5) Description of housing product/service offering: Target population is the low income settlements in urban areas and rural population living in small and medium sized villages. More than 70% of the country's population live in these settlements. Preparing maps and docuemnting existing physical characteristics - housing, street patterns, infrastructure and facilities - and in the preparation carrying out workshops to train community organization members in the process Monitoring construction works in selected neighborhoods and providing the people with planning and design advises including house plans, construction details and cost estimates to them. Good construction practices are communicated through cable tv, leaflets and through other local mediums Training programs to build skills of construction and planning among the community members. This includes workshops and on job training to masons training of fresh (polytechnic)graduates of engineering in practical construction and surveying, and community workshops (1-2 months) for youth in documenting physical development works, natural environment and social features. Network of schools are organized for savings that are used to improve school facilities and to purchase stationaries, etc. in bulk. Through these schools, children are educated about good environmental practices and the staffs help in distribution of leaflets and good construction advises to the local population. This is a ground work that will lead to inclusion of mapping of areas physical and environmental characteristics as a part of school coursework.

6) Description of innovation: This program provides tools like maps, house plans, cost estimates and trains the people (users) to use these tools and to make the tools themselves, for carrying out constructions that apply appropriate and affordable technology, helps the users to pool resources and work together, lobby with the government organizations for carrying out necessary development works, and helps in regularization of the settlements. The program also creates a cadre of para professional construction service providers in the low income settlements. No other organization in Pakistan is involved in building construction expertise and planning and construction tools like these for the low income communities. Government schemes provide small plots through balloting and can be occupied or constructed upon only after they are developed because of which low income people settle in undeveloped illegal subdivisions, and lobby with government for development of services and builds their own house incrementally. In such settlements, construction advises and services are provided by low skilled masons and unskilled construction block manufacturers. Government and private training and service providing institutions do not find it viable to create human resources and tools for the low income communities. NGOs like OPP and Saiban are involved in lending to construction yard owners for improvement of building materials and for supply of land at affordable prices.

7) Benefits to clients: Technical Training Resource Center (TTRC) is Karachi based and carried out model building action research in Orangi, Karachi and extends the research through training and advises to the low income communities through their community organizations. Community based organizations (CBO) are key partners. They are the clients through whom services are made available to the user groups. The staffs trained by us form the core outreach group in that area. The CBO implement the program and contact us for backstop support (training, planning, estimation preparation, etc.). They monitor construction works in the area, make the area development plans, lobby with the government organizations for services and create a link between the trained masons, para professional construction service providers and individual households. During the program implementation construction service providers like masons, contractors and government officials also become partners and contact us directly for services and to help in improving construction services provision for the individual households. Local mediums like cable tv operators and school teachers and other activists are also employed to reach out to the individual households and provide them with construction advise and tools.

8) Key operational partnerships: NGOs like Orangi Pilot Project (OPP) that have a network of community groups and organizations are key partners as they help us reach out to a large number of communities. Through OPP we have reached out to more than 60 CBOs and through these to 25-30 more so far. OPP has also been instrumental in helping us access initial funding from Homeless International that has been converted to an endowment. The process to build partnerships with engineering and construction professionals and companies have also started and towards the end of the year, we expect two to three to start providing some services to the low income communities in Karachi.

9) Financial model: Through initial funding of about US$8500 from Homeless International, an endowment has been created to support core office expenses. The salaries for staff is paid from service charges and donations e.g. Water Aid. The extension operation including training is paid for by the requesting community group or from their network support. The operations is kept low key, especially the model building action research to create extra leverage. TTRC has also developed a tier and girder manufacturing yard that will provide quality materials and earn a profit for the organization. The yard will require atleast three years to go to scale and break even.

          • Costs as percentage of income: 25%

          • Financing: 25% is financed from services charges, 20% comes from the endowment and the rest is raised through fund raising from international and local donors. In the future, the proposed building materials production yard is expected to contribute 20-30% of the costs and the plan is to create other income earning enterprises in the construction and land development field in the low income settlments for sustainable self financing.

10) Effectiveness

          • Project outcomes: TTRC has benefitted more than 80 communities and about 50,000 households through its work in Orangi, Karachi and other communities in urban and rural Pakistan. Indirectly, the work of mapping, surveying and construction advise is reaching out to more than 250,000 households (5 times the number of direct beneficiary). The benefits are in the form of improved house construction and infrastructure (water supply and sewerage lines, roads, etc.)and community facilities (schools, clinics, etc.). The medium term benefits is the creation of a cadre of construction service providers and quality construction materials producers. It is also in the form of citizens, including activists and school children, informed about good construction practices and environmental improvements

          • Number of clients in past year: 20,000 households directly benefitted from the program last year and about 5 times this number indirectly benefitted.

          • Percentage of clients that are poor or marginalized: 100

          • Potential demand: Total market size in Pakistan for TTRC services is 13.7 million households in the rural areas and 5.2 million households in the urban areas. This is based on a population size of 160 million of which the urban proportion is 32.5%. The total rural population and 70% of urban population requires these services, because the Government and private sector caters to about only 30% of the urban market. The idea can also be adopted by other developign countries where the poor and the working class can not access or afford professional services for construction and build houses, infrastructure and services incrementally or piecemeal.

11) Scaling up strategy

          • Stage of the initiative: Scaling Up stage.

          • Expansion plan: The target is to directly benefit 5% of the population in 20 districts of Pakistan i.e. about 200,000 households (HH). This means accelerating the pace from 20,000 HH last year to 50,000 per year at an average for the next 3 years. TTRC's plan is to tap 4-5 networks other than the OPP network to gain access to the communities, one of them is Ashoka fellows in Pakistan, and the others are Rural Support Program Network (RSPN) and Aga Khan's NGO Resource Center network organizations. Tapping means training and providing construction and mapping advisory services to about 250 communities over the next 3 years. In addition, about 50,000 HH will be reached through local cable tv, radio programs, seminars, schools and activists.

12) Origin of the initiative: Mohammad Sirajuddin, an Ashoka fellow started the program in 1994. Siraj learnt about housing construction from OPP and then entered the Polytechnic for diploma. He found that many of the polytechnic graduates (majority from low income households)learn civil engineering but moves out of the field due to lack of practival learning opportunities. He also observed that construction of houses, infrastructure and community facilities in the area are of poor quality because of lack of technical expertise. The house construction is poor because the masons are not skilled and owners can not afford engineer's advise, the infrastructure and facilities are of poor quality because Government engineers do not adequately supervise the work and people have no knowledge of good construction practices. Siraj started with mapping and construction advise training to communities & built upon it

Contact Information:
Mohammad  Sirajuddin
Ashoka Fellow
Director
Technical Training Resource center
(Not for Profit enterprise)
Plot No M 294. Sector 11 1/2, Mujahid Colony, Ghaziabad, Orangi Town, Karachi
Pakistan
Tel: 92-333-2358301
Email: fashn2000@yahoo.com