Community-Led Housing and Community Space Development
Summary
A group of women formed a savings group and received assistance from architects and other professionals to design and rebuild their homes in an extremely congested environment; children launched their own initiatives including included productive gardening, school renovations, painting, planting, and having fun together.
Target Community
informal settlement dwellers, low income earners
Equity Challenge
Bangladesh has experienced widespread urban housing shortages, with 12 million people living in over 4,500 slums or informal settlements due to internal migration caused by climate change, economic centralization, and other factors. Unplanned housing in these low- income areas is accompanied by poor, unsafe, and costly physical infrastructures compared to other parts of the city. Hundreds of families were displaced to Gaptoli City Colony to make way for a development project.
Approach
Housing and infrastructure development across Dhaka was improved with the help of community groups, an architecture firm, and an NGO. Poor communities were involved in various actions, ranging from community profiling to carrying out small interventions and building new housing in their diverse contexts. These communities took the lead in determining the direction of development interventions.
Scale
Across Gabtoli Beribadh City Colony, Dhaka, BangladeshEquity building blocks
Overview
