Clean Cooling Collaborative

“Beat the heat (Clean Cooling Collaborative) – Dhaka”

Korail is the largest low-income informal settlement in Dhaka. It is located next to Mohakhali and Gulshan-Banani neighbourhoods with an area of around 90 acres. Gulshan-Banani lake is the shared part for the Korail as well. The settlement in the Korail is very congested and the majority of the houses have no window whatsoever and kitchen without ventilation. This unhealthy setup leads the community from health problems to all negative impacts on living conditions. The community needs an added impetus and a clearer understanding of their current living conditions. Without this awareness, the process would be limited to merely creating physical spaces. Our approach however focused on collective learning and shared education throughout the process.

The process starts with several stages where we start our journey sitting with the community people at first. After the icebreak session, we learn to record the temperature of each one’s own homes and various communal spaces by using thermo-hygrometers in Korail. Thereby we can understand the intensity of heat in living spaces and how it varies from place to place since it gives the community a collective comparison with temperature listed. We share our thoughts on the existing conditions and how we can reduce the hitting issues in such congested periphery. 

For better perception, we visit another community at Gabtoli Beribadh City Colony in Dhaka. There, we observe how houses can be designed, allowing light and air even in small spaces and we learn from their wonderful experiences. The community visit was a crucial part of this whole process. It gives the Korail community an inspiration of living in healthy settlements together and community knowledge exchange creates a future visualization of what community housing could be in Korail.

Keeping this enthusiastic energy, we form a cooperative group in Korail. The community makes models to show the dream design of their homes and to assess the costs where we incorporate various techniques to make the houses well-lit and airy. The community then shares design ideas with models and learns from each other.

In another session, the community identified various issues within their living environment through a mapping workshop while also documenting the settlement conditions of each family. This process enabled us to identify the households in the most vulnerable conditions and assess readiness to begin construction. Continuing the process, we established a savings group within the community comprising 20 families to support house construction, based on shared priorities and needs.

Funds disbursed through the savings group are provided to households partly as an interest-free loan and partly as a grant. Households repay 75% of the total project cost as an interest-free loan in the saving group, while the remaining 25% is covered as a grant. In addition, households contribute 2% of the total project cost as a maintenance fee to support the savings group. The loan repayments collected through the savings group remain within the community, allowing the group to build shared wealth and support other households or undertake future collective initiatives together.

For the implementation part, we design homes based on current conditions and uses (such as kitchen and living space), incorporating various strategies to reduce heat. Since hot air can not pass through the space, our main focus was how to improve internal air circulation. We begin our work in two ways in this process. One process is followed when a family wants to re-imagine their home completely from the ground up. Another process is when certain modifications are made to the house to ensure proper light and air passing. Once the design is provided and mutual opinions with the house owners are exchanged to a decision, we begin the construction work. From choosing labours to purchasing material, family members get full engagement with the whole making process. So, instead of being limited to just building houses; a sense of unity, new ideas, and beautiful relationships develop among us.

Outputs:

• Community engagement is the first key to change positive impact in a community where people involve and work for changes. Various engaging activities like workshops, meetings and exhibitions allow people to connect with each other and that’s how the community can decide what and how they want their rights.
• Creating awareness can create the urgency to change negative practice within the community. Proper knowledge and realization make people aware of their conditions that lead to unhealthy living situations. Once the community can figure out the issue, they can change it together. Thus they make their own powerhouse. 
• Being a thoughtful and careful community is a power source for any kind of change. Implementing healthy community housing can be a smooth journey when people will accept the change and participate with having the proper concept of it. Several brainstorming activities can cheer up the team for thinking out of the box and suggest each other.  
• Other community knowledge exchange is a beautiful way of being inspired and seeing good examples of community activities. Sometimes people get used to living unhealthy lives and don’t even realize it. That’s where another good example can change the perspective of living in a good and healthy one.
• Better settlement is a right to all the people in the country and this will be possible when people from the community will raise the bar and work together. Having proper ventilation, open spaces, greeneries, collective activities can light up society and over all living conditions. 
• Building networks plays a vital role in future progression of collective housing. Different communities can build a network and exchange knowledge, their experiences and additional learning they can add. Moreover an empowered community can uplift another and that’s how we can ensure healthy living among the city.

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