More asian collective housing case studies are up!

Updated

Cases documented by our partner ACHR

The Asian Coalition for Housing Rights is a coalition of Asian professionals, NGOs and community organizations committed to finding ways to make change in the countries where their work is rooted and to promote the access to affordable and adequate housing and the production of inclusive cities.

Documenting collective housing case studies is an important part of ACHR's work. Here are a few new cases now available online:

  1. Bhaura, located outside the small town of Kalaiya in southern Nepal, is a small community of 30 families that successfully reconstructed their houses on the same land through collaborative efforts with a local youth group, women's cooperatives, the municipality, and other allies.

  2. Borei Keila stands as an iconic land-sharing project in Cambodia. The residents of a large inner-city squatter settlement skillfully negotiated with the government to avoid resettlement, and stay in a smaller portion of the land they occupied, in apartment blocks financed by the private company that developed the remaining land commercially.

  3. Kampung Tongkol, situated in Jakarta (Indonesia), was one of the numerous canal-side settlements facing the threat of eviction. Its residents chose to challenge their fate and took proactive measures to upgrade their settlement, in order to safeguard their right to stay and demonstrate their capability to act as responsible stewards of the river.

  4. Kampung Akuarium, a settlement in Jakarta that faced eviction and demolition in 2016 but was reconstructed as a 'vertical village' on the same land it once occupied, thanks to the residents' determination, and support from the city-level urban poor network along with resourceful community organizers and architects. Akuarium also marks the first instance in Indonesia where such a project is managed by a housing cooperative, rather than governmental bodies or developers!

You can also find these compelling case studies also on our databse cohabitat.io : Bhaura, Borei Keila, Kampung Tongkol and Kampung Akuarium.

A special note of gratitude to Lumanti, Gugun, Dian, and Tom for these inspiring stories and wonderful photographs!