succeeded in helping people living with dementia to retain independence and increased the acceptance and understanding of dementia sufferers in the wider community. The scheme has recognised the right of dementia sufferers to safe, secure housing.

How is it funded?

Total capital costs were £5,025,178 (US$6,497,555), made up of:

Land – £300,000 (US$387,900)
On-costs – £747,405 (US$966,395)
Construction – £3,977,773 (US$5,143,260)

Costs were met by a Department of Communities Grant of £4,598,128 (US$5,945,380) and private finance of £427,050 (US$552,175).

Annual running costs are covered by Helm Housing (now Radius Housing) for the maintenance of the buildings. Day-to-day running costs are funded through rent and housing benefit payments. Care costs are met by Belfast Health and Social Care Trust.

The average rent is £123.45 (US$159.62) for a one-bedroom unit and £125.35 (US$162.08) for two bedrooms per week.

Future costs are highly uncertain due to funding pressures faced by service providers and Housing Associations.

Why is it innovative?

Hemsworth Court is the only provider of dementia friendly supported living in the city of Belfast. One of its most innovative features is the fact families can live together so people with dementia can get 24-hour professional care while also living with their family.

This purpose built accommodation allows people with dementia or cognitive impairment to remain independent with care and support available when needed. Residents can remain in the area instead of being forced to move into a nursing home outside of their community. This helps to maintain their well-being and ability to cope with the stresses of the condition.

The work to integrate the development with the community has helped to boost an area which has suffered from long-term deprivation and decline. While the activities carried out to integrate people with dementia or cognitive impairment were designed to ensure the well-being of the residents of Hemsworth Court, they have had a wider impact in improving the image and sense of pride of the local community.

The other activities that took place alongside the construction of Hemsworth Court, like the Social Sofa art project, helped to build links between people with dementia and the wider community. The Social Sofa captured the memories of residents through art in a partnership with local community groups, schools and staff from Hemsworth Court. It created a discussion point to bring the topic out into the open and was the first activity of its kind in Northern Ireland.

What is the environmental impact?

The design and construction of the housing includes several environmentally sustainable features such as baths and toilets that use less water than traditional ones, energy efficient gas-fired boilers, responsibly sourced timber, energy efficient lighting and solar panels.

Rainwater is collected in underground tanks to supply half of the toilets, with top-ups from the mains water supply. The whole building is fitted with a heat recovery ventilation system, which recycles hot air from inside while bringing in cooler air from outside. Hemsworth Court has been rated four out of six stars under the Code for Sustainable Homes [1].

The grounds of the building have been landscaped to contribute to local biodiversity and allow residents to enjoy the gardens. Residents are encouraged to reduce their environmental impact by using recycling bins, external drying spaces and cycle storage is provided to encourage people to cycle.

[1] The Code for Sustainable Homes was withdrawn by the UK Government in 2015. Elements of it have been merged into general Building Regulations

Is it financially sustainable?

For residents, rental payments are lower than market rate and housing benefits contribute towards these costs for those households that are eligible. The services provided to residents are subsidised by the government-funded Supporting People programme and there are no significant changes to running costs anticipated in the future.

Budget cuts present an issue for the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, particularly in replicating the model to other specialised supported living accommodation. However, it is hoped that the success of Hemsworth Court will attract further funding from the public and private sectors to replicate the project in other areas.

What is the social impact?

Hemsworth Court has become a community hub hosting information days, community group meetings and health education events. The main aim is to support residents so they are genuinely integrated into their local community. The stigma associated with dementia has been reduced and there is now a better understanding of the condition within the local community.

People living at Hemsworth Court have lots of opportunities to take part in community activities and these can help develop their cognitive skills. The availability of an Activity Coordinator, support staff and the increased awareness within the local community about how to support people with dementia or cognitive impairment has increased the confidence of the residents, enabling them to live more independently.

The Social Sofa helped to achieve wider awareness about the challenge of dementia and cognitive impairment. The Social Sofa project was a collaborative project and involved schoolchildren and a local arts centre. This project really helped residents to develop artistic skills and build confidence.

Barriers

The initial challenge of the programme was raising awareness of dementia and educating the community on the condition. Workshops for local businesses helped to change attitudes and integrate the community, professionals, residents and families. Amongst carers there was some fear or lack of understanding of how to care for their loved one with dementia, especially regarding safety. Belfast Health and Social Care Trust provided a training programme for carers to help overcome this barrier. This included improving people’s understanding of the condition, supporting families to accept a diagnosis and learning how supported housing works.

Although Hemsworth Court is an award-winning scheme and hugely popular with residents and the community, funding to replicate the scheme is not available from the same sources due to budget cuts. It is hoped that the high quality of the scheme and savings to health services (through the reduced need for hospital stays or nursing care among residents) may be successful in attracting investment from elsewhere.

Lessons Learned

There is a need to challenge the attitude that residential or nursing homes are the only viable options for the long-term care of people with dementia.
Residents and the community need to work together to allow people with dementia to maintain their dignity and independence by feeling welcomed and are able to continue everyday activities in their community.
It is important to raise awareness about a programme like this at early stages, to encourage integration within the community.
Partnership working and training are necessary to build the knowledge and skills of professionals not familiar with dementia-friendly approaches to housing and care.

Evaluation

Hemsworth Court has successfully passed two government-led inspections:

The Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority inspects supported living developments at least once a year. Hemsworth Court successfully passed the last two annual inspections with no issues raised.
Supporting People is the policy and funding framework for housing support services and assesses 17 objectives within its Quality Assessment Framework. This assessment noted that care records are person-centred and the views and preferences of individuals are taken into account.

Recognition

The project has received a number of awards:

Belfast Housing and Social Care Trust Chairman’s Award 2015 Dignity in Dementia.
Dementia Services Development Centre Gold Standard Award Dementia Appropriate Environment.
Alzheimer’s Society 2015 Dementia Friendly Communities Award.
Elevator Award Dublin City University & Health Service Executive Award 2015 Community Integration and Social Sofa.
William Keown Architects Access Award 2015 Accessible Housing Environment.
Chartered Institute of Housing Awards 2015 – Finalist for Promoting Integration Award.
European Responsible Housing Awards 2016 – Finalist for Good Governance and Fair Relations with Stakeholders.
In addition the Social Sofa initiative has featured in local and national news.

Transfer

Hemsworth Court has developed a template for others to adapt if they want to deliver specialist supported housing. It can be used to provide housing which helps vulnerable people to live fuller independent lives.

The dementia friendly approach of Hemsworth Court has been transferred to the town of Holywood to the north of Belfast. This is a partnership scheme between Radius Housing and Dementia Northern Ireland. Holywood is now a dementia friendly town.

Hemsworth Court has also been visited by Australian housing professionals who are keen to adopt the model.

Funding issues are a major barrier in transferring the model in the UK. The level of grant funding that Helm Housing received is no longer available from Supporting People or the government of Northern Ireland, though as the approach to caring for people with dementia or cognitive impairment offers long term savings for health services there may be potential for investment in the approach from other sources.

Authors:

World Habitat

Düzce Hope Homes

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Düzce Hope Homes

Policies and regulations Local policies Governance Evaluation and impact

Urban Design Environments Equity

Promotion and production Public promotion Self-management Transformation and adaptation Management and maintenance

Ownership and tenure

Main objectives of the project

Formed after the community lost their homes in two devastating earthquakes, Düzce Hope Homes is the result of a 15 year rights-based struggle in Northern Turkey.

Following the earthquakes, which killed over 18,000 people and destroyed 100,000 homes in 1999, non-homeowners did not receive post-disaster support from the government. Over 140,000 people were left with nowhere to live except prefabricated emergency shelters. A co-operative was set-up to fight for the right to housing to be extended to tenant victims of the earthquakes. Through many years of mobilisation and activism, including mass demonstrations and government lobbying, they eventually secured subsidised land on which to rebuild their homes and community.

Co-operative members have been involved in the planning, design and construction from the beginning. Groundwork on the houses has begun with people expecting to move into their new homes in 2018.

This community-led approach is so unique in Turkey that it has received widespread interest, support and enthusiasm from experts and volunteers. Historically, experts (such as architects, urban planners, civil engineers, social scientists, artists and construction workers) work on developments in siloes, distant from the people who will live in the homes when built. Through this project experts, communities and volunteers have found and embraced new ways of working together more collaboratively.

Date

2017:

Stakeholders

Promotor: World Habitat

Location

Continent: Asia
City: Düzce
Country/Region: Turkey

Description

Project Description

Düzce Hope Homes is a cooperative housing programme focused on post-disaster reconstruction in the Beyköy district of the province of Düzce in Northern Turkey. But the programme is about much more than the housing itself. The achievements of the cooperative in gaining access to suitable, subsidised land and developing secure, affordable housing for some of the province’s most vulnerable families is the result of a 15 year struggle for the right to housing.

The Düzce Hope Homes programme was established by Düzce Solidarity Housing Cooperative for Homeless and Tenant Earthquake Victims, a cooperative founded by local people in 2003. Four years previously two devastating earthquakes had hit the area killing over 18,000 people and destroying over 100,000 homes and leaving over 140,000 people with nowhere to live except prefabricated emergency shelters. When their homes and community were destroyed, people joined together to create their own housing solution. Most of the reconstruction work that took place in Turkey after the 1999 earthquakes was based around homeowners – this project extends the right to housing to renters.

The Düzce Solidarity Housing Cooperative for Homeless and Tenant Earthquake Victims was formed to address the fight for the rights of those on the lowest incomes in the community. In the same year, 2003, the cooperative organised the first of a series of mass demonstrations, involving hundreds of people in collective protest on the streets demanding subsidised loans and serviced land. Initially in Düzce and later in the capital Ankara, these protests included encampments of affected families in the capital’s parks. In some cases those involved were taken into police custody. In 2004, after much lobbying and direct action the government’s Ministry of Urban Development and Housing allocated six plots of land for the housing need of low income residents. The land initially offered by the state to the cooperative in 2004 was unsuitable and it took until 2012 following further direct action and a legal challenge by the cooperative for suitable land to be handed over to the community.

The mutual aid approach[1] of the programme has meant that future residents have been involved at all stages, including actively getting involved in lobbying for their housing rights as well as in the development of plans and designs and in the construction work.

A team of professionals who volunteer their time to the programme has formed Düzce Hope Studio, a collaborative design studio in Istanbul. This group of volunteer architects, engineers, urban planners and sociologists was formed in 2014 to support Düzce Hope Homes with designing and building houses with the involvement of local residents. The participatory workshops and activities run by Düzce Hope Studio which have been a key part of the development of the programme have included specific workshops for different sections of the community including children, older people and women. Now, the work of the cooperative involves more than 300 people (four full time employees on the site, around 40 members regularly work on the site, 234 cooperative members working once a week and 50+ volunteers from Düzce Hope Studio, a collective of volunteer architects, engineers, urban planners, and sociologists).

The criteria for membership of the cooperative ensures that the housing that is developed is only available to local people on low incomes. Membership of Düzce Hope Homes cooperative is open to people who:

Have no existing ownership of property.
Are on a low income.
Live in Düzce province.
Work one day a month per household at the construction site.
Participate in the design and management of the project.
Were resident in Düzce at the time of the 1999 earthquake.The significant progress the cooperative has made to date in lobbying for rights and achieving access to land has formed the basis for the actual construction work. The groundwork of the housing units was successfully completed in October 2016, two years after paying the first instalment for the land. The site on which the housing is being built is on a hillside situated between a government built mass housing project and an industrial area including a large glass factory.

Some communal facilities, such as an organic garden, have already been completed. The development is expected to be completed by 2018 and will include 234 housing units for members, three housing units for the building concierges – for a total of one thousand people in 29 buildings. There will also be a community centre, urban gardens, a women’s cooperative kitchen and public spaces. These public spaces will benefit an additional 5,000 people in the district.

[1] Mutual aid housing cooperatives involve people working together and supporting each other to provide their own homes. The approach uses ‘sweat equity’, meaning people contribute towards the cost of building their homes with their own labour. Homes are collectively owned by members of the cooperative.

Aims and Objectives

The main aim of the work of the Düzce Hope Homes cooperative is to ensure the right to permanently affordable housing for earthquake victims, in particular for people who were tenants before the earthquakes.

Several factors contribute to this overarching aim including:

Persistent activism, campaigning and lobbying for change.
Active community participation in advocating for the right to housing for all, including some of the province’s most marginalised communities.
Participation of the community in delivering their own housing including sweat equity.
Collaboration between professionals (e.g. architects) and communities to develop housing that fits with local needs and preferences.
Ensuring permanently affordable housing for local people on low incomes.
Building more resilient and environmentally sustainable housing.
Creating strong neighbourhoods which go beyond housing.
Improved public and communal spaces for community use.

Context

Housing cooperatives began to be formed in the 1930s in Turkey and there are currently about two million people living in housing that was originally formed by a cooperative. It has been the case, however, that many of the cooperatives that were set up to develop the housing have not remained as cooperatives once the housing has been built. In addition, housing cooperatives in Turkey have had a particularly poor reputation. As stated in the 2013 report of the United Nation’s Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) “… the word ‘cooperative’ implied a specific political attitude and recalled stories of fraud and corruption, particularly when associated with housing cooperatives.”

From 1993 to 2002, there was a decrease in the development of housing cooperatives, in part due to the major economic challenges facing Turkey. The state reduced its financial support and existing housing co-operatives experienced operational deficits, the price of land rose and people’s ability to save money was also affected by rising prices.

In August 1999, a major earthquake hit the Marmara region of Turkey and this was followed by a second quake in November of the same year, the epicentre of which was the province of Düzce. Between 2001 and 2005, 57 houses were built by villagers working together and with people from outside the villages but many more families were left living in unsuitable housing. Prior to the development of Düzce Hope Homes cooperative the government support for the victims of the earthquakes was only focused on homeowners, leaving tenants without any funding or rights to housing.

Key Features

This comprehensive, community-led programme has several key features, as summarised below:

Focused on and delivering the right to housing for everyone in the community, particularly people on low incomes.
Ensuring the long-term affordability of housing.
Using the actual development and construction as a way of building collaboration and a real sense of community.
Cost savings as the cooperative has managed the process themselves, sourced materials directly from producers and due to members’ ‘sweat equity’ contributions.
A Women’s Production Cooperative is in the process of being formally registered, although production has already started. This initiative has been established to generate income and the construction of a cooperative kitchen.
There are five different designs of homes, which are customised to meet the needs of different family sizes or types. These designs are based on a participatory design process including one-to-one sessions with each family.
A central courtyard system and community spaces were designed to bring neighbours together and encourage a strong sense of community.
A proactive approach to getting support from volunteers from other countries, with international collaborations and strong partnerships set up as a result including ‘task forces’ of hands-on workers and professionals.

A number of other organisations have been involved with the project:

One Hope Association is a voluntary organisation which supports low-income urban communities with regeneration projects. They helped with advice on health and safety standards for workers and were involved in providing aid immediately after the earthquake.
The Düzce Hope Studio has provided volunteer architects, engineers, urban planners and sociologists. It was set up after an open call from the One Hope Association specifically to support the cooperative.
The local council in Beyköy was in charge of zoning approvals and planning permission.
Local Planning and Design Schools and the Centre for Spatial Justice provided technical support, volunteers and fundraising.
The Swiss Housing Cooperatives Solidarity Fund financially supports members on the lowest incomes with a ‘social safety net fund’.

What impact has it had?

The policy context in Turkey has been influenced directly by those involved in the Düzce Hope Homes cooperative development. At a national level, securing the right to land and housing for non-home owners on low incomes after natural disasters is a significant achievement of the project. Through a determined campaign of activism, at a local level the cooperative has successfully gained access to suitable, serviced land for families and are on track to complete the first mutual aid housing cooperative in Turkey.

Some of the current members of the cooperative were children when the earthquake happened in 1999. Many have joined their parents in fighting for their right to housing, leading to community action across the generations.

Düzce Hope Studio is a space for architects, urban planners, civil engineers, social scientists and artists to work together towards a social aim. They have organised and launched public events, exhibitions and publications. This has helped to introduce participatory planning and design to the wider urban planning and design community in Turkey. The Studio receives invitations from other cities in Turkey to share their experiences.

The proactive approach to collaboration taken by Düzce Hope Homes has inspired people to join and help and has attracted lots of goodwill, for example, from local construction workers and bank managers who have started volunteering for the project.

The local council is now more willing to provide affordable housing within the district and some private developers have adopted participatory practices within their work.

How is it funded?

The estimated cost of the project is 18 million Turkish Lira (US$5,064,431) for 31,000 square metres of construction. These costs include:

Land payments to the Mass Housing Authority – 2.3 million Turkish Lira (US$647,122) of which 460,000 Turkish Lira (US$129,424) has already been paid.
Groundwork – around 3 million Turkish Lira (US$844,072) has already been spent.
Rough and detail construction – around 11 million Turkish Lira (US$3,094,930).

The expected costs of construction for the next two years are 15 million Turkish Lira (US$4,155,355) which will be paid from cooperative membership fees and bank loans. As interest rates on bank loans are very high in Turkey, the cooperative is seeking alternatives, including funds or loans from international development agencies. The expected costs of the project after the construction will be mainly on the maintenance and management of the site.

Once the construction is finished, an average unit cost (76,000 Turkish Lira) (US$21,053) will be lower than the cost of the cheapest two bedroom flat at the neighbouring government mass housing project (110,000 Turkish Lira) (US$30,472). The average cost to residents of renting a housing unit is approximately 600 Turkish Lira (US$168.81) per square metre. This is half of the current market rate in this area.

As the project is not yet complete, the annual running costs are not yet clear. However, these will include rubbish collection, cleaning, maintenance, electricity for public spaces and managing the community centre. Community facilities will generate income through the Women’s Production Cooperative, an organic food market, a repair shop and a children’s nursery. Some of this income will go towards the site management fund for annual running costs.

Why is it innovative?

The quality of housing available to people in Turkey is generally determined by income. Victims of the 1999 earthquakes started this programme, which is the first tenants’ movement for low-income people fighting for their right to adequate housing. This is the first mass housing project in the country to be planned and designed by its residents. Their housing needs have been identified by the cooperative members themselves.

A participatory approach to delivering affordable housing has never previously been on the national agenda. This mutual aid, hands-on approach to cooperative housing is much more common in other parts of the world, particularly Latin America. This cooperative signifies a first not only for the post-disaster context in Turkey but in fact mutual aid has not been adopted in any previous housing development in the country. The approach goes beyond housing as shelter by encouraging strong neighbourhoods and a sense of community.

The truly cooperative approach taken at all stages of the development of the programme means that it is much more likely to survive as a cooperative once the houses are lived in, unlike the majority of the existing housing cooperatives in Turkey. Longer term affordability of the housing for low income families is therefore much more likely to be assured than in other schemes.

Innovative cost-cutting measures have been developed, which have lowered the cost of the first construction phase. Workshops are held for members, the technical team and construction workers. These bring everyone together to decide on materials and techniques to be used. Materials are purchased directly from producers. This has helped to make the homes affordable to those on the lowest incomes. To keep the homes affordable long-term, members are not allowed to sell to third parties without approval from the cooperative.

What is the environmental impact?

Nineteen different materials for the exterior walls of the houses were studied by experts at Düzce Hope Studio. Based on this study, five options were presented to the cooperative and the most energy efficient option, aerated concrete, was chosen. This is light, porous and naturally improves heat insulation. Where possible, building materials have been sourced locally. Soil needed for ground level construction was sourced directly from a landfill site next door, reducing the need for transport. Sustainable local wood has been used for building the community centre.

Cooperative members have learned about producing compost from organic waste and recycling. The compost created by waste from the community kitchen is used at the community garden. They are looking into ways to use solar panels for heating and electricity at the community centre and also in the housing units when completed.

Is it financially sustainable?

Any expected costs for the future will be mainly for the maintenance and management of the buildings and gardens. These costs will be met by residents’ monthly membership fees and income generated by the cooperative. There are plans to build a community oven, which will be used to make and sell bread. Any profits on the sale of bread and money generated by the women’s cooperative kitchen will be help to bring income into the cooperative.

The project itself is not reliant on any future funding streams. However, the speed of the remaining construction works will be affected by the availability of future funds. This may delay the completion date. The funds and labour contributed by the cooperative are secure.

Membership fees for the cooperative will be increased once residents move into their new home to incorporate their monthly rent. This means that residents don’t pay rent for properties in the cooperative at the same time as construction costs.

Members on the lowest incomes are helped to pay their contributions with assistance from a fund set up by the Swiss Housing Cooperatives Solidarity Fund.

Employment is created both during and after construction. All employment will be kept within the cooperative, helping to strengthen the financial position of its members by providing jobs and incomes.

What is the social impact?

The strong sense of involvement and collaboration between local people has really strengthened the sense of community and has also strengthened the social ties which will be so beneficial once everyone is living in the new housing.

The project has reduced social inequalities by providing extra support to some of the most disadvantaged people in the community. This includes a ‘social safety net fund’ for financial assistance (in the form of a relief fund to help pay the rent of members if they lose their job), employment opportunities and the Women’s Production Cooperative Initiative. This promotes gender equality by supporting women to get involved in income generating activities. Women-headed households represent almost half of the total number of households (106 families).

By improving the local infrastructure and public spaces, Düzce Hope Homes cooperative promotes the integration of cooperative members within the wider community. It also improves the whole area for neighbouring households. Düzce Hope Studio has helped the local council to redesign a public community hall and the courtyard of a local mosque.

The completion of the multi-purpose community centre creates opportunities for members to develop their skills through the classes which are held there. An active and healthy lifestyle is encouraged. There is an urban agriculture initiative on-site to produce local healthy food for members.

The community centre will hold an ‘Open Institute Programme’ for the wider community. The aim of this programme is to raise awareness of earthquakes and encourage families to be prepared, advocate for the right to housing, promote participatory housing and demonstrate that housing is more than just shelter.

Local people and the members of the cooperative in particular have gained more confidence in addressing the government and public sector organisations in order to achieve their objectives and establish their rights.

Barriers

Before this programme started there was a perception within society and the local authorities that tenants did not have the right to decent housing. This attitude also had an influence on the cooperative members themselves and initially it was a challenge to change the members’ perception. Previous housing cooperatives in Turkey were not viewed as inclusive or democratic and experts from different disciplines were not included in the development process.

In Turkey housing is often considered to be an investment rather than a human right and this programme has taken an entirely different view. These barriers were overcome by empowering tenants to create a movement fighting for their right to housing. It was important for people to learn about the existing legal framework so they could challenge the authorities.

Some of the professionals working with the residents were not used to working directly with communities, particularly when they were so actively involved in the decision-making. This caused some issues initially but as this was such an important, strong feature of the programme, the professionals soon became familiar with how to adapt their approach to accommodate community involvement.

Lessons Learned

People must be persistent and insist on their right to safe, secure housing.
It is important to understand and use legal rights to overcome barriers.
Negative perceptions of cooperative housing can be overcome by developing a positive, community-led example.

Evaluation

The project has been evaluated by local government and construction inspection companies, as required by law. The finances of the cooperative have also been audited. Members of the cooperative and volunteers from Düzce Hope Studio evaluate the overall success of the project on an ongoing basis. So far, the results have been positive. They look at different aspects including:

Changing perceptions on the right to housing.
Active participation of members.
Including different groups in the community, such as women, older people and young people.
Affordability for the lowest income families.
Transferring knowledge and skills from experts to members of the cooperative.
Environmental and social sustainability.

Recognition

The project has been featured in local and national newspapers, online journals and on television. Several university research projects have focused on the work of Düzce Hope Homes and since the construction site is open to visitors, they regularly host people from Turkey and overseas. The Neighbourhood Union, Volunteers for the Society, Chamber of Architects, Lawyers for Environment and Urban Justice, students and academics from several universities are among those who have visited.

Transfer

The legal framework of the cooperative can be replicated in other neighbourhoods and within other housing cooperatives in Turkey. The participatory approach to planning and design can be used more widely, including state-wide housing projects. The cost-cutting measures used by the cooperative can be replicated by other low-income housing projects.

The entire Düzce Hope Homes model can be transferred to other tenant groups in Turkey. This includes creating a democratic housing cooperative which is self-financed, demanding subsidised public land for building on and having the full participation of residents. The ‘open site’ approach of the construction site has enabled the cooperative to share what they are doing with people and organisations from within and outside Turkey.

The ‘Open Institute Programme’ will teach the wider community about the risks of earthquakes and advocate for the right to housing. It will aim to transfer the knowledge and skills gained by the cooperative to others locally.

Düzce Hope Homes is also affiliated with the Neighbourhood Union of Turkey, a network of 50 informal groups from neighbourhoods facing urban regeneration. The cooperative has been active in sharing their experiences through this network.

The project organised the HOPE Exhibition at Studio X (Istanbul) in 2016 to share their experiences at a national level. In 2015, they took part in the Antalya International Architectural Biennale. Members of the cooperative have started a documentary film project and an online video platform. This has over four hundred videos about Düzce Hope Homes. They have also taken part in conferences at a number of universities including Harvard, University College London and American University of Beirut.

Authors:

World Habitat

Empowering marginalised women through home ownership

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Empowering marginalised women through home ownership

Mismatches Vulnerable groups Gender

Policies and regulations National policies

Urban Design Inclusion Equity Participatory processes

Promotion and production Public promotion Self-promotion

Main objectives of the project

Women with disabilities and from disadvantaged social groups in rural Andhra Pradesh, India are now claiming their right to land and housing with access to self-help groups, technical support and building grants.

This project works with vulnerable and marginalised women from some of the poorest communities in India. These women are supported to gain the deeds to land and housing in their names, so they can escape poverty and raise their social status.

Once they formally own the land people take part in building their own homes. They are also encouraged to take more of an active role in their community, as every village sets up a committee to oversee the building work taking place there. At least half of all committee members must be female, encouraging gender equality and social inclusion. Since the programme began in 1996 land and homes have been provided for over 60,000 households.

Date

2017:

Stakeholders

Promotor: World Habitat

Location

Country/Region: India

Description

Project Description

The programme helps people from low-income communities become homeowners in the district of Anantapur and surrounding areas in the state of Andhra Pradesh. The main groups supported by the programme are members of the Dalit castes (this term refers to the lowest castes in the traditional Indian caste system), scheduled castes and tribes (these are castes and tribes officially designated as disadvantaged by the Indian government) and people with disabilities in these communities. Rural Development Trust is particularly focused on supporting and empowering women.

It does this through providing women with a part self-build programme to help them build their own house. It helps them with formalising ownership of the land, and provides specialist skills such as masonry and carpentry. Women and their families are expected to contribute about 150 days labour to the building work on their own houses as well as communal buildings such as schools and community centres. The philosophy of the programme is that becoming a homeowner improves women’s social status and helps them out of poverty. The project ensures that the benefit is long term. Homes cannot be mortgaged or sold for a minimum period of 25 years after construction.

The project currently operates in 3,589 villages. By March 2015, 61,895 houses had been built including 2,661 for people with disabilities. From 2015-2016, there were 5,303 houses built in total. This included 82 for people with disabilities, 400 in collaboration with the government, and 2,496 for people of the Chenchu tribe of the Srilailam area. This is an indigenous group, considered a scheduled tribe, living in dense forest areas. To date, approximately 380,000 family members have benefited. The programme is ongoing and expanding.

Aims and Objectives

The Community Habitat Programme sits within the wider mission of the organisation, which is about building the capacity of disadvantaged communities through holistic development. It is part of a range of programmes designed to support this mission which include education (the provision of schools catering for special educational needs and activities to support culture and sport); health and affordable healthcare via the provision of hospitals; self-help groups including training and savings groups; targeted working with tribes; and ecology initiatives to support farmers (including water harvesting and introducing alternative energy).

The Rural Development Trust recognises housing is central to ensuring a better quality of life. The main aim of the Community Habitat Programme is to provide permanent housing for marginalised people living in poverty in rural India. They aim to improve people’s living conditions by:

Improving access to education, healthcare and other facilities through better infrastructure.
Empowering women by supporting them to own their home.
Promoting equality of marginalised groups by providing access to secure housing.
Improving resilience to natural disasters.
Ensuring families have easy access to water to improve sanitation and hygiene.

Context

The Indian population is still predominately rural. According to the World Bank 67% of the population lived in rural areas in 2016. According to the National Family Health Survey, concluded by the Indian government, only 19% of the rural population lives in pucca (strong) houses, while the remaining live in kaccha (weak) and semi-pucca houses with mud walls and thatched roofs. Eighty-seven per cent of homes in the villages do not have toilet facilities. Cooking is usually done inside the house under inadequate ventilation with biomass such as dried cow-dung, fire wood, dry weeds or crop residue

According to the 2011 census, about 45% of people in the state of Andhra Pradesh live in one room houses. Sixty-three per cent of these homes house families of four or more. There are massive fluctuations in the cost of construction materials and they are not always available. This means that low-income people cannot afford the cost of a home and depend on government housing. Distances to rural areas and poor roads mean that information, funds and materials are not always easily available. This means that villagers are left vulnerable and unable to access government schemes they are eligible for. Rural Development Trust acts as an intermediary by bringing all stakeholders together to ensure that rural communities are in a position to get the support they need.

According to RDT, Anantapur district has long been a difficult place to live in. It is a land-locked district with patchy rainfall and an arid landscape. Large farm-holders have long enjoyed a feudal hold over lower-caste tenant farmers. Bonded labour is common (this is a form of slavery created by indebtedness repaid by labour or services).

Key Features

The programme is part of a vast range of activities to help people living in poverty in rural areas who are disadvantaged. Women in particular are empowered and supported to become the owners of a plot of land. Rural Development Trust then helps them build a house on that plot. To be eligible for housing families must be permanent residents of the village, not have a permanent home, and already own a plot of land (or have an ownership right that can be formalised) and be involved in community groups. People who are not currently living in government owned housing are prioritised.

Not all of the households the programme helps are existing landowners. If there are government programmes that allocate plots to people, the programme helps them through this process. For example, they supported households in accessing land through the Indira Awaas Yogana programme by the Ministry of Rural Development. If land has not been allocated, the Rural Development Trust supports and encourages collective action through self-help groups, helping marginalised women to assert their right to housing.

For those families that already own land the programme helps women with the formalities of amending the deeds into the women’s name.

The houses consist of two rooms and a veranda. They are designed to be functional, structurally safe and fit for purpose. All have an electricity supply, and are designed to be well ventilated. For water, Rural Development Trust constructs wells in villages which don’t already have them or where they are not working. Homes in flood prone areas are built on a plinth so that they are at less risk of being flooded.

People with disabilities are a priority for housing as they are considered the most vulnerable amongst all communities. Homes are designed specifically to meet their needs. A ramp with a bathroom and toilet is provided due to limited mobility for fetching water. A village must have a Vikalangula Sangham (a collective group for people with disabilities) to be able to qualify for disability-specific housing. The Sangham nominates people who are eligible for the programme.

Rural Development Trust staff members are responsible for ensuring the success of the project. They make sure that families take part in building work to understand the value of their home and create a sense of ownership. They teach the community that providing homes in a village is part of a wider commitment to improve living standards for vulnerable groups. They also encourage women to join Sanghams (collectives) to become more integrated in the community.

After people have been selected to be part of the programme, they are divided into sub-groups of five to ten families. This speeds up the construction process as people can help each other, and also creates a healthy competition between groups. The work carried out by families includes clearing sites and digging foundations. They are also included in selecting masons and choosing locally available materials such as metal, stone and wood. Costs are finalised with Rural Development Trust staff to ensure financial transparency and accountability.

Where ever possible, construction work is carried out in partnership with government. Government agencies provide infrastructure such as water, electricity and road improvements to coincide with construction of new houses built by the Rural Development Trust.

What impact has it had?

Overall the programme has provided 67,189 people from poor rural communities with permanent shelter. It has also leveraged the opportunities provided by the Swachh Bharat Mission [1] to build 6,116 individual household latrines. This work will continue and enable Rural Development Trust to provide a further 40,000 bathrooms with toilets.

In total, Rural Development Trust have built 2,661 homes built for people with disabilities. Since 2006, seven projects have been undertaken to help communities being displaced or affected because of dam or road construction. These projects include ensuring the communities are properly connected to infrastructure and services like power and water.

In their 2015-16 annual report for the Habitat Programme the Trust reported 5,303 homes were built:

4,821 houses for women in disadvantaged rural communities, including 2,496 for the Chenchu tribal of the Srilailam area.
82 houses for people with disabilities.
400 houses by drawing funding from government programmes.

The work of the Rural Development Trust has generated substantial broader impacts to help many marginalised and disadvantaged groups out of poverty[2].

[1] The Swachh Bharat mission was launched by the Government of India in October 2014. The objectives of Swachh Bharat are to clean the streets, roads and infrastructure of the country’s cities and towns, and to reduce or eliminate open defecation through the construction of individual, cluster and community toilets. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swachh_Bharat_Abhiyan)

[2] See examples of success stories on the website, http://rdtfvf.org/freedom-us-people/ (how RDT helped members of the Amaragiri chenchu tribe escape bonded labour), http://rdtfvf.org/from-poverty-to-progress/ (how RDT supported a young boy from a poor rural household to qualify as a doctor)

How is it funded?

Rural Development Trust is a charitable foundation that sources most of its income from individual and corporate donations. It sources a large proportion of its fundraising from Spain where the organisation is known as Fundación Vicente Ferrer. There is also a fundraising team based in India to raise money from individuals, public and private organisations. The organisation has a highly effective fundraising operation raising over US$39,000,000 in 2015-16 from grants & donations: 119,923,419 rupees (US$1,858,064) in donations and 2,406,480,420 Rupees (US$37,285,430) in grants.

The organisation decides how many houses it will build each year as part of its annual business planning process. A budget is allocated from the central funds of the organisation to pay for it. Where possible the Trust also builds homes through government housing programmes, coordinating with the relevant departments.

On average, Rural Development Trust constructs 4,000 houses per year using a combination of its own funding and government funding (either attached to programmes guaranteeing access to land, or programmes benefitting scheduled castes or tribes) In 2015-16, 5,303 houses were built with a budget of around 500,000,000 rupees (US$7,723,800) (which is the approximate spending on the programme per year). The average cost of building is 160,000 rupees (US$2,472) per house, including materials and labour, although there are big fluctuations. The labour contributed by residents saves around 30-35% of this cost – therefore the actual costs are of around 105,000 rupees (US$1,630). The community is also directly involved in bargaining and purchasing of materials for building. All financial costs are met by Rural Development Trust and will continue to be in the future.

Why is it innovative?

By campaigning for women’s ownership of land and homes, their work helps empower women in marginalised communities. As well as increasing their social standing in the community, it provides women with a permanent asset and secure home. Every Community Development Committee (CDC), a group of villagers who supervise the housing programme, must have a minimum of 50% female members. This means it is a requirement to have at least an equal number of female voices in charge of local projects.

The Housing Construction Committee is made up of housing representatives and members of CDCs. Its role is to ensure the project is being carried out effectively. To enable them to do this, they receive various forms of training. For example, they are taught about technical specifications and housing design, quality, pricing and storing of construction materials, project cycle management, etc. The approach is designed to be delivered directly to beneficiaries without the need for middlemen. A number of staff members are involved at many different levels. For example, there is a national technical director, directors and engineers at a regional level, team leaders, engineers, accountants and community organisers at a local level. There is a central office which provides overall coordination and support.

During construction there may be a saving on the cost of a specific material due to collective bargaining power. This means the actual expenditure would be less than estimated. This saving can then be put towards the purchase of another item, which may have increased in cost due to massive fluctuations in prices. If there is in fact an overall saving on the estimated cost of the homes, this is reinvested back into the community as a whole.

What is the environmental impact?

When building houses, Rural Development Trust considers the risk of flooding, and the risk of contamination of the local water supply. Water is important both during construction and for the proper maintenance of bathrooms and toilets. An objective of the programme is to end open defecation. In order to achieve this toilets are constructed. The Trust also provides education programmes to support the health of the communities and raise awareness. Ways to reduce water usage have been introduced. These include modern irrigation systems and collecting rainwater.

Locally available materials such as stone and sand are used for building. These have low embodied energy because of shorter transport costs and lower levels of manufacturing. Earth bricks were used previously but these had to be fired and are now no longer used. Now cement bricks are used to avoid this. Residents are encouraged to get solar lamps to generate power. In areas with no electricity these are provided by Rural Development Trust.

Rural Development Trust has built 2,845 homes in areas affected by natural disasters. In these areas, homes are elevated 45cm above the ground to protect against flash floods and from heavy rain in the monsoon season. It also protects homes from snakes and scorpions.

Is it financially sustainable?

Rural Development Trust is a charitable foundation that sources most of its income from individual and corporate donations. It sources a large proportion of its fundraising from Spain where the organisation is known as Fundación Vicente Ferrer. The organisation has a highly effective fundraising operation raising over US$39,000,000 in 2015-16 from grants and donations.

The organisation decides how many houses it will build each year as part of its annual business planning process. A budget is allocated from the central funds of the organisation to pay for it.

Once the houses are built, the model is highly sustainable for the residents. There are no rent or mortgage costs once the home is completed. Some residents have developed skills through the building work, and have become skilled masons through practice. They are now able to make a living from masonry work.

What is the social impact?

Each village has a Community Development Committee (CDC), which is made up of representatives from the village. Each CDC must have a minimum of 50% female members. These groups are involved in selecting families eligible for the housing programme. They help in choosing construction materials and negotiate their cost. They ensure that families take part in the building work, monitor day-to-day progress of construction and resolve any problems. They also regularly update village registers to ensure financial transparency. This means that the CDC is mutually responsible for the success of the housing programme, along with staff.

Structural changes such as these have contributed to better hygiene amongst the wider community

People are encouraged to be involved in the project to create a strong community. It is more likely that people will maintain their community facilities if they feel a strong sense of ownership and pride in the work that has been done.

Barriers

Barriers to delivering homes in rural communities can include:

Scarcity of construction materials and high fluctuations costs of materials.
Scarcity of skilled workers.Government Policies e.g. in initiatives such as the Indira Awaas Yogana programme, the government pays a small amount of around rupees 40,000 (US$620) after deducting applicable taxes to the beneficiary with the assumption that this is enough to build a house. Nonetheless, given the current market prices, this is largely insufficient (accounts for only about 25% of costs).

Barriers have been overcome by:

Encouraging labourers to get employment through the National Employment Guarantee Scheme. The scheme aims to enhance job security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of paid employment per year to households whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.
Creating a revolving fund to support women to help them generate income and compensate for the financial shortcomings of government programmes

Lessons Learned

The programme has found that house construction alone is insufficient to build the resilience of the community. It has increased its focus on “inclusive growth” in villages which involves construction of more community buildings such as schools, libraries, and school grounds for sports.
The programme has changed its approach to bathrooms and toilets in order to overcome open defecation. Previously shared toilets were used, but now houses incorporate their own toilet and bathroom.
Traditional toilets proved impractical in areas facing severe water shortages. Rural Development Trust has begun installing dry toilets (a toilet which does not use water to flush but treats waste through composting).
Involving residents in construction creates a feeling of ownership and pride.

Evaluation

The Rural Development Trust has an independent Monitoring and Evaluation arm (M&E) which carries out evaluations and impact assessments. Nonetheless, funders also occasionally demand an independent audit of the project.

Evaluation of the project has shown:

Housing has enhanced the social status of marginalised communities.
Technical expertise has ensured quality housing.
A women-centred approach has encouraged women to be involved.
There is a feeling of ownership amongst residents.
Awareness of sanitation and hygiene has led to proper maintenance of bathrooms and toilets.
Water is a key issue in housing and problems with water should be addressed.
Housing is a major factor in empowering rural communities.
The specific needs of disabled people were addressed in the building design which has provided great improvements in daily living.

Recognition

Rural Development Trust has received numerous awards for its housing programme, as well as for its integrated approach to development. Many of the awards cover the wider work of the organisation. Some examples of recognition of this programme are:

Member of the Government of Andhra Pradesh – NGO Coordinating Committee for Rural and Urban Development.
‘Population Control Board’ Award by the State of Andhra Pradesh for the quality work done in Rural Development Trust hospitals.
Member of the Commission for the Eradication of Poverty, Government of Andhra Pradesh.

Transfer

Rural Development Trust has significantly scaled up the programme from its early beginnings. Its output is increasing each year. The programme has already reached over 3,500 villages in two states of India. They are working to expand their coverage further.

Although there is no direct transfer to other organisations, the programme would like to create a network with other research organisations or non-governmental organisations working on similar housing projects. It would like to share its experience of cost-effective housing with others.

Authors:

World Habitat

From Disaster to Dignity

0

From Disaster to Dignity

Mismatches Services Cultural suitability Vulnerable groups

Policies and regulations Local policies

Financing Public funding

Urban Design Inclusion Segregation Participatory processes

Promotion and production Participatory processes Progressive housing Transformation and adaptation

Main objectives of the project

This savings and credit cooperative set up, run by and for women in rural El Salvador focuses on repairing, rebuilding and improving communities following years of civil unrest and two successive earthquakes.

Through the cooperative, families can access much needed credit and funds for improving homes and one-to-one training to help them manage their finances. By actively empowering women this project helps to create more gender equality in a traditionally male dominated society.

As well as housing, the women have set up a business making environmentally sustainable building materials and they also run a water treatment plant. The training and employment opportunities they offer to local young people are helping them to remain in their community rather than migrating to urban areas.

Date

2016:

Stakeholders

Promotor: World Habitat

Location

Continent: South America
City: Tejutepeque
Country/Region: El Salvador

Description

Project Description

In 1998, a group of 110 women started ACAMS (Asociación Cooperativa de Ahorro y Crédito Mujeres Solidarias, The Women’s Solidarity Savings and Loans Cooperative). Run by and for women, the cooperative began in the rural town of Tejutepeque in El Salvador. Set up to respond to a succession of problems affecting the community – like poverty, armed conflict and earthquakes – it now has 711 members across three municipalities. Two earthquakes badly affected the region in 2001 and a lack of intervention from the Government led ACAMS to focus their activities on rebuilding homes and strengthening communities.

ACAMS has extended its work beyond Tejutepeque to the neighbouring towns of Cinquera and Jutiapa. The membership of the cooperative is made up of about 10% of the female population of these three towns, which collectively have a total population of about 13,000 people. Many of the women who are members are actively involved the discussions and decision making, which are such an important part of the cooperative.

To achieve their objective of strengthening the community, The Women’s Solidarity Savings and Loans Cooperative:

Provides credit and raises funds through subsidies for building and improving homes.
Provides training for local people including residents and builders in safe and environmentally-sustainable building techniques.
Produces locally-sourced, environmentally-sustainable building materials.
Provides training for women in household finances, savings and microenterprise management.
Sets up community facilities such as training centres and nursing homes for older residents.

Since 2011, ACAMS has given out 2,406 loans to local residents. These loans enable local families on low incomes to build or restore their own homes and also support income-generating activities such as agriculture or small businesses.

The work of The Women’s Solidarity Savings and Loans Cooperative receives support from community organisations and EcoSur (a network of organisations concerned with sharing good practice on housing and habitat in the Global South). Financial support is provided by Solidar Suiza, a Swiss non-governmental organisation, and DESWOS, a German non-profit organisation. Although some projects are dependent on external funding, through the use of revolving loans the organisation is able to support the majority of its own core costs. Many families already own a plot to build on. But when this is not the case, the local government of Tejutepeque guarantees access to land by transferring public land to low income households for housing. This transfer happens in progressive stages, with families securing full ownership once they have completed the loan repayment to the cooperative. The local authority also provides financial support for the wider community projects being carried out by the cooperative, via subsidies, for facilities such as the nursing home for older residents.

Aims and Objectives

The main aims of The Women’s Solidarity Savings and Loans Cooperative are to:

Improve the quality of life for their members and the wider community, especially those who are in poverty.
Support low-income families into decent housing through education and access to credit.
Increase the number of homes by building and restoring using environmentally friendly, affordable materials.
Turn around an area which has suffered from natural disasters and civil war.

Specific objectives include:

Involve families in improving their homes and communities.
Train builders to construct safe, secure housing.
Offer loans with lower interest than market rates to create a sustainable mortgage system.
Provide financial education and planning as a condition of obtaining credit.
Produce environmentally-sustainable, affordable and practical building materials.
Encourage gender equality through supporting empowerment of women in a remote area with few alternative opportunities.

Long term aims include:

To extend the cooperative’s membership and services across El Salvador. Still women-led and focused on transparency and democracy and keeping the headquarters in Tejutepeque.
To become a leading organisation in construction and finance in El Salvador.

Context

In 1998, after the peace agreements that ended the 12-year civil war in El Salvador, 110 women in the rural town of Tejutepeque decided to start a savings and loans cooperative. ACAMS (The Women’s Solidarity Savings and Loans Cooperative) was set up with little external support, to recognise and respond to the needs of local women. Cooperatives run by women for women are rare in Latin America – although inclusive in principal of gender equality, they tend to be dominated by men in practice.

In 2001, when they were halfway through the process of formally becoming a cooperative, El Salvador was hit by two strong earthquakes. A large number of the (roughly) 1,700 homes in Tejutepeque were destroyed or damaged. Without a sufficiently coherent housing policy from the national government, many families had to adopt short-term measures for shelter. These were temporary structures using unsuitable materials, often built by people with little training. Much of the population still lives in homes that are inadequate for their needs. More than half are in poor condition, or too small for the size of the families who live in them.

The Women’s Solidarity Savings and Loans Cooperative led the relief efforts after the earthquakes and saw the need to do something about the condition of homes in the area.

To try to improve the situation for their community, ACAMS (the women’s cooperative) support the construction and renovation of safer, more secure housing, and involve the residents themselves in building their own homes. Some households are exempt from construction if they lack the capacity to carry this out – for example, in the case of elderly people without family, or widows with young children. In this case, either the project or the municipality cover the labour needs. They set up a local factory to produce construction materials with the help of Solidar Suiza (a Swiss non-governmental organisation) and the EcoSur network. Their work has developed more widely to support the recovery of their neighbourhoods and communities.

Key Features

ACAMS has achieved impressive growth. Started by a group of 110 women it has now attracted 711 members, 10% of the female population of Tejutepeque and its neighbouring towns of Jutiapa and Cinquera.

The Women’s Solidarity Cooperative focuses on savings, educating families in personal finance, providing people with mortgages for housing, and loans which are used for businesses, livestock, agriculture and agroforestry. ACAMS is run by women, who are often excluded from positions of power and decision-making in El Salvador. The all-female board of directors plans and manages projects with support from EcoSur on specific aspects of construction. The board of directors discusses and identifies activities which will benefit their communities, and ensures the views of both women and men are taken into account. This process has led to new projects like the construction and management of a nursing home, community centre and training centre.

Housing is constructed by young people who have taken part in a formal training scheme. This programme includes practical training, lasts 18 months, and closes with examinations and receiving a diploma. The youths are trained in groups of ten (so far only men have participated). Most of them come from families that have benefitted from the housing programme.

These young apprentices are in charge of carrying out the skilled tasks in housing construction, under the supervision of an instructor. The individual cooperative members benefiting from the housing programme will join in the construction process through sweat equity. They do this with the support of at least one helper to support them in the process (family member or paid labourer).

EcoSur provides advice and support through knowledge exchange with its partner Sofonias Nicaragua. In particular they help to monitor the construction projects and provide technical assistance from architects and engineers.

What impact has it had?

The Women’s Solidarity Savings and Loans Cooperative (ACAMS) has helped to educate and inspire women across the area to take decisions, support their families and make a difference in their communities.

Since 2006, ACAMS members have built 214 homes and provided more than 630 families with access to credit to carry out repairs. A further 60 homes are currently under construction, and it is hoped more funding will be secured in 2019. New families have started to come to ACAMS with their own finances, to ask for support with the design and construction of their homes.

ACAMS plays an important role in developing communities as well as improving housing. There are several active groups that support the wider community in areas like learning in the community, gender equality, household finances and health. The community in Tejutepeque recognised the need to provide better support for elderly people, which had for example had been asking for a nursing home for several years. This was finally built with the support of local government. The participation of women has helped recognise and tackle issues that affect women in particular, such as ensuring privacy in bathrooms.

By providing credit and encouraging saving, the cooperative reaches the poorest families using subsidies from foreign aid. One-to-one support is given to families to help them avoid entering into unmanageable debt agreements with other credit suppliers. They are also supported to understand the risks of borrowing and how to budget based on their income and expenditure, taking a proactive, preventative approach to managing debt.

How is it funded?

The Women’s Solidarity Savings and Loans Cooperative (ACAMS) provides savings and credit services and its lending activities are supervised by the state. The ACAMS mortgage fund is financed through the interest it charges on its loans. The cooperative’s other activities (training and community support) are funded separately. DESWOS funding contributes around 15% (around €23,000 (US$25,991) a year to core costs, including staff.

A factory which produces environmentally-sustainable building materials and a water treatment facility set up to serve the community also generate an income. These two enterprises have helped to fund community projects like the community centre, nursing home and training school. The income also helps ACAMS’s wider activities, like promoting environmentally-sustainable activities.

Solidar Suiza:
- Initial US$2,400 to legally register as a cooperative.
- US$20,000 for the production of materials.
DESWOS (Deutsche Entwicklungshilfe für soziales Wohnungs- und Siedlungswesen, German Development Aid for Social Housing and Housing):
- €1.5 million euros (US$1,675,125) for the construction of 186 homes (since 2007).
- €100,000 (US$111,675) for the construction of the community centre and nursing home.
Stadt Zürich: €100,000 (US$111,675) for the renovation of 80 homes.
DESWOS and local government: €60,000 (US$67,005) for the construction of the training school.

The cost of ACAMS housing to families is approximately US$150 per square metre, compared to around US$200-250 at market rate. (This refers to the construction costs: materials, transport and labour).

Why is it innovative?

There are very few women’s co-operatives in Latin America, particularly in remote areas. Despite this, The Women’s Solidarity Savings and Loans Cooperative set up with little external support. They saw cooperatives as a male dominated field and encouraged other women to get involved. Their approach to restoring and strengthening their communities is based on democracy and transparency. This is particularly important in rebuilding trust in communities which were divided and traumatised by a 12-year civil war. The participatory nature of the cooperative, particularly amongst women, is innovative in a society which has little background in seeking inclusive solutions.

ACAMS researched environmentally-sustainable construction and set up a way of producing materials locally for themselves. Two of the building materials they produce (roof tiles and flooring panels) were introduced to El Salvador through their relationship with the EcoSur network.

Their savings and credit scheme has become a strong focal point of the community. It guarantees ongoing communication between members and the management team. Daily contact occurs when women deposit their savings or apply for credit. Social and educational programmes provide advice and training on personal finances and household finances.

What is the environmental impact?

The Women’s Solidarity Savings and Loans Cooperative (ACAMS) has a small factory which produces micro-concrete tiles[1] (for roofs), ferrocement panels[2] (for flooring), and concrete blocks. The tiles and panels are durable and have substantially lower embodied energy[3] than more commonly used materials. These two materials were introduced to El Salvador through the relationship of ACAMS with the EcoSur network. As they are made locally this makes the building process less harmful for the environment. Building locally means the price is lower. The products are sold to the general public.

The EcoSur network and the University of Zürich carried out a study of the ACAMS approach to producing construction materials. The study showed that their approach reduces the consumption of cement, steel and sand compared to traditional techniques.

In the countryside, adobe walls of earth and organic materials are built where the land is suitable and materials are available. All of the construction work undertaken by the community meets national government building standards, which offer good resilience to earthquakes. After homes were damaged by the earthquakes in 2001, much of the work to rebuild them was poorly carried out, affecting the trust of communities in construction methods. The work that the cooperative has done has helped to restore confidence.

The Women’s Solidarity Cooperative works with local government to raise awareness of how everyone can protect the environment. Changes to local regulations have helped lead to changes in behaviour, such as separating rubbish for recycling and not burning waste. This relationship has also led to several tree planting days and has improved the protection of replanted areas.

[1] These tiles are made out of cement and sand with low-tech equipment. They are 10 mm thick, and are placed on top of a wooden or metal-based roof structure. These tiles are very resilient to earthquakes and hurricaines (http://www.ecosur.org/index.php/ecomateriales/teja-de-microconcreto)

[2] Ferrocement or ferro-cement is reinforced mortar or plaster (lime or cement, sand and water) applied over a layer of metal mesh, woven expanded-metal or metal-fibres and closely spaced thin steel rods. It is used to construct relatively thin, hard, strong surfaces (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrocement)

[3] Embodied energy is the energy consumed by all of the processes associated with the production of a building, from the mining and processing of natural resources to manufacturing, transport and product delivery

Is it financially sustainable?

The savings and credit activities of the cooperative are financially stable as they use the interest received on mortgage payments. This is the most important activity for ACAMS, which plans to continue offering loans and advice on repairing and restoring homes to support itself in the future. Several commercial activities run by the cooperative contribute to its income, including a water treatment plant and the ACAMS factory which produces and sells building materials. These facilities employ six people.

The construction of new homes is funded entirely by DESWOS (Deutsche Entwicklungshilfe für soziales Wohnungs- und Siedlungswesen, German Development Aid for Social Housing and Housing). They are currently (in 2017) providing funding for 60 new homes in Barrio Santa Rita, and work is underway to attract funding for a similar project in Cinquera in 2019.

The training programme in house building is dependent on external finance. Due to its success so far, it has secured further funding from DESWOS. The mortgage fund is financed by repayments from the families, which amount to approximately US$50,000 per year. This allows ACAMS to fund around 15 mortgages per year independently and additional external funding has allowed more people to rebuild their homes.

The Women’s Solidarity Savings and Loans Cooperative promotes savings and supports residents to be financially responsible. Families are expected to agree a budget before they can qualify for a housing loan. Loans are partially subsidised (generally around 50%) to make them affordable, and the organisation reports very few problems with recovering loan repayments.

Training courses to support women in business and personal development are funded by ACAMS through their own income generating activities and with continued help from Solidar Suiza.

What is the social impact?

The cooperative has a strong commitment to the community and actively promotes inclusion. The committee of members includes people from all sectors of society, including the leaders of both political parties and several churches. This also led to a committee being set up to represent older people. This collaboration was an important aspect in the development of the nursing home and in ensuring it would be maintained.

ACAMS prioritise education as a means of improving lives and empowering women to be in charge of their own situation. They are expected to make financial decisions and to lead family discussions about getting involved in construction. Many of the cooperative’s loans support women to set up small businesses, so training provided on topics like economics and managing micro-enterprises complements this. The cooperative also holds classes in herbal medicine, food and nutrition, reproductive and sexual health, and health and hygiene. Through these activities cooperative members have noted a change in the confidence, pride and capacity of communities.

ACAMS provide training for young people as part of their work to rebuild and restore homes. Each training course provides eight weeks of theoretical classes (taught by an EcoSur instructor), and work experience for 18 months under the supervision of a master builder. The courses accommodate ten young people at a time. ACAMS training courses are promoted and supported by the Ministry of Education in El Salvador which built a training centre and provides materials for students.

Improving sanitation is important to the project, requiring bathrooms to be included in the design of homes. This guarantees hygiene and privacy, taking into account the differing needs of men and women. One community developed a facility which combines a toilet, shower and laundry using rainwater from the roof. This idea has been transferred to other communities working with the cooperative.

Barriers

The location of the project was an area of conflict during the civil war. In the aftermath people became accustomed to charitable donations and aid programmes. This mind-set needed to change to a culture of families improving their own living conditions through savings and credit schemes.

In a traditionally male-dominated society, women were not typically involved in decision making. The Women’s Solidarity Savings and Loans Cooperative provided inclusive education to promote equality and encourage women to take ownership of this community-based programme.

ACAMS has found that it doesn’t have enough funding to respond to the level of demand for credit. However, the cooperative embraces the ‘small is beautiful’ approach, aiming to support 30 to 40 families each year, and works to remain financially sustainable.

Lessons Learned

It is easier to solve the problems which arise when the community works together.
Creating more jobs creates opportunities for families to increase income and improve access to credit.
The training centre provides training in theory and practice. This combination of approaches has worked very well in supporting the development of skills in the community.
Women were empowered to become independent and make their own financial decisions through actively participating in income-generating activities.
Housing is just one aspect of improving ‘habitat’ and education is vital to raise awareness.
Training staff is important in making a strong and effective organisation.
Each family requires individual attention depending on their needs and the problems they face.

Evaluation

An independent auditor evaluates the project twice a year to monitor the distribution of funds. Annual visits from donors and the EcoSur network includes regular monitoring by specialists.

The Women’s Solidarity Savings and Loans Cooperative has carried out impact assessments of the cooperative and has published a study on the ‘Municipal Policy for Gender Equity’.

An in-depth evaluation is due to be conducted in 2018. This will consider the impact of the project on three levels: personal, community and national. Cooperative members will take part and an external expert will analyse and publish the results. This evaluation will be used as a learning tool for the ACAMS management team and members of the cooperative.

Recognition

There have been several visits from other EcoSur network members from Ecuador, Nicaragua, Cuba, Honduras and Germany. ACAMS have also hosted visits from European Union representatives, UN-Habitat and several donors.

The project has been featured in EcoSur’s e-magazine and DESWOS publications.

Transfer

Six different groups of women started to develop micro-concrete tiles with support from The Women’s Solidarity Savings and Loans Cooperative and EcoSur. Two of the groups have managed to establish themselves in the market. This is still a real achievement in transfer as the market for building materials is highly competitive and male-dominated.

ACAMS has provided services and support to cooperatives from other areas, including ACOTEJERA in Sonsonate; ACOVENCE in Usulután, and ACEDE in San Vicente.

The Women’s Solidarity Cooperative has presented at international events across Central America, Cuba and Ecuador. Groups of women from Cuba and Nicaragua have visited to investigate the possibility of setting up housing co-operatives based on the savings and credit scheme. The cooperative members believe the different elements of their approach can be easily transferred but the biggest challenge is having the right conditions to bring the community together.

In 2008, ACAMS organised a conference on environmentally-friendly building materials for planners from across Central America. They also regularly participate in meetings at a national level.

The cooperative organised a discussion on the theme ‘WASH’ (Water, Sanitation, Hygiene), specifically to hear the perspectives of women. An outcome from this was the development of a community facility comprising a toilet, shower and laundry. This went on to be promoted more widely by EcoSur and has been replicated in Haiti, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Cuba.

Authors:

World Habitat

Bringing light and air to homes in informal settlements

0

Bringing light and air to homes in informal settlements

Mismatches Security Functional adequacy Vulnerable groups

Policies and regulations Local policies Regulation Governance

Urban Design Quality Liveability Inclusion Equity

Promotion and production Transformation and adaptation Favelas/Slums

Main objectives of the project

Date

2017:

Stakeholders

Location

Continent: Asia
City: Ahmedabad
Country/Region: Ahmedabad, India

Description

For many poorer women living in informal settlements in India, the home is not just a place to live but also a place of work. Homes in Indian informal settlements are deep, long and arranged in rows backing onto each other. This means that there is no natural light or ventilation from three sides. Even in the middle of the day the rear part of the house remains dark and gets very hot. Most people solve this problem with electric lights and fans. However the electricity is expensive and electrical appliances generate their own heat. This problem is recognised by the Mahila Housing Trust, a non-governmental organisation which is part of the Self Employed Women’s Association; a movement which itself emerged out of the Textile Labour Association, a trade union established by Mahatma Ghandi in 1918.

The Mahila Housing Trust work to mobilise its members. The Trust supports communities to organise, working at grass-roots level and supporting dialogue to influence government policies. Their goal is to make homes and the wider living environment more suitable for women to live and work in. This includes projects to upgrade water and sanitation, build roads, develop low-income housing and improve security of land tenure. The organisation works in rural and urban areas across India, Nepal and Bangladesh focussing particularly on areas where there is little other support from government or NGOs.

“Ujasiyu”, an innovation developed by the Mahila Housing Trust to improve working conditions for self-employed women in India, is a simple dormer window that can be fitted to the roof allowing natural light and ventilation into homes in informal settlements. The window is made of fibreglass and is moulded to fit onto the shape of corrugated steel, which almost all roofs are made out of. The window itself is made of translucent plastic. This prevents glare and diffuses the light so that it illuminates the whole room rather than creating a shaft of light. The plastic is moulded into a hump with an opening at the bottom to allow air to circulate. The gap is covered with gauze to prevent insects and other animals from getting in.

Residents buy the dormer window (Ujasiyu) with the help of low cost loans which are offered by both the Mahila Housing Trust and SEWA Bank (cooperative bank that specialises in providing affordable finance to low-income self-employed women). Many families are able to pay back the loans within a year, through their earnings and the energy savings they make by having the window. Interventions were introduced in the state of Gujarat (West India) and are being implemented at various scales across the country in the states of Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Delhi and Rajasthan.

In this project the housing trust partnered with Yatin Pandya, an Indian architect who runs Footprints E.A.R.T.H – an architecture and environment consultancy company. He offered technical support in the project development. The Solar Energy and Light Company (SELCO), an Indian social enterprise working on solar power solutions also offered technical support and sector knowledge.

Ujasiyu focuses on vulnerable households where women both live and work as part of the informal economy. The women who benefit from the improvements carry out unskilled work such as embroidery and rolling bidis (a type of cigarette). Improved lighting and ventilation means that they can comfortably use the home for this work (increasing their productivity) as well as for leisure time. Children can also spend more time in the house doing schoolwork due to the increased light. Better ventilation and less smoke also helps to improve health issues such as breathing problems and asthma. Cost savings are made as less electricity is used due to increased natural light.

The project has a community-led component with households helping to implement the new products and provide feedback for future improvements. Awareness of energy efficiency and the benefits of ventilated homes has increased as beneficiaries share their experiences with the wider community. As part of the wider work of Mahila Housing Trust, Ujasiyu is promoted to residents alongside other solutions which reduce energy use, including energy efficient light fittings and cooking stoves.

So far Mahila Housing Trust and SEWA Bank have helped:

635 households to improve ventilation by installing Ujasiyu dormer windows.
18,050 households to reduce lighting costs by installing energy efficient light fittings.
2,647 households to improve cooking facilities with energy efficient cooking stoves.

Aims and Objectives

The main aim of the project is to provide natural daylight and ventilation in dark and dingy houses throughout informal settlements in urban India using community-led design.

Its objectives are to:

Ensure community conversations and voices contribute to the design of adaptations.
Design, manufacture and fit dormer windows (selected by communities as the most effective option) for lighting and ventilation.
Empower households in informal settlements to access loans that they can afford.
Educate residents in informal settlements about energy efficiency and home improvements.

A longer-term aim of the programme is to transfer the project to more communities across India so that more households can benefit from the interventions.

Context

Women make up 28% of the labour force in India[1]. Among working women, an estimated 93% are in informal employment, earning a living through their own labour or small businesses[2]. The nature of their employment makes it difficult for them to access ‘official’ state support, and financial services like credit and pensions. The Self-Employed Women’s Association was formed as a Trade Union, gaining recognition from the government in 1972. Since it began, the association has developed as a movement to improve the lives of its members through joining together to fight for things like workers protection, fair pay, and to develop solutions to improve living standards. The Self-Employed Women’s Association spread into a wide range of sister organisations to achieve its objectives[3]. These include the SEWA Bank, a cooperative bank which uses contributions from its members to offer credit to self-employed women; and the Mahila Housing Trust, founded to improve housing and living conditions for poor women in informal employment. These two organisations are lead partners in Ujasiyu on community involvement.

The need for interventions in informal settlements results from the rapid population growth experienced in cities across India. Most have struggled to keep up with this growth, and much of the population lacks access to basic infrastructure like housing, transportation and services. Nearly half the population in urban India are accommodated in informal settlements. Homes are densely packed, often very small, and built with temporary materials. A lack of natural light and air makes houses dark, dingy and stiflingly hot. This affects residents’ mental and physical health, as well as their ability to carry out day to day tasks in the home. Even in broad daylight many families are forced to use artificial lighting, and poor ventilation means fans are needed leading to high electricity bills. These issues are particularly negative for women who are more likely than men to be in the home during the day. Ujasiyu was developed in an ‘Innovation Centre for the Poor’, an initiative by Mahila Housing Trust and SEWA Bank to find simple interventions to improve the quality of life in the communities where their members live and work.

[1] International Labour Organisation, 2016

[2] Self Employed Women’s Association, http://www.sewa.org/

[3] http://www.sewa.org/Sister_Organization.asp

Key Features

Ujasiyu was developed in an Innovation Centre for the Poor, where prototype adaptations to improve lighting and ventilation were tested and selected by the community.

The dormer window was chosen as the best solution after the testing of five different prototypes which were developed with local knowledge and mounted in initial volunteer’s homes. These prototypes were as follows:

Raising the roof sheet: allowing roofing to be raised to let air into the building.
Sliding Window: Cutting the roof around 60cm and introducing a sliding window for ventilation.
Square Skylight: Introducing a square raised skylight (of 30cm in the roof)
Dormer Window: Adding a Dormer window of around 30cm to 60cm height, by cutting a small part of the roof.
Waste Plastic Bottle Insert: Cutting the roof equal to the diameter of the waste plastic bottle. On inserting the bottle, the sun light illuminates through plastic thereby lighting the interior spaces.

After the success of the Dormer window adaptation based on volunteer feedback this was chosen to be rolled out at scale. In the pilot stage, these were provided free of charge and electricity savings were monitored for three months to understand the savings.

The main motivation behind Ujasiyu is to make homes comfortable spaces where women can carry out informal home-based work more easily. For women in informal settlements this is essential so that they can support their family and gain some financial independence in the home. A more comfortable working environment is not only healthier and more comfortable it also increases productivity. Along with savings in electricity this increases people’s income. It also benefits the family more widely in that children can study in the home improving educational success.

A wider culture of energy savings and home improvement has been developed through the work of the project to engage with the local community in discussions about the possibility of improving homes and participating directly.

The project is a collaboration between:

Mahila Housing Trust – Initial partner in setting up the project (with SEWA Bank). Worked with communities to develop dormer window product. Also provides some small loans.
Footprints E.A.R.T.H – Architect Yatin Pandya provided free technical assistance to the project
SEWA Bank – The bank provided loans to beneficiary households who wanted the installations
The Solar Energy and Light Company (SELCO) – Completed energy surveys to find out energy savings made as a result of the interventions and provided sector knowledge

What impact has it had?

Firstly, the project ensures that families live in healthier homes with access to natural light and air, improving both physical and mental health. In addition to healthier homes it has enabled families to save between 30-50% on their energy bills through having to use lights less often in daytime hours. These cost savings allow families to spend money on other needs such as education, as well as to accumulate savings and pensions. The new healthier homes have allowed many women who work from home to improve the effectiveness of their businesses and increase their income. The adaptations have also created better study environments for children in the home. Ujasiyu also has a positive environmental impact in the use of less energy.

Ujasiyu as a product is still developing and adapting. The dormer window is currently installed in 635 homes and work is underway to address the challenges of differences between building types. The wider work of the Mahila Housing Trust to promote energy saving has enabled over 17,000 households across informal settlements in seven states to benefit from one or more interventions (the total number of installations stands at 21,332). With a range of options and affordable credit, households can choose to install a single intervention even if they cannot afford to have all three (cooking, lighting and ventilation) at the same time. Currently about 20 per cent of families have been able to benefit from more than one installation. The project is working on reducing the costs of Ujasiyu further so that the product can be accessed by an even greater number of households.

Although the project has not directly impacted any policy changes it has changed the attitudes of residents enabling them to take ownership of their right to a comfortable home. It has also increased community awareness and education on energy saving and the use of simple interventions to create healthier homes.

How is it funded?

Initial set up costs were covered by international donor funding. Mahila Housing Trust worked with SEWA Bank to develop relationships with beneficiaries. This included setting up the ‘Innovation Centre for the poor’ where the project was planned and social surveys were carried out to understand people’s needs. Some fundraising was done to increase the funds available for start-up. In addition, initial design and technical support were offered for free by the architect Yatin Pandya through his practice, Footprints E.A.R.T.H. Once a family becomes involved in the project it is up to them to fund the housing improvements. They can do this through taking out loans from the SEWA Bank. The ventilation units cost each family 5,000 Rupees (approximately US$80). Instalments and interest are kept affordable in line with the bank’s cooperative principles.

The fact that improvements ensure 30-50% savings in electricity bills per month means that families can make savings into the cooperative bank and pay off loans quickly, often within a year. The ventilation units are produced locally to minimise costs. They are now sold under a private company called MHT Awaas SEWA Private Limited which was registered by the Mahila Housing Trust in 2013.

Why is it innovative?

The project is innovative in three ways: the product itself, the way in which it was developed and the focus on women.

The dormer window is the key innovation of this project. Although there are other projects (notably the 2015 World Habitat Award winner – Liter of Light) that solve the problem of poorly lit houses in informal settlements, the dormer window in this project is specifically designed for the needs of homes in India and provides ventilation as well as light.

The project’s home improvements were developed through a community-led ‘innovation centre’. The project did not begin until conversations with residents were undertaken so that their needs could be fully understood. Other approaches may focus on moving people from inadequate housing in informal settlements, instead of trying to ensure houses are more liveable in their community. The Ujasiyu product allows people to remain in their community, making it a more sensitive design innovation.

The focus on women in informal settlements is another innovative factor. Providing improvements to homes, the main workplace for many women, empowers them to earn increased incomes. Because conditions in their homes are improved and comfort is increased throughout the day and night, women are also given more control over the type and amount of work they do. The focus on women in informal employment, within informal settlements is also innovative. The collaboration with SEWA Bank means that the families can access affordable credit and not become burdened with debts from unregulated moneylenders, or be left out of the lending system all together because of lack of collateral.

What is the environmental impact?

The project works to improve current homes rather than building new ones, which saves energy and material use through the construction of new buildings.

The project reduces the amount of energy used in homes and therefore their environmental impact. Specific adaptations had specific environmental impacts. Residents who have had the dormer window installed have reported energy savings of up to 50%.

The use of locally available materials for adaptations also reduces the carbon footprint of the project.

Is it financially sustainable?

Initially adaptations (improvements to cooking, lighting and ventilation) were subsidised through grants. Once the effectiveness of the interventions was more widely known and understood, the project developed into a social enterprise. Families who want to install one or more adaptations are expected to raise their own funding. Soft loans are provided to interested households by the SEWA Bank. Costs are payable in instalments and are repaid within a year. The savings made on energy bills generate enough savings to cover the repayments. After repayment, the benefits to households will continue for the long term, enabling them to improve their income and standard of living.

Despite the potential savings, the cost of loan instalments has limited some of the poorest families from being able to access Ujasiyu products. Work is underway to lower costs so that the approach can be offered to a wider range of households.

What is the social impact?

The work of Mahila Housing Trust empowers women to be able to fulfil their right to a comfortable and healthy home. Their involvement in the project’s development and the ongoing discussions which occur once the improvements are in place mean women are partners not just voiceless beneficiaries.

The Ujasiyu dormer window improves the air quality in the homes which are cooler and no longer smoke filled (smoke can leave through the ventilation dormer) and are naturally lit. This reduces negative health impacts such as breathing problems, and improves mental health as people live in less dingy spaces. Entire families are able to spend more time inside on both work and leisure.

For women who work in the home, better light, ventilation and reduced smoke from cooking stoves has improved productivity and increased income. Families who have benefitted from Ujasiyu have more disposable income to save, and pay for things like children’s education.

Barriers

The main challenge so far has been that differences in local construction and local bylaws meant each city and state needed different size sheets to go with the dormer window installation. For example, in the city of Surat in Gujarat, homes needed much larger sheets. These needed to be developed cost effectively to maintain the affordability for the families in need. In some homes, a waste bottle roofing solution was implemented where a plastic bottle was fitted into the roof which the sun would shine onto and illuminate the inside rooms. This was less effective than the dormer window but was used where it was not possible to install dormers.

In some states, production and application has slowed down due to increasing manufacturing costs. This should be overcome if the project develops its own manufacturing centre.

A further challenge has been promoting the improvements and convincing residents that they work, so they are happy to take out the loans to pay for the solutions. Residents were also not used to their opinions being sought in projects like this. The project is currently being promoted by word of mouth and through communication between the project implementers and the local population.

Lessons Learned

As the project was implemented in states which differ in their physical context, ventilation adaptations had to be redesigned to suit the local context. Finding local manufacturers who could produce products in a cost-effective manner is an issue in some locations. To overcome this, the project aims to set up local manufacturing centres. This new expansion is still at initial planning stage. The Ujasiyu project also hopes to diversify the products they offer to provide a wider range of practical solutions to improve ventilation and natural lighting.

Evaluation

The project has not been formally evaluated yet anecdotally the product has been seen as a positive innovation amongst beneficiaries.

Recognition

The project has hosted various international visitors including representatives from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Misereor Foundation, Care Foundation (Dhaka), Millennium Alliance along with FICCI, Womanity Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Transfer

The Mahila Housing Trust’s work to improve working conditions in the home through reduced energy costs has scaled up from impacting 140 houses at the pilot stage to now 21,332 lighting, cooking, and ventilation installations in 7 states of India: Gujarat, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Odisha, Rajasthan and Jharkhand.

Work on transferring and scaling up the Ujasiyu dormer window product is continuing, and has also inspired further work led by the Mahila Housing Trust to produce modular roofing made out of paper waste and coconut husk for informal settlements. In 2016 this innovation won the ‘Urban Labs Innovation Challenge: Delhi’ an award organised by the University of Chicago and the Delhi Government in response to its success in bringing down indoor temperatures improving living conditions. The project has so far been implemented at a pilot stage in three informal settlements in Delhi around new sustainable innovations such as solar powered lights and solar eco-cooler.

Authors:

World Habitat

Mutual Housing at Spring Lake

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Mutual Housing at Spring Lake

Policies and regulations Local policies Governance Participatory processes

Urban Design Services and infrastructure Equity Regulación Técnica Procesos Administrativos

Promotion and production Participatory processes Progressive housing Transformation and adaptation Management and maintenance

Main objectives of the project

Mutual Housing at Spring Lake offers permanent year-round housing to agricultural workers in the state of California, USA. Based in the city of Woodland, Yolo County, it is also the first 100 per cent Zero Net Energy ready rental housing development in the country. Spring Lake was designed to support agricultural workers to enjoy the benefits of ‘green living’, often only available to high-income homeowners. As the homes use around the same amount of energy as they produce, utility bills for residents are extremely low.

The estimated 6,000+ agricultural workers in the county have traditionally had to put up with some of the worst housing conditions and most dangerous jobs in the country. Seasonal employment means accommodation is usually only available at government-funded migrant centres during the farming season. Living in appalling conditions in privately rented housing is often the only other alternative for workers.

Mutual Housing’s work with residents goes well beyond providing energy efficient homes. Through a range of opportunities including leadership development schemes, peer lending circles and digital literacy classes, residents gain skills and confidence. For many this has opened up new opportunities in education and community life. New leaders have emerged from the community who now work to advocate for the rights of agricultural workers.

Date

2017:

Stakeholders

Promotor: World Habitat

Location

Continent: North America
Country/Region: United States of America

Description

Project Description

Mutual Housing at Spring Lake is based in the city of Woodland in Yolo County, California. It is the first permanent, year-round housing built for agricultural worker families in the county, most of whom are of Hispanic heritage. Agricultural workers have traditionally suffered some of the worst housing conditions and most dangerous jobs in the country. A survey of agricultural workers in the region in 2010 showed that people reported living in garages with mould and cockroaches and often in overcrowded conditions. Many workers are employed only seasonally and some government-funded migrant centres provide accommodation at these times. However, most agricultural workers stay in the community all year.

This is the first 100 per cent Zero Net Energy rental housing development in the USA to be certified by the US Department of Energy. A Zero Net Energy building uses around the same amount of energy as it produces so is very sustainable and better for the environment than traditional housing. Environmentally sustainable homes are often only available to higher income homeowners. This project was developed specifically to cater for agricultural workers, a community which makes a huge contribution to an area where the economy is largely sustained by agriculture, but is not catered for by the local housing market. This development by Mutual Housing California promotes equality by enabling low-income families to rent a home with strong eco-features. Mutual Housing California is a non-profit housing developer and a member of the California Coalition for Rural Housing. It was established in 1988 as a partnership of neighbourhood residents, business representatives, housing advocates and local government to improve housing opportunities for lower income families. It now owns and operates 1,071 homes for over 3,200 residents in California, USA. Resident involvement and leadership are key aspects underpinning and driving all their work. Residents of Mutual Housing developments are supported from day one to identify and develop their own skills and capacity for leadership. They are supported with training and mentoring to take control of their own lives as well as to advocate for their fellow residents and the wider community. Mutual Housing California provides similar services in its other developments, which include providing affordable rented housing for Housing First and other low-income residents.

The work to help residents achieve ‘green living’ doesn’t just stop with environmental features. Residents at Spring Lake are also trained in how to use the energy efficient equipment installed in their homes and are involved in learning and sharing ideas on other ‘green behaviours’ such as recycling and water saving.

After overcoming obstacles to access a plot of land and establish its use for multi-family housing (see details in the Context section), in 2010 land was purchased and construction began in 2013. The housing was completed in March 2015 and was fully occupied by June of that year. All applicants for housing at Mutual Housing at Spring Lake had to demonstrate that they meet the established income limits for the housing and that they were or had been employed in agriculture. A total of 62 highly energy-efficient homes have been built in five buildings. The homes have between one and four bedrooms and house 196 people including 90 children. Out of these housing units, seven are for families that have incomes at 30 per cent of area median income (AMI) or below, 13 units are for families that have incomes at 40 per cent of AMI or below, 25 units are for families at 50 per cent of AMI or below, and 16 units are for families at 60 per cent AMI or below. One of the units is reserved for the manager.

Mutual Housing at Spring Lake has a very strong focus on community development and the empowerment of individuals. Community organising is a core activity – the project has really been about building a whole community, not just constructing houses. Residents are actively involved in education and training programmes and the development runs several different facilities and programmes for residents. Personal development opportunities delivered through one-to-one mentoring, group sessions and on-the-job training have included financial education and budget management, green issues, leadership development and health education. As well as learning opportunities residents are able to use the community building and an activity room for meetings and celebrations. They can enjoy outdoor recreation spaces, with shared gardens and green spaces throughout the site.

A Spanish-speaking community organiser has been appointed and they have an important role in developing the leadership potential of adults and young people. They help local people to form resident councils and committees to address any specific issues or to shape ideas and plans for community activities and events. In fact leadership development is a very strong focus within the wider work of Mutual Housing. One of their key aims is to create ‘lifelong leaders’ by supporting the personal development of adults and young people alike across a wide range of activities. Some of the residents have shown that they are particularly interested in sustainable living and they have formed a ‘Green Leaders’ team. This group helps educate fellow residents with activities like composting and understanding electricity bills with solar rebates.

Authors:

World Habitat

Post-Haiyan Self-Recovery Housing Programme

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Post-Haiyan Self-Recovery Housing Programme

Mismatches Financing Vulnerable groups New family structures

Financing Public funding

Urban Design Liveability Regulación Técnica Procesos Administrativos

Promotion and production Materials Self-management Self-promotion

Main objectives of the project

Date

2017:

Stakeholders

Promotor: World Habitat

Location

Continent: Asia
City: Dagami
Country/Region: Philippines

Description

Project Description

In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan devastated large areas of the Philippines causing significant loss of life and destroying approximately one million homes. Through the Post-Haiyan Self-Recovery Housing Programme (2013-2016) CARE Philippines helped over 15,500 families made homeless by Haiyan to rebuild their homes.

CARE Philippines is one of CARE International’s country offices. There are over 70 such offices across the world.

CARE International is a non-governmental organisation which works to defeat poverty and achieve social justice through projects tackling a wide range of social issues including emergency response after natural disasters, education, food security, HIV/AIDs, climate change, maternal health and the empowerment of women and girls. Each of CARE’s national members works independently to lead programmes, raise funds, advocate on key issues and communicate to the public in their country.

CARE Philippines has been operating since 1949 in areas which are extremely prone to natural disasters. They develop projects which respond to the needs of the most vulnerable. This project was delivered in partnership with Accord (Assistance and Cooperation for Community Resilience and Development Inc.) and other local actors.

All phases of the rebuilding work were done in line with the families’ wishes and kept affordable so that they could work within their means. Families were supported to rebuild their homes themselves, hence being called a ‘self-recovery’ approach. Working with families to develop their own housing is different from the majority of natural disaster responses which tend to focus on temporary solutions built quickly by external contractors. The ‘self-recovery’ approach also helps families to feel more empowered and have a stronger sense of ownership over decision-making, their housing and their lives in general.

The Post-Haiyan Self-Recovery Housing project had a strong emphasis on supporting the families who were most severely affected and most vulnerable following the disaster. This was partly because it was felt that they were least likely to be able to resolve their housing problem without support but also because enabling very vulnerable people to have an active role in delivering their own housing solutions was seen as very important.

With the support of the programme groups of ten or more families worked together as communities to share the burden of construction. Each rebuilt home is unique, tailored to the needs and means of the family who built it. Some families also benefited from livelihood grants to help them develop small businesses after the loss of jobs in many sectors (including agriculture) after the typhoon.

The project provided technical assistance, materials and cash grants to support some of the country’s most vulnerable families to build new homes. This included training people in building skills and also providing the expertise of carpenters who travelled to different areas to help families with construction. Initial materials for essential repairs (including roofing sheets, hurricane strapping and tools and nails) were supplied by CARE. Families then bought other materials using cash grants. The homes that were built were owned by the families so affordability is not an ongoing issue.

The Post-Haiyan Self-Recovery Housing Programme developed ‘Build Back Safer’ guidelines which helped families ensure that repaired or rebuilt homes were more resilient to natural disasters. Residents were trained in how to use the guidelines through a mixture of community seminars and individual support. Although the guidance was provided by CARE, control and decision-making about rebuilding was firmly in the hands of the families.

At a national level the Department of Social Welfare and Development in the Philippines government is currently considering if the ‘Build Back Safer’ guidelines developed through this programme should be adopted to help deal with natural disasters in the future.

Aims and Objectives

The aim of the Post-Haiyan Self-Recovery Housing programme was to support vulnerable families to rebuild their homes in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan. It also helped replace jobs and incomes lost as a result of the typhoon.

The programme’s objectives were:

To target some of the most vulnerable people in rural communities, who are often missed by traditional post-disaster reconstruction projects. This included older people, widows and widowers, people living with disabilities, single women and women-headed families, pregnant women, women with young babies and large/extended families.
To provide training to families so that they could develop their own housing to a better standard than before the storm, increasing their resilience to further natural disasters. This also provided new skills they could use in the future.
To give materials to families so essential building work could be carried out.
To provide families with cash grants so they could buy more building materials and/or labour if they were unable to carry out the work themselves.
To develop ‘Build Back Safer’ building guidelines so that resilient building practices could be followed at that point and in future, creating a legacy of improved construction techniques.
To encourage the development of new opportunities for employment and income generation to replace what was lost as a result of the typhoon.

A longer term aim of the project was to:

Offer an alternative to traditional post-disaster housing by demonstrating that working with people who are actively involved in ‘building their own recovery’ can be successful and effective.

Context

As many as 4.1 million people were made homeless and more than 10,000 people were thought to have died in the affected areas after Typhoon Haiyan struck in 2013. It was the strongest tropical cyclones to have ever been recorded. Many homes in the Philippines are made of timber and bamboo and could not withstand the force of the typhoon. Over one million homes were damaged with almost half of these being totally destroyed, so there was a significant and widespread need for rebuilding.

In addition to typhoons the Philippines is prone to multiple hazards including earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Eighty-one percent of the country’s population are vulnerable to typhoons and the country is third in the world after Vanuatu and Tonga for being most prone to natural disasters. Since Haiyan, a further three particularly strong typhoons (Hagupit, Haima and Nok-Te) have hit the Philippines and in February 2017 a 6.7 magnitude earthquake also affected the country.

The CARE Philippines programme worked in Geographically Isolated and Disadvantaged Areas that were hardest hit by the typhoon. These included barangays (wards) on the islands of Leyte, Samar and Panay. These wards are small rural communities who rely on farming as their main source of income. This work is often supplemented by running small convenience stores but there are few opportunities for income generation. Average incomes in these areas are low (US$40-80 per month) so rebuilding without outside help from CARE Philippines would have been very difficult.

The ethos of ‘self-recovery’ meant that villagers were able to control the rebuilding of their homes and the construction work they undertook was fitted around their everyday life. For example, if they wished to prioritise a day working rather than completing any building work this was their personal choice. This freedom and flexibility meant people could still earn an income whilst completing building works.

Key Features

The Post-Haiyan Self-Recovery Housing programme ensured that the most vulnerable people in local communities were selected as it was felt that they would be least able to carry out successful self-recovery without support. As a result of this programme, over 15,000 people who had been made homeless by the typhoon are now living in stable housing that they have built themselves.

The programme was community-led – resident choice and input into housing design was prioritised throughout. Following training families completed the rebuilding themselves but could ask for help from carpenters funded through the programme.

Grants were also given out which meant that people who were unable to do the building work themselves could pay others to do it. Communities also grouped together to share labour and help each other. These groups were informal but often ten or more families would come together to work on their houses as a team.

To guide the building process, ‘Build Back Safer’ building guidelines were developed by CARE Philippines and shared with families. These guidelines focused on three key techniques that significantly improve safety and are affordable:

Construction techniques that strengthen homes, for example cross-bracing.
Building strong foundations as a starting point for construction.
Ensuring roofs are securely nailed onto the structure.

Additional grants given by CARE Philippines helped some families develop small businesses in addition to their homes helping them generate income and support the wider recovery of the community.

CARE Philippines was the main lead on the project. CARE also collaborated with Assistance and Cooperation for Community Resistance and Development (ACCORD), a Philippine organisation which provides capacity building for communities and promotes resilient building practices. ACCORD led on providing the training to educate residents how to rebuild sturdier homes using the ‘Build Back Safer’ messages. In addition to ACCORD, other smaller organisations also acted locally as an interface between CARE Philippines and the communities. They were responsible for much of the day-to-day implementation of the programme. These include cooperatives and NGOs such as the Leyte Center for Development, the Metro Ormoc Community Multi-Purpose Cooperative, and the USWAG Development Foundation.

What impact has it had?

The programme has had a positive impact in several ways:

Ensuring that over 15,000 people affected by the typhoon now have a safe place to live which is more resilient than their previous home.
Developing an increased sense of involvement and ownership due to the self-recovery approach.
Significant scale was achieved as resources were focused on enabling people to help themselves rather than paying for more expensive contractors, who would have delivered fewer homes for the same budget.
The materials used and the focus on the Build Back Safer building guidelines means homes built have been a big improvement on homes where families lived before the typhoon.
The focus on both housing and income generation has meant families have a safe home and new job opportunities.

The development of ‘Build Back Safer’ guidelines has been seen positively by the Philippines government’s Department of Social Welfare and Development. They now wish to incorporate these codes into future natural disaster responses. The programme has also helped inspire the academic research programme ‘Promoting Safe Building, supporting safer self-recovery after disasters’ which will highlight the potential of self-recovery approaches in disaster responses.

How is it funded?

The majority of costs were funded through CARE’s fundraising and donations, for a total of 145.6 million Philippine Pesos (US$3 million). Homeowners were provided with grants of 3,000 Philippine Pesos (approximately US$55) to buy building materials.

When this grant was combined with the materials which CARE provided (roofing sheets, hurricane strapping and nails and tools) the total cost to CARE per house was around US$190 dollars. Residents were expected to provide some financial contribution. However, the most vulnerable families (about 45% of the beneficiaries of the programme) received a top up grant of 5,000 Philippine Pesos (approximately US$90) if they could not afford to contribute. Families also salvaged materials from storm debris and provided free labour to reduce costs.

Additional livelihood grants were given by CARE from their fundraising reserves to many of the families to buy, for example, livestock. There is even an example of 70 families coming together to purchase a rice mill.

The financial support provided through the programme meant that families were less likely to get into debt in the rebuilding of their homes.

Why is it innovative?

The use of ‘self-recovery’ at such a large scale is innovative when it comes to post-disaster work on housing, as recovery work is often expert-led rather than community-led. This programme was able to reach more of the population by using the self-build method. Its success has demonstrated the beginning of a shift in mainstream humanitarian shelter practice towards recognising that self-recovery can be an effective, quick and sustainable post-disaster response.

It is the norm for the community themselves to start the recovery process after a natural disaster. The Post-Haiyan Self-Recovery Housing programme was able to respond quickly and in a way that built on the recovery work the community had already started.

CARE’s comprehensive recovery package also makes it innovative. Right after the typhoon, CARE and local partners gave food, water and shelter kits to beneficiaries. Orientation on the Build Back Safer guidelines was given before giving out the shelter kits to ensure beneficiaries knew how to use them. Livelihood grants were given to the communities and CARE and local partners continue to implement livelihood recovery projects in the affected communities. This approach is quite different from typical disaster aid projects that mainly focus on providing one product (e.g. temporary shelter or core housing or relocation) for a specific period of time but do not, for example, follow up with livelihood projects which beneficiaries need in order to earn a living and stay in the community.

The project put control and decision making in the hands of the families themselves rather than the implementing organisation, giving families greater ownership over what happened to them. Families will also be able use the building techniques they have learnt in the future. The fact that cash was given to families so that they could choose to purchase their own building materials and/or pay for labour meant that work was carried out more quickly than if they had had to wait for help to get to them. The response could begin swiftly thanks to this approach.

The focus on both housing and income generation is a more holistic approach to recovery, recognising that homes and livelihoods are often interconnected.

What is the environmental impact?

The project used local building materials and salvaged debris after the typhoon to reduce environmental impact. Hundreds of thousands of palm trees were blown down by the typhoon and coco lumber became the main construction material used to build the houses. This also meant that materials were sourced as locally as possible, often in the vicinity of the new buildings.

The programme also allowed local entrepreneurs to set up small chain mills to make use of the fallen timber, providing new job opportunities. The use of valuable hardwood, which is less environmentally sustainable, was limited to foundation stub posts and was often recycled from destroyed housing. Bamboo was also used, which is a fast growing and environmentally sustainable crop.

‘Self-recovery’ supports the use of local materials and imported, high embodied energy[1] products are limited to a few materials. Houses are also built in the same areas where they were before meaning that little or no new land is needed for construction.

The ‘Build Back Safer’ guidelines developed by the programme helped to educate communities in sustainable building practices.

[1] Embodied energy is the energy consumed by all of the processes associated with the production of a building, from the mining and processing of natural resources to manufacturing, transport and product delivery

Is it financially sustainable?

The Post-Haiyan Self- Recovery Housing Programme finished in 2016 and its goal was not to achieve financial sustainability for the programme itself beyond that date. However, this ‘self-recovery’ programme has been very careful to work within the families’ own means so the housing itself is affordable for them. Once rebuilding was complete, over 15,000 households owned their own home with no reliance on future funding and no rental payments.

Cash grants given by CARE were less than the total value of the cost of rebuilding. This meant that some families had to use their own money to fund their rebuild within their available resources.

The cash loans helped families start the construction process. As local labour was used in the rebuilding, if finances allow in the future, families can continue to make home improvements using these contacts.

Although the long-term impact of the programme is greater financial resilience within the communities, recovery following large scale natural disasters will always require significant amounts of external funding to deal with the immediate devastation caused.

What is the social impact?

Communities have been able to stay in their villages after the typhoon as the project has enabled new homes to be built. As the homes are more resilient families should be able to live in them for years to come, even if further natural disasters hit.

Community cohesion and cooperation were developed through the project’s focus on people working together to rebuild their homes. In the Philippines, this community spirit is called bayanihan. Many of those involved in the project felt the project allowed bayanihan to be realised as people controlled the creation of their own homes. Neighbours came together to help each other which made people feel they were working towards a common goal. Being encouraged to take charge of their own recovery after the typhoon helped some families to deal with the psychological trauma of the event.

The magnitude of Typhoon Haiyan meant that people’s livelihoods were lost as well as their homes. The project helped many families to develop new skills and access new jobs. Income generation opportunities such as setting up small businesses were supported using grants. The construction skills developed through the project were important and the techniques learned are now educating future generations on sustainable building practices.

CARE is committed globally to the empowerment of women so a gender-sensitive approach was adopted to ensure equal inclusion of women in the project. CARE Philippines particularly encouraged women to take an active role in decision-making and construction. Focus group discussions at the beginning of the project were almost entirely made up of women. In their role as key activists in the community the women also helped the carpenters give technical support by having conversations with their neighbours to find out their needs before the advice was given. It was made easier for women to take part in project management and their participation in the construction activity as a whole increased.

Barriers

The project faced two major challenges. Firstly, some families struggled to find money to complement the grant from CARE Philippines which they needed to complete their homes. CARE responded to this by distributing a second ‘top-up’ grant to families who were most in need. The combination of support led to a 92% successful completion rate of homes rebuilt through the CARE programme. The provision of essential materials at the start of the project also tried to ensure that families would be able to rebuild their homes to a good standard without having to borrow or spend large amounts of money.

A second major barrier was ensuring that families followed the Build Back Safer guidelines when constructing their new homes. This was addressed by the introduction of a team of carpenters who gave technical assistance to families. In addition, the materials given at the start of project were chosen to help families successfully follow the guidelines.

Lessons Learned

The project has enabled CARE Philippines to critically reflect on their work and to learn various lessons. These include:

Future programmes need to review whether to target the most vulnerable or whether other similar programmes should be designed to benefit whole communities.
Households that had already rebuilt before the programme did not benefit but in future the approach could be redesigned so these households might also have access to grant.
If the programme is transferred there will be a need for better integration between the housing project itself and other sectors such as water and sanitation.
In some cases there was a lack of compliance with Build Back Safer techniques which might have been avoided if further training and support were offered.
It is more effective for materials and tools to be collectively bought by communities rather than individuals. This strategy has been implemented in other programmes.
More support is needed when families are unable to undertake construction themselves.

Evaluation

The Post-Haiyan Self-Recovery Housing Programme has been evaluated a number of times in different ways. Throughout the programme CARE Philippines produced regular reports for donors and an evaluation that compares it with other responses to Typhoon Haiyan is being completed. CARE Philippines is currently producing a final presentation of the programme for donors including Disaster Emergency Committee (DEC), Global Affairs Canada and Diagio.

The CARE International UK shelter team has carried out two evaluation projects. One was completed after the first year of the programme, looking in detail at the levels of completion of houses. They discovered that the majority of houses had been completed to an adequate standard in that they had a safe roof and walls and had successfully implemented the Build Back Safer guidelines. Some residents, however, felt their homes were incomplete and had further ambitions for improvements such as plywood walls rather than bamboo. They felt they could not achieve this due to lack of money. There was also concern by residents over the vulnerability criteria and selection process used.

The second evaluation looked more broadly at the level of recovery and the lessons that can be learned from the programme. Despite the resident concerns above, both evaluations were positive overall and found that in general better built, stronger, often bigger homes had been successfully constructed. Families also expressed an evident sense of pride in and ownership of their achievements. The evaluations have been used to inform subsequent post-disaster responses in Vanuatu, Fiji and Nepal.

A separate evaluation by Habitat for Humanity GB and CARE International entitled ‘Lessons from Haiyan’ offering a comparative review of evaluations and learning documents from the shelter response to Typhoon Haiyan is in progress.

The CARE International UK research team is currently evaluating the perception of ‘recovery’ from the perspective of the affected families. This work is part of an interdisciplinary research project that investigates households’ self-recovery trajectories and how safer construction practices can be more effectively integrated into humanitarian shelter responses.

Recognition

The project has not had any specific recognition to date. However, its work has been cited in various reports and articles as an example of good practice in post-disaster recovery.

A recent Euronews article details the programme and the joint work of CARE Philippines and ACCORD. They have also been featured in the Forced Migration Review Journal and on the Humanitarian Practice Network.

CARE International has recently launched a research collaboration between the Overseas Development Institute, British Geological Survey and the Engineering Department of University College London. It will research building techniques and self-recovery processes from the perspective of those affected, using the programme as a case study.

Transfer

The programme was initially carried out on three Islands (Leyte, Samar and Panay). Since implementation in these locations CARE Philippines has started similar projects in response to Typhoons Hagupit/Ruby (2014) and Typhoon Haima (2016). These transfers were adapted based on lessons learned. For example building materials were purchased collectively to provide cost savings. Residents came together to create a list of what tools were needed instead of each family being given individual materials. The training element was still key to these projects with the knowledge of local carpenters being used to benefit the whole community.

The programme is being used as a case study to inform wider research on the effectiveness of ‘self-recovery’ as a post-disaster construction technique. It is hoped it can act as a model for future projects. Lessons have influenced similar projects in Fiji, Nepal and Vanuatu carried out by CARE.

Authors:

World Habitat

Reconstruction of Habitat

1

Reconstruction of Habitat

Mismatches Cultural suitability Diversity

Policies and regulations Local policies Regulation Governance

Urban Design Liveability Regulación Técnica Participatory processes

Promotion and production Materials Self-construction

Main objectives of the project

This project has helped low-income communities in areas vulnerable to natural disasters to build resilient housing that revives traditional construction techniques and combines them with modern approaches. Programmes for disaster risk reduction and self-build housing have a long history in Mexico, but don’t combine an increase in community resilience, capacity building, sustainable management of natural resources, use of local materials in construction and community development.

Date

2016:

Stakeholders

Promotor: World Habitat

Location

Continent: South America
Country/Region: Mexico, Mexico City

Description

Project Description

Since the hurricanes of September 2013, Cooperación Comunitaria has been working in the Montaña de Guerrero region in Mexico.

The Reconstruction of Habitat project was implemented first in the community of Obispo, in the Municipality of Malinaltepec, after assessing the magnitude of the problems caused by hurricanes and is designed to enable replication in other communities.

This comprehensive habitat reconstruction project has improved the living conditions and increased the resilience of the residents of Obispo by:

reducing the risks of disaster through the development of a landslide risk map, which has resulted in the relocation of four houses;
promotion of the sustainable management of natural resources through practical and theory-based workshops about reforestation to reduce landslides;
a community centre which was built by the community and acted as a prototype
a practical construction workshop for the subsequent self-build of 33 reinforced adobe houses and 31 energy-saving stoves;
recovery of maize crops using agro-ecological[1] techniques.

The project started in September 2013 and finished in June 2015. It has now moved on to its second stage and is being replicated in three other communities of the Montaña region. It takes a comprehensive approach by tackling the multiple dimensions of vulnerability.

[1]The application of ecology to the design and management of sustainable agro-ecosystems.

Aims and Objectives

The main aim of the project is to reduce the vulnerability of the population in the region of Montaña de Guerrero by increasing the resilience of people living at risk and through the comprehensive reconstruction of their housing and habitat.

This is met by the following objectives:

Reducing the risk of disasters, increasing resilience of residents through detailed risk analysis and mapping, increasing residents’ knowledge regarding their territory and the risks of disaster.
Reinforcing housing for protection against earthquakes and winds through the architectural, structural and materials analysis of traditional adobe housing, and improving their suitability as living spaces by optimising temperature, acoustics and lighting.
Recovering the community’s traditional knowledge of their territory, reinforced construction techniques with adobe and sustainable management of natural resources, respecting social and cultural norms in the region, preserving traditional productive spaces.
Improving knowledge of agro-ecology techniques in order to limit the use of agro-chemicals, reduce plot rotation, avoid soil degradation, deforestation and therefore reduce the risk of landslides.
Strengthening the organisational and decision-making capacity of the community. Strengthening solidarity among residents and recovering traditional systems for community work, such as “mano vuelta” (reciprocal community work).
Improving the health of residents, reducing deforestation and the associated risk of landslides through the self-build of energy-saving stoves, which reduce the presence of smoke in the kitchen and the prevalence of lung and eye disease.
Strengthening the community’s autonomy by using natural construction materials and reinforcing food self-sufficiency.

The region of Montaña de Guerrero is home to 85% of the indigenous population of the State of Mexico. This project:

Directly benefitted 92 Me’phaa or Tlapanecos families whose housing and crops were affected by earthquakes, winds, heavy rain and landslides with: the construction (by the community itself) of a community centre/children’s library, and 33 houses with 31 energy-saving stoves.
Indirectly benefitted 275 families with capacity-building workshops on the above mentioned skills (e.g. self-construction with reinforced adobe), as well as community development workshops and risk diagnosis.

Context

Eighty-one per cent of residents in the municipality of Malinaltepec live in poverty. They are in the most seismically active region of the country and in an area where winds can reach up to 120 km/h. Local people are highly vulnerable to and affected by these factors, as well as hurricanes and landslides with 70+% of residents reporting damage to their houses.

In September 2013, Hurricanes Manuel and Ingrid hit western Mexico, causing 200 deaths and affecting 230,000 people. In the region of Montaña del Guerrero, these phenomena caused numerous landslides, affected communication channels and infrastructure, led to the loss of crops and irreparable damage to over 5,000 adobe houses.

In addition to these conditions, migration has also been a factor in the loss of traditional knowledge, both in construction techniques and in the management of natural resources such as forests, which in turn has increased the vulnerability of residents. This loss of knowledge has led to gaps in the application of adobe construction techniques such as: lack of stone foundations and skirting boards in 86% of cases which causes dampness and deterioration of the walls; lack of an internal structure which debilitates the structure as a whole and weakens the corners; and inadequate anchorage from the roof to the walls which affects the resistance to strong winds, causing the roof to blow off.

Residents tend to attribute these damages to traditional use of adobe, when in reality they are due to technical omissions.

Key Features

Women from the community asked Cooperación Comunitaria to help with the reconstruction of their houses which were affected by hurricanes and so the organisation carried out a diagnosis of damage and the causes. When seeing the size of the problem caused by landslides, high deforestation and the impact on crops and houses, Cooperación Comunitaria brought together an inter-disciplinary team: a geologist, biologists, forestry and agricultural engineers in order to carry out an analysis of the risks and combine that information with the traditional knowledge of the community and a geological study of the territory.

The team of architects, an engineer and the community committed to working together to develop and implement a comprehensive project. Risks maps were developed and workshops were carried out to improve the skills and knowledge within the community, to identify how to relocate certain houses and areas for growing crops and to build new houses as well as improve residents’ resilience to future natural events.

The selection criteria for the beneficiaries were: permanent residence in the community, having suffered considerable damage to housing and crops, availability to participate in the community process and willingness to provide labour. Residents from affected neighbouring communities also participated in self-build workshops on using reinforced adobe. Decision making took place at community assemblies at which objectives were defined, internal systems and a project calendar created and committees set up to coordinate construction. Participants had control over each stage of the project. Their active participation in the workshops, which were delivered using participatory techniques, helped with the knowledge exchange between the community and Cooperación Comunitaria, and new techniques were incorporated through learning by doing. Community development officers were trained to supervise and monitor construction and they will act as the technical advisers in the next communities to be included in the programme.

A broad range of stakeholders took part in the workshops:

Community authorities: in calling for assemblies and workshops; (Community authorities are a moral and legal entity in the indigenous law system. They have religious and political power in the communities and are recognised by the Mexican government and can sometimes act as representatives of the law).
Local authority: providing communication about the activities and the reinforced adobe construction workshops to wider audiences and to other communities; (The local authority endorsed one of the workshops and brought together the community representatives from across all the municipal area).
Community Goods Commission: involved in the sale of stone for foundations; (as there are no providers of materials within the involved communities, these materials were instead sourced from the ‘Office of Communal Goods’, which administers the natural resources of the municipality. This meant lower costs and benefits to the local economy).
Metropolitan Autonomous University: undertaking tests on the community adobe bricks and land resistance.
Guerrero Autonomous University: Diagnosis and landslide risk maps.
Cosechando Natural (Natural Farming): advisor on agro-ecology techniques.

SAI Group: structural calculations and resistance simulation in housing for the development of a housing model with reinforced adobe.

What impact has it had?

Cooperación Comunitaria supports the needs of people from rural areas in order to exercise their right to housing. Currently, government bodies are reluctant to use local building materials, classifying these as precarious in the official regulation. Faced with this, the project aims to reclaim the benefits of these materials, proving that they are resistant, adapted to the local climate and culture, less expensive, less polluting and supportive of a better quality of life.

Cooperación Comunitaria is a member of the Mexican Social Production of Housing Network which seeks agreements with national institutions for improved housing. This network participates in the National Habitat Commission, seeking changes in the legislation to increase attention on the qualitative aspect of housing as currently these are purely focused on quantitative aspects.

How is it funded?

After the hurricanes, Cooperación Comunitaria coordinated a fundraising programme in Mexico City in collaboration with individuals and civil society partners. It was this emergency humanitarian fund which covered the initial costs and the initial participatory analysis work be completed. Subsequently, funding was secured from the Merced Foundation for disaster-risk reduction, recovery of maize fields, reforestation and capacity building activities.

The Mexican Federal Government, through the Social Development Institute, provided resources for the construction of the community centre/children’s library. The ‘Sharing with Guerrero’ Fund supported the self-build of 33 reinforced adobe houses and 31 energy-saving stoves.

There were MXN (Mexican Pesos) 2. 5 million (USD $140,000) received for materials, administrative costs, transport, training and learning materials. Cooperación Comunitaria provided another MXN 105,000 (USD $6,000) through donations and contributions from partners, and the support of national and foreign foundations (Misereor, Misión Central, Fundación Sertull y Fundación ADO) for the second phase of the project in three communities.

The community provided labour, produced adobe bricks and pajarcilla (a mixture of clay, water and hay or dry grass) to insulate the roofs, and food and accommodation for Cooperación Comunitaria’s field team. The community contributes both materials and a monetary contribution of MXN 1,000 (USD $55) to a communal loan facility. These savings enable people who cannot provide adobe bricks to access a loan of MXN 3,000 (USD $165) which is used for building materials and which is repayable in one year.

The total cost of a house (materials, labour, eco-technologies) is MXN 117,000 (USD $6,500); or MXN 140,000 (USD $7,700) if you include the costs of the activities (mapping, diagnostic, etc.). Cooperación Comunitaria is registered as a Contractor so is able to obtain government housing subsidies, which represent 58% of the costs (MXN 64,500 = USD $3,500), and the rest is covered by the beneficiaries’ contributions (MXN 1,000 = USD $55) and materials, plus contributions from donors for toilets and stoves.

Why is it innovative?

The main innovation is the methodology for comprehensive community work which reduces vulnerability and improves living conditions. Programmes for disaster-risk reduction and self-build housing have a long history in Mexico, but none of them combine an increase in community resilience, capacity building, sustainable management of natural resources, use of local materials in construction, community development and an economy based on solidarity. The combination of traditional indigenous knowledge as a risk reduction factor and new adaptations to well-established building techniques is another innovation. The participatory comprehensive methodology implemented by Cooperación Comunitaria through an interdisciplinary team ensures the appropriateness of the programme’s objectives and activities in relation to the needs of the communities. The project takes into consideration the community’s cultural, economic, environmental and climatic conditions. It puts forward traditional techniques and proven technology, which are adapted to local conditions, thus guaranteeing their acceptance. Participation in the project helps incorporate the effective use of solutions developed by the community themselves.

This type of innovation can, for example, be seen in the adaptation of traditional housing models. Some elements no longer in use have been integrated into the widespread adobe model such as:

stone foundations and stem walls, with added reinforcement from adobe buttresses;
concrete frames with fixings for the roof’s wooden frame;
larger quantity of nails calculated according to the wind speed and the suction force applied to the roof;
improvements in the size of adobe bricks;
reductions in joints and horizontal elements for each three courses to improve seismic resistance;
pajarcilla for insulation;
earth floors to improve temperature control
lime-based white paint;
translucent panes to improve lighting.

What is the environmental impact?

The increase in knowledge of construction techniques using local materials and eco-technologies, reforestation and landslide risk analysis all contribute to greater awareness of and consideration for natural resources as well as increased community resilience.

Cooperación Comunitaria favours the measured use of local materials in construction, such as adobe, local wood and the organic insulation of roofs using pajarcilla. This avoids the need to transport concrete blocks and steel structures to the communities from the city of Tlapa de Comonfort, reducing CO₂ emissions by 22% and preventing the emission of 482 kg of CO₂ per house, which translates into a total saving of 16 tonnes for 33 houses. It is worth noting that by using local wood for roof structures, arches, doors and windows, the users of the housing projects expressly commit to planting 10 trees for each house constructed, promoting preservation of resources for future generations. The project includes self-build dry toilets (composting toilets) in each house, which prevents pollution and excessive water use, whilst at the same time protects and increases the quality of arable soil by avoiding the contamination caused by untreated human waste.

The resistance of the houses was measured through seismic and material resistance tests and increased using new elements such as buttresses, reinforced roofs and stone foundations. The main cause of landslides is deforestation. The use of agrochemicals depletes arable land, thus contributing to degradation of forests. The implementation of agro-ecological techniques reduces the contamination of soil and underground water through the reduction of agrochemical use. The increased skills in sustainable forest management, use of energy saving stoves and reductions in crop rotation through agro-ecology has reduced deforestation and the risks of landslides.

The use of open fires generates significant wood consumption, causing progressive clearance of the environment. According to the National Commission for Protected Natural Areas, a rural family cooking on open fires can consume up to 32 mid-sized trees each year. By using self-built energy-saving stoves, 40% of deforestation related to wood consumption has been reduced, preventing the emission of 200 tonnes of CO₂ and the cutting of 775 trees each year, promoting the reduction of greenhouse gases. In addition, this comprehensive project includes community workshops on reforestation and awareness-raising.

Is it financially sustainable?

A comprehensive project, Reconstruction of Habitat does not depend on a single funding source. In 2016, it has not only managed to fundraise from a number of foundations but has also established alliances with two other organisations interested in the programme’s social aim: a German international cooperation agency, Misereor; and a Mexican foundation, Fundación Compartir. These alliances have enabled the continuation of the regional expansion of the project and mid- and long-term planning. Other foundations have offered their collaboration or have expressed their willingness to participate in the future under the same scheme, due to the achievements and impact achieved in the short-term. These include Fundación ADO providing funding of MXN 500,000 (USD $25,000) and Fundación Sertull, providing funding of MXN 360,000 (USD $20,000).

The programme requires beneficiaries to have previous savings and access to credit. However, Cooperación Comunitaria thinks that for the most vulnerable people, getting credit without savings puts them in an impossible situation. For this reason, following the operational regulations of CONAVI (National Housing Commission), people can contribute in-kind savings through the provision of adobe bricks, covering 5% of the construction costs. Families receive the support of Cooperación Comunitaria with in-kind savings, their contribution of manual labour and receive personal advice on how to manage their micro-credit. Habitat for Humanity, the authorised Contractor Body by CONAVI and project partner, serves as the financial actor in charge of verifying the savings contribution and providing micro-loans.

Cooperación Comunitaria is developing a system of savings and loans through community funds, which are administrated by the participants themselves. In this way, each family saves from the beginning of the project and when the time comes to contribute to the house, they have capital to act as collateral for the micro-credit. Cooperación Comunitaria has already implemented this model in Veracruz state in a separate programme and it worked well, although implementation takes time.

The use of local materials reduces costs and promotes self-sufficiency, reducing dependency on industrial materials.

A productive space for coffee processing in the house is planned for the second stage, as this is the residents’ main activity. A space will be allocated with a modular roof with mesh for coffee drying, whilst other productive activities can take place underneath the living spaces.

What is the social impact?

Participants were involved in communal work focused on collective collaboration to achieve common goals. Better communication, willingness and cooperation among residents was evident in construction, reforestation and their work on risk analysis, as well as in the commitment of each resident as part of a strengthened community. Likewise, the project organisers have noticed an increase in empathy among members, which has reduced problems and misunderstandings. Also, a greater sense of responsibility in decision-making through the organisation of the project activities was evident, as well as the development of working teams in construction and agricultural activities and when the community reached legal agreements via discussions in assemblies. An example of this is the increased participation of members in assemblies. At the beginning, only leaders would participate, but latterly members engaged in discussions, and Cooperacion Comunitaria became witness to a process driven by the communities – whose members engage in debates about fairness in beneficiary selection, community work, etc.

Working together also increases the organisational and decision-making capabilities of members of the community in the long term. In this way, it facilitates the independent design and development of future projects. The people who participated in the project have shown their ability to judge short-term programmes and their lack of sustainability; they are able to work independently and have a reduced dependency on handouts.

The area has many government programmes that are based on people receiving a monthly monetary sum, with the only requirement being that they attend meetings or events. This is seen as a way of receiving income but does not help people to become self-sufficient. On the contrary, they are dependent on this handout that can stop at any point. The government also runs programmes providing fertilisers and agrochemicals to farmers in the area without them knowing how to use them properly. This project, instead, is looking to promote independence and self-sufficiency, with people being able to produce their own housing and food. Participants increased their construction skills to produce reinforced adobe houses and energy-saving stoves. They have also gained knowledge of the causes of risks in their local area, their role in these events and the importance of the measured use of resources.

People who participated in the project are safer as their houses are resistant to the elements; significantly reducing their vulnerability towards landslides and natural phenomena such as hurricanes, strong winds and earthquakes. In this way, there is increased resilience towards the effects of climate change. The residents have the tools to identify risks in the long term. All community members have access to the risk map, which they can consult when necessary. A year after completion, the houses faced strong storms without any damage. The housing design respects the social and cultural norms of the region and preserves traditional productive spaces (for example for coffee production), and the project reduces the loss of traditional knowledge in construction techniques and resolves the technical issues that lead to damage such as cracks and humidity in walls. Self-build construction of new housing has helped to solve overcrowding situations through the building of new homes for young families. The project has an impact on living and health conditions: natural lighting was improved and thermal and acoustic insulation increased with mud tile floors and pajarcilla insulation in the roof; and the energy saving stoves help reduce the amount of smoke produced, helping to avoid respiratory problems as well.

Barriers

The main barrier faced was the effect of the federal government aid programmes, making people familiar with receiving resources without doing any work. Because of this, the organisation of the project, communication and participation were a challenge at the beginning. This was resolved through assemblies, talks and community development workshops where dialogue, decision-making and participation were promoted and facilitated.

Another obstacle was that prior to the construction of the housing, a road was widened through the whole community, which involved works that complicated construction logistics and made the attendance of some stakeholders at the assemblies difficult. Logistical arrangements were adjusted, the wood from felled trees was put to use once the road was open and the construction concluded before the rains as planned.

Lessons Learned

The main learning point for the project was being able to adjust the finance and work schedule in line with the activities of community members, taking into account agriculture cycles and cultural celebrations within the community. This helped Cooperacion Comunitaria better understand the community’s pace and way of working.

Another important point was knowing more about their culture, rituals, medicines and traditions, which helped them to adjust the project for the next communities in the same local authority area, with whom they are currently working.

Whilst finishing the Community Centre some modifications were made following residents’ comments, which allowed some structural modifications to be made with the engineer in order to facilitate the construction process. The programme is continuing to improve the techniques of lime-paint, floors, the ways of using pajarcilla for insulation, etc.

Evaluation

The impact of the project has been assessed by obtaining baseline indicators, through a community audit. The results were compared with those obtained at the intermediary and final phases of the project. Qualitative indicators were assessed with techniques such as ethnographic analysis and a community biography in the initial stage, which provided data on appropriate living spaces, cultural use of spaces and adaptability. Surveys and technical diagnoses were carried out, measuring damage, risks and gaps, which provided baseline indicators. Four follow-up visits have been carried out following the end of the project in 2015.

Recognition

2015 Razón de Ser (Raison d’être) Award, Sustainable Habitat category, presented by Merced Foundation and Kaluz Foundation.
Semi-finalists for the 2016 Fuller Challenge, Buckminster Fuller Institute.
Representative in the Mexico pavilion, 2016 Venice Architectural Biennale.
Enlace Ciudadano (Citizen Link) programme in CDMX radio, presentation on projects and perspectives, July 2015.
Project presentation in Ciudadana (Citizen) Radio, November 2015.
Participation in HIC-AL publication “Transformative Experiences in Social Production of Habitat”.
“Obispo residents: traditional knowledge incorporated to strengthen their resilience” Article published by UNISDR.
Visitors have included HIC-AL/Franciscan Central Mission (Germany); MISEREOR (Germany); ADO Foundation (Mexico) and National Housing Commission – CONAVI (Mexico).

Transfer

This project is currently being replicated in three communities in the same local authority area (San Miguel, Laguna Seca and Moyotepec). Since October 2015, they have completed a socio-economic audit, risk analysis and mapping, as well as building a traditional medicine centre (which served as a practical example for the construction workshop).

Community workshops on risk reduction, community development and capacity building in construction of reinforced adobe housing have taken place. They will build 81 energy-saving stoves, 60 dry toilets and 110 reinforced houses, as well as three community garden centres with native species for reforestation. Capacity building activities will be carried out on resource management, cooperative development, self-build and eco-technology maintenance and six community development officers will be trained. In order to replicate the project, Cooperacion Comunitaria have acquired the certification needed to be able to transfer a federal subsidy from the National Housing Commission (CONAVI) to the residents, applying the constitutional right to housing for any Mexican citizen.

Through partnerships and presentations, 17 communities have come forward to ask to be involved in the development of similar projects, which are currently being considered. One of Cooperación Comunitaria’s programmes is focused on research into adapting living spaces to their context. In the case of Montaña de Guerrero, the project has already been implemented and tested and for this reason they plan to work with the same approach in the same region, in communities keen to work with them.

The methodology developed by Cooperación Comunitaria was designed to adapt to different geological, climatic, social and cultural contexts. Participation of the residents ensures the relevance of the activities in relation to the needs of each place, through the stages of needs analysis, architectural analysis of traditional housing, diagnostic and prevention of disaster risks, participatory housing design, capacity building, adapted housing and sustainable management of public resources. In that sense, the project is fully transferable to marginalised rural areas in Mexico and other countries that are exposed to disaster risks, even if the solutions developed are unique to each community.

Authors:

World Habitat

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