Open Architecture Network

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

Ambedkar Nagar, a village compromising of Dalits (landless laborers), located adjacent to a backwater in Cuddalore, has been selected as an appropriate site to provide a community center. This village, while it did not sustain heavy loss of life during the tsunami, has victims of trauma, and has suffered loss of livelihood due to salt water flooding of leased farms. The tsunami was responsible for loss of their crops, which were due for harvesting. These villagers were not handed much retribution from the government or by the other NGO's that have been working in this region post tsunami. The project outcome involves the building of a community center. Using the Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) method, Architecture for Humanity and the League of Education and Development (LEAD) assisted the community in identifying their needs, evaluating the grants available, and created a program for design, Architecture for Humanity developed the design based upon the program, and LEAD has engineered and built it. Tied into the program is a Balwadi i.e. a children's day care center. Grants were received by the community for this through Terre Des Hommes, Germany. The Balwadi funds untilized toward the kitchen, and the multipurpose room.

The community center has a large multipurpose hall, which also serves as a tuition center and a Balwadi kitchen, a play court, a woman's office, a training room housing a few computers, a library, a sheltered rope making area, and toilets. The community center serves as a shelter for the villagers during extreme weather, when their mud and thatch houses prove inadequate. The community participated in the construction of this project. Elements of the community center, such as mud boundary walls, palm fences, corridors with thatch roofs that were built by the community in their traditional methods so as to foster an ownership of the community center, to celebrate their local building traditions, and to ensure communal maintenance. LEAD, in addition to building the project, continues its relationship with the community by creating women's groups and micro lending programs. The women were placed in charge of the community center.