What happened: Yasmeen Lari is an architect who is developing a path to strengthening Pakistan’s rural communities living on the front lines of climate change.
Lari is Pakistan’s first female architect who also ditched a lifetime of multimillion-dollar projects in the megacity of Karachi to develop “pioneering flood-proof bamboo houses.” Details: The few pilot settlements already constructed are credited with saving families from the worst of the catastrophic monsoon flooding that put a third of the country underwater last year. Khomo Kohli, a 45-year-old resident of Pono Colony village, located a few hundred kilometers outside of Karachi said: “We continued to live in them.” He added: “The rest of the residents had to move onto the road where they lived for two months until the water receded.” What you need to know: Lari is campaigning to raise the project to one million houses made from inexpensive local materials, bringing new jobs to the most vulnerable areas. Lari said: I call it a kind of co-building and co-creation because the people have an equal part in embellishing it and making it comfortable for themselves.” More: She added: “I had to find the solution, or find a way by which I could build up the capacities of people so that they could fend for themselves, rather than waiting for outside help.” According to APP News Agency, she said: “My motto is zero carbon, zero waste, zero donor, which I think leads to zero poverty.”
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