Eco-friendly Shelters
With the support of SELAVIP Foundation, GREEN facilitated construction of 30 bamboo-based houses for tribal community during 2016.
The overall purpose of constructing houses for tribal community members is to assure a safe and secured living for the houseless tribal people. GREEN facilitated the construction of low cost houses with locally available materials like bamboos and lantana camara varieties.
The members of tribal community live in 12 remote villages in Kurangani hills located in Western Ghats of India. They normally construct houses with mud, grass, dry wood and stones. The houses are too small to accommodate a single family. These houses are not safe for the family and they could be attacked by poisonous creatures at any time. Being hunters and gatherers of food items for meeting both ends in life, they were unable to build a safe house for themselves. Hence, GREEN took up the initiative.
GREEN started its initiative with a participatory approach. It approached the tribal community members in their own villages and had discussions with them and evolved the concept of construction of eco-friendly houses made up of locally available materials. GREEN had detailed discussions on the roles and responsibilities of beneficiaries. It evolved a plan of action involving the beneficiaries. The members of tribal community broadly accepted the construction of houses with bamboo stems and wooden barks.
In addition to having fruitful discussions with target beneficiaries, i.e., tribal community members, the staff team of GREEN had dialogues with members of Panchayats in the Tribal region. The Panchayat leaders and local representatives supported our initiative and provided with approval for construction of bamboo houses.
The members of tribal community identified the labourers from within their own community and took decisions collectively on the rates and procurement of construction materials. The beneficiaries shared the cost of transportation of construction materials to the concerned sites.
The houses constructed with free air flow with window openings and the inner sides were covered by native mats and carpets. The underneath space of each houses was provisioned for livestock rearing like, chicken, goats, etc. As part of climate change response, GREEN focussed on low carbon techniques, carefully avoiding the usage of materials like plastic sheets, tin boards, vinyl, polymers, synthetic materials, etc. We constructed 30 houses in two phases.
Moreover, the entire tribal community were supported by provision of GREEN toilets and solar lamps by GREEN as a special and innovative effort.
