Families on the chars of Rajibpur upazila in Kurigram, who lose their homes to floods and river erosion almost every monsoon, are moving into houses raised on concrete pillars. The Center for Zakat Management (CZM) built the flood-resilient homes in Kodalkathi and Mohonganj unions. In the first phase 12 extremely poor families were included; ten have moved in and two houses are still under construction.
The houses do not sit on the ground. Standing on concrete pillars, they let floodwater flow underneath. Walls and roofs are green corrugated iron sheet, with a veranda in front and a wooden staircase. Each house has two rooms of 12 by 10 feet, enough for a family of at least four, and a solar panel on the roof.
The open space under each raised house has become useful. Besides keeping the home safe in an ordinary flood, families use it to keep livestock, firewood and household goods. The houses were built by local masons who know the soil and weather of the chars.
Each house stands on the beneficiary family's own land. CZM says it chose households that had no home or none fit to live in, using participatory rural appraisal (PRA) to assess local conditions.
Md Ismail Hossain, AGM of CZM's Insaniyat department, said the organisation saw that homes in Kurigram's chars were damaged or washed away by floods every year, which led to the plan for flood-resilient houses. He said the homes were built with financial support from a corporate group.
Meherunnesa, who received one of the houses, said that after years of losing her home to floods, putting up a new roof again was beyond people like her; the new house has given her family the security to sleep without worry.
On the erosion-prone chars of the north, the monsoon puts livestock and stored crops at risk along with the homes themselves. The organisers hope the raised design can be used on other flood-prone chars of the country. The report appeared in Samakal's Chaturango section.
Source: Samakal
Comments
(0)