A bamboo-clay house earns prestigious Aga Khan award

The house was made by the indigenous materials- bamboo, clay, straw and rope The workers are mainly the village people and the school children. The creative potential of the children was utilized in the design and construction of the two –storied eye-catching building It is located in the remote village of Rudrapur of Barail Upazilla in Dinajpur.

The name of the school is Modern Education and Training Institute (METI) and it was supported by a Bangladeshi NGO, Dipshikha.

This building has been given the prestigious Aga Khan Award for Architecture for 2007.

The building was constructed in 2005 and took only four months. Local craftsman, traditional methods and material were used with innovative twist with pupils, parents and people taking part. The building cost Taka 17000 lac.

Anna Hearing from Australi and Eike Roswag from Germany were the architects. They engaged skill local craftsmen and helped them refine the processes and taught them new techniques.

About 15 students from BUET led by a lecturer from Brac University also worked there to be acquainted with the method.

Stefen Neumann, a civil engineer from Germany arrived at the site after hearing the prize to study the building.

The building is weather friendly as the moister and the heat inside the building are controlled by the clay, straw and bamboo. .

Prodip Tigga, head teacher of METI, received the award last September in Malaysia on behalf of Dipshikha. The Triennial Aga Khan prize for architecture is worth of $500,000.

We congratulate all who were involved in design and construction of the project for getting this prestigious award..

badrud_doza

'Amader Gram'- an IT based NGO is trying to change the faces of villages in Bangladesh

When I heard the name, I was not impressed. ‘Amader Gram’ (Our Village)-so simple a name. I guess that it could be an NGO. Then I was listening to an interview given by the Program Coordinator of Amader Gram to a TV Channel and I am impressed.

Amader Gram is working in the villages based on ICT. One of the main focus of their work is to bring ICT to the villages. They installed computers in simple village homes, trained the village children, collect different data from the villages, form an extensive database of the villages. This data base could be use for multiple purposes- from identifying the resources and problems of the village to registration of birth and death in the villages, extending micro credit facilities to selecting potential areas of investment.

One special project they are working on is the determination of the breast cancer patient in the villages. Women folks are coming to their lady doctors, they are examined and identified and recoded. They are given treatment, data is transferred through internet and the patients are consulted with the foreign experts. All this compilation is done by school educated village children and youths.

Amader Gram is working from 1996. They are working in 20 villages under Bangerhat and Khulna in Bangladesh.

Amader Gram showed us that ICT can be used in the remote villages, can be operated by village children, can connect the village with the distant developing world and can change the face of the village people in an unthinkable way.

This database concept can be taken up by the Government and can be implemented nationwide, if not at a time then phase by phase.

badrud doza