Faces and Forces of Development

SAFINA'S HOME

Safina, a thirty-two year old woman, a housewife and mother of four children is a native of the Chatorkhand Village, located in the Ghizer district of the Northern Areas of Pakistan. The winters in her home area are severe. Before she learned about BACIP interventions, one of Safina's major responsibilities used to be to fetch backbreaking loads of fuel wood every day from the farmlands to use for cooking and heating purposes at her home. In addition to her husband and children, there are six other family members, including in-laws, who live in her home. Given the demand in her house for a large supply of firewood, much of her time used to be spent collecting the wood.

Safina's house is a traditional mud-timber house with an open hole in the roof for ventilation purposes. The firewood that Safina collected was burned inside the poorly ventilated house and badly insulated house for cooking and heating purposes. Due to the continuous smoke and lack of fresh air, the children, constantly suffered from coughs and eye infections. The children would sometimes urinate in their bedding, causing the stuffy and cold home to smell worse. The urination also led to unhygienic conditions that had consequences on the family's health. Even though the family had productive agricultural land and access to a relatively nutritious food supply, Safina's health suffered with her constant fatigue from fetching loads of firewood. The darkness in her house with cold, damp air, smoke and dust did not help the situation either.

View of a house whose owner has adopted a number
of home improvement ideas put forth by BACIP. On
the roof of the house a BACIP designed storm window
is seen covering the traditional smoke hole. The window
can be opened to let in fresh air in the summer and can
be shut in winter to prevent heat from escaping.

One day Safina participated in a road show presented by the Building and Construction Improvement Programme (BACIP), a project of Aga Khan Planning and Building Serwhere and was intrigued to learn more about BACIP house improvement products. In a quest for further information, she participated in a BACIP field trip to a neighboring village where she witnessed the direct impact of BACIP products in homes that resembled hers. Despite her husband's small cash income, Safina soon invested in a BACIP smokeless and fuel-efficient stove with a water warming facility. She bought these products from a local entrepreneur that coordinated through BACIP. As a result, her house was immediately free from smoke and warm water was readily available for her domestic chores. Her children had fewer respiratory problems and eye infections.

The following month, Safina bought a roof hatch window from a BACIP bona fide entrepreneur and closed the open roof hole of her traditional house. The roof-hatch window increased sunlight in her home and also served to ventilate the house better. She was able to operate the shutter as she wished, so that the dust from the outside did not get into her house constantly. At the same time she could open the windows when the house needed some air. Keeping the window closed, as required, was also more thermo-efficient because the warmth was more easily retained inside the house. After installing BACIP house-improvement products, the household's fuel-wood consumption dropped dramatically by nearly 60%. Safina was able to devote more time to her children instead of collecting large quantities of fuel wood.

An initiative of Aga Khan Foundation U.S.A and
its volunteers in communities across America

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