If we have information, than we can use it for our betterment.the information can make us aware what we need in future and how the facilities should be planned. Through this process, Low income communities can learn about their existing condition and use the data to improve their lifestyle.
Briefing about settlement profilingBriefing about settlement profilingTeaching them GPS mapping
By learning GPS Mapping, people can locate their community and document it in Internet.
Teaching them GPS mappingExplaining profiling form to the communityPlanning for how to start the settlement profile
The women in the community Started to plan how to collect their desired information. They took help from the architects during the process.
Meeting with the community peopleBriefing the form to community peopleCommunity members filling their formsTeaching the community people how to find out GPS boundary of the respective communityCommunity members learning to use google map to set boundary to their communityGPS location of the nine communities
Nine communities located their boundaries with the help of GPS.
Calculating the found data
Presentation in front of the communityPresentation sheet with found data
The aim of the project is to question the stigmatized idea of a public toilet in our context. the outer side of the building has shops and corridors for circulation wrapping the main function, which is toilet. The space around and above serves the passengers as shopping , eating and waiting space .
Building material are sensitively used to respect the local culture. There is a presence of courtyard system, which serves the purpose of proper ventilation, and also a peripheral corridor for circulation.
The adjacent landscape, local plant materials are used to give a local identity to the place.
Jhenaidah Citywide Community Network| Jhenaidah Municipality| Co.Creation.Architects| POCAA| ALIVE| ACHR
Jhenaidah city-wide community network
It is a housing process, where poor people are helping poor people by organizing themselves through savings. The process aims to empower the powerless people collectively, not individually. Here people identify problems and opportunities in their communities through community mapping and profiling activities. In the process there is a mechanism to get support for financial, technical, legal, planning, merit and skill development assistance. In Jhenaidah the citywide community network process started with five communities in 2014. Currently nine communities are in the network. the process has been expanded to other areas of Bangladesh by different community networks.
Saving money is the first step of the processCommunity women are locating their own houses
When the network gets any financial support they use it as revolving fund for solving housing and other community problems. Two most deserving and prepared communities have built 38 houses by taking loans from their revolving fund.
“How does your dream house look like?”Community women explaining their design and map
Each household takes BDT 1,00,000 (USD 1200) and repay BDT 1.20,00 (USD 1440) to their own collective Bank accounts in weekly installments throughout 5 years. The fund increases with the repayment and rolls to other communities decided by citywide community network. They also have built 7 houses for extreme poor house holds in their communities by grant of BDT 40,000 (USD 480) per household.
The initiative promotes a model process but not a model house. As no two communities are same in many respects, the design of houses are also different communities although the budget for each house is same. The process proves that low-income communities can build decent houses together and live with beauty and dignity too.
From our previous workshop, Co.Create Jhenaidah – 02, we could understand that citizens of Jhenaidah have a need of distributed open space all over the city. Despite of being situated on highland, it has many water bodies scattered all over it. The idea of city-wide pond network emerged from this. Through which all ponds of the city could be better experienced by people and other species of the creation.
The first step was to prepare a visualization of the future of a pond aspire. After that, the visuals were presented and discussed with the city mayor. Five ponds were enlisted, one of them were particularly selected, because the dwellers around that pond reached out to us.
Banner which visualizes the future possibilities of the pond.
The basic idea of the workshop was to initiate a platform for the general users of the pond to participate with the architects and city planners during the design phase..
This particular pond was in Arappur area, that was mainly a residential part of the city. The Citizens around the pond selected participants among themselves. There were also four volunteers selected from the pond side community who took care of conducting the design workshop sessions. All the volunteers happened to be from teenager boys and girls group.
Meeting with the volunteer community organizer
The participants were segregated into 5 groups, based on their gender and age.
Children
Teenage boys
Teenage girls
Men
Women
During the workshop, participants used words and drawings to answer the question we asked them.
“How do you want to see your pond?”
Teenager females wanted sitting benches for joggers. And also lamp for safety in the night.
Various answers came, as they had different problems, also different solutions for those. For example, the men wanted a central community gathering space, teenage boys and girls wanted separate ghats for male and female.
Children wanted to swim , and a separate place for wildlife. they also wanted a place for mermaid in their pond.Men wanted Community center, where they can sit and discuss
The women were concerned about the kitchen waste, so they wanted municipality to manage garbage vans, and the children wanted to swim in the pond, see schools of fishes, and mermaids in the pond.
The women wanted proper waste management around the pond
Their information provided us with the program and functions around the ponds, and also the condition of the land ownership, and future plans regarding the place.
Arappur C&B pond proposed mapProposed Plan of the pondVisualization of Southern part of the pond. Reflecting the existence of two separate ghats for male and female.Community Center and play field for childrenMulti layered Ghat for people of the community
During the detailed process of design, the four volunteers, Chaity, Shithi, Shaswato, Shohan, of the of the community played the important role.
The whole project was presented to the community people, by the volunteers. After the presentation, there was a question answer session, when The community architects joined. The community people asked questions and and discussed with everyone. Possibilities and challenges came out for implementations. the community people are in the process of creating a better space with the pond. The mayor of the municipality promised to help the community to make it happen together.
An initiative of: Citizens of Jhenaidah city | Jhenaidah Municipality | Co.Creation.Architects | ALIVE
We live in Jhenaidah city – children, teenage boys-girls, male, female, elderly, rich, poor, extreme poor, differently abled people and many others. Together we can co-create our city. All of us can build the future of our city by respecting individual’s dreams. Architects, planners and policy makers can facilitate us to organize our dreams. With this belief, we arranged a workshop where people of the city shared their ideas and discuss about the past present and future of the city.
The Groups:
Children
Teenage Girls
Teenage boys
Elderly
Women
Men
Women from Lower income Communities
Men from Lower income Communities
Each Groups were asked two questions.:
1. What kind of street do we want in our city?
2. What kind of open space do we want in our city?
-They were asked to write down The list of visions on basis of the question.
-They were asked to draw separate illustrations of their ideas of ideal street and open space.
Safe, wide, clean,and shaded pedestrianOld prison, old court, DC Bungalow area along with the adjacent riverside can be redesigned as public open space in the heart of the citySmall open spaces to be scattered all over the cityA green wide road where we can walk and sit with our parents, grandparentsA river-centric city that will give pleasure to our eyes. When we can realize this in a small eventually spread citywideEven and wide pedestrian to walk easilyIt is good to have facilities like sitting, eating, library, gymnasium, and toilets beside the riverRoads should be easier to cross with childrenTo avoid dust, ground by the roads should be covered with vegetationGreen spaces should be right beside these roads where we can play together
All the ideas from the discussion, illustrations, and write ups, were jotted down and a few visuals were created to show comparative differences between the existing and the possible situation of the city.
Before – After ImagesBefore – After ImageGhat on the intersection of Noboganga river
This Ghat is currently under construction.
An initiative of: Citizens of Jhenaidah city | Jhenaidah Municipality | Co.Creation.Architects | ALIVE
Jhenaidah Municipality| SNV Netherlands | Co.Creation.Architects
Co.Creation.Architects 