Objectives
- Improving living conditions for cyclone victims
- Develop housing models that take into account local building cultures
- Help local partners to realize that local populations are not without resources (technical and material) by rationally demonstrating and explaining the intelligence of local building cultures (and define and develop tools and methods for recognizing and deciphering this intelligence).
- Helping local partners to realize that post-disaster reconstruction projects can not only give people a roof over their heads, but also the money that roofs cost. This is achieved by integrating into the proposed solutions the techniques known by the local population, the materials available locally, etc... and by including disaster-affected people in the reconstruction process as soon as this is realistic.
- Act as a link between aid operators (NGOs, donors) and the Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology (BUET). 1% of research budgets in Bangladesh are allocated to theses on the rural world or on aspects relating to low-income people. 90% of the population is in this bracket. Academics, architects, engineers, etc. are not prepared to provide answers adapted to the realities of poor populations.
On November 15, 2007, Bangladesh was hit by a powerful cyclone called Sidr, with a radius of 500 km and winds of up to 240 km/h. Most of the land just a few centimetres above sea level was swallowed up. Most of the land just a few centimetres above sea level was swallowed up. 80% of families living in the areas hit by the cyclone were affected, and housing accounted for 50% of the material damage. Secours Catholique - Caritas France and its partner Caritas Bangladesh quickly launched a project aimed at empowering not only local communities, who are regular victims of natural disasters, but also the organizations and agencies that come to their aid.
This project revealed a number of difficulties encountered from the outset by the organizations in charge of disaster relief:
The limits of a "donation of finished products" approach
The numerous agencies in the different areas of action in Bangladesh each proposed their own construction models, with costs varying from simple to double. This created tensions between beneficiaries who were able to compare the models received within the same village. It was also difficult for these families to take on board the "ready-made" solutions, which did not take into account all their rehousing needs.
Failure to recognize local building cultures:
The first low-cost housing models presented were the result of high-quality technical studies carried out by engineers and technicians who carried with them an aura of knowledge. The fact that these educated executives did not, from the outset, include in their technical proposals the constructive intelligences developed by the people themselves has sometimes led the latter to regard their own knowledge as obsolete or, worse still, irrelevant. Whereas the failure of engineers and technicians to take account of these intelligences is more a result of the type of education they received (or rather did not receive) than a quality judgment on this knowledge. These local building cultures are in fact the result of hundreds of years of experience, on which new technical proposals must be based if they are to have any chance of being reproduced endogenously.
After three years of activity (2007-2009), the first models proposed to the 1,600 beneficiary families have been improved thanks to better consideration of human and cultural contexts. A fruitful exchange has been established between aid workers "in the field" and Bangladeshi universities, introducing some of the most recent scientific findings on economic housing. The target groups have adopted new methodological and technical approaches, making them less vulnerable in the event of another natural disaster.
Results
- 3 institutions sensitized (1 donor; 1 NGO; 1 university)
- 1 institution trained (1 NGO)
- 7,300 families rehoused
- Students and teachers out in the field
- Caritas Bangladesh fait des interventions à la Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology (BUET)
Partners
Caritas Bangladesh, Project Implementation Committee, Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology, Dhaka, Caritas France – Secours Catholique
