Unable to source funding for his ideas, Rezwan started with an old computer and $500 of school scholarship money and savings. He had no experience writing grant proposals, but he researched online and wrote emails and proposals to hundreds of organizations. In 2002, four years after founding Shidhulai, he was able to generate the funds to build the first floating school. 

Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha now operates a fleet of floating schools, libraries, health clinics, and playgrounds. Floating training centers with wireless internet teach women and girls new skills, sustainable agriculture, climate change adaptation, and women’s rights. During severe floods, floating farms allow for agricultural impedimenta such as coops for eggs and storage for meat to protect against being washed away. These farms allow landless families to not only feed themselves during the rainy season but also to earn money from crops that would otherwise be underwater.

Shidhulai serves close to 122,000 people in flood-prone areas. Their initiatives allow access to education and information so that those affected by the floods can develop new skills, grow flood-resistant crops, and adapt to extreme conditions. 

In 2019, Rezwan was recognized as one of the 20 Earth Heroes of the world in the book Earth Heroes. His floating school design was exhibited at the “Design with the other 90%” show, organized by Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, the National Design Museum, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Rezwan has served on international advisory committees dealing with education, technology, and the environment and regularly presents at global conferences on his innovations, climate change, green energy, and education. 

We had an opportunity to speak with Mohammed Rezwan on our podcast, Social Design Insights. Listen to the episode below.

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Other projects include Irori Ishinomaki, a business café that provides a gathering space for micro-entrepreneurs and those involved in the reconstruction. It features free wi-fi and complimentary refills on coffee all day! Ishinomaki Voice is a free magazine written in the voice of local residents. It comments on both the history and culture of Ishinomaki, as well as the future Ishinomaki residents envision. In recent years, the group has facilitated several tours and visits for students and those potentially interested in moving to the rebuilt city.

These projects, along with many others, represent a forward-thinking approach to disaster – one that doesn’t limit its aspirations to rebuilding, but asks how disaster can be a catalyst for a completely new vision.

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The Foundation’s post-disaster reconstruction work began in the aftermath of the 2005 earthquake in Swat province. It developed an emergency shelter called “Karavan Ghar” made from debris of collapsed houses and local materials, and were built by community members, university volunteers and local artisans under the direction of the Foundation.

Beyond their relief work, the Foundation has worked widely in all forms of sustainable development, including developing a remarkable smokeless “chulha”, an earthen stove, which can be built by unskilled labor for only $7. With her dictum of ‘Low Cost/Zero Carbon/Zero Waste’ and using locally sourced sustainable materials such as earth, lime and bamboo, Yasmeen Lari devised Barefoot Social Architecture (BASA). BASA incorporates tenets of social and cultural justice, helping communities achieve self-reliance through participatory processes – co-building and co-creation of households by themselves. Through BASA, Heritage Foundation has provided humanitarian assistance to 840,000 persons in over 8 years.

The Foundation has also worked towards the conservation of much of Karachi’s cultural heritage, as well as the historical district of Khairpur and the ancient site of Kot Diji, by advocating for safeguarding several hundred structures in poor conditions.

Yasmeen has gone on to win several accolades, including the 2023 RIBA Royal Gold Medal, the 2020 Jane Drew Prize and Pakistan’s third-highest Civilian Honor, the Sitara-e-Imitiaz

For more on Yasmeen’s extensive and ground-breaking career, please join us on Social Design Insights. We had a chance to talk with Yasmeen in Episode 16, where she detailed her journey and her strategies for building a more resilient Pakistan. Listen to the episode below.

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During his PhD research, Tucker traveled extensively in Tajikistan and Central Asia and was surprised and concerned by the seismic vulnerability of the buildings he found there. After his return to California, he began to consider how advanced mitigation strategies could be thoughtfully translated and put to use in the most vulnerable parts of the world.

GeoHazards International now champions a safer future for all, in which people are better protected and prepared. It equips people across the spectrum to sustain and scale safer practices. Its expert team advises decision makers so they can anticipate and tackle disaster threats. Its programs share information that is clear, relevant to daily life, and actionable. Local team members invest in community relationships, which enable steady progress.

Engagement happens at all angles. One focus is resilience of schools and hospitals, ensuring that key facilities will withstand disaster events. Some programs have trained engineers, masons and other professionals to create a safer built environment. Village-level interventions have included retrofitting vulnerable schools and conducting community outreach programs. Top-down solutions have included creating risk-informed action plans, creating structural engineering programs with universities, and helping to draft national policy and regulations that consider natural hazards risk.

Using evidence-based scenarios, GHI has mapped potential earthquake disasters to stimulate action to prepare. They calculate the percentage of damage in regions of a city based on likely shaking and local building types. They describe what life would be like in the city immediately after a disaster as well as one week, one month, and one year later. The hope is that by galvanizing public attention, leaders and individuals will be incentivized to act in advance of a disaster.

GHI has been an innovator in the field of disaster resilience for decades, chiefly because they approach it holistically: past, present and future.

We were fortunate enough to speak with Brian Tucker and Kenneth Kornberg of GHI on Social Design Insights. Listen to the episode below.

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Communitere now spans three continents: Haiti Communitere, Philippines Communitere, Greece Communitere and Nepal Communitere. In each case they operate out of a belief that survivors aren’t passively waiting for help, but instead are actively engaged in constructing their own futures. The offices embed themselves within a community, providing a space for residents to create their own plans. They also provide tools and resources for community members to execute their own recovery. Providing a lending tool bank may seem a simple thing. However, within the context of a disaster zone, most ordinary citizens have lost their tools and heavy equipment is in short supply. Large NGOs might have plenty of equipment, but they’re inclined to use it to execute their own projects. A tool library allows survivors intent on participating in their own reconstruction to borrow the necessary tools and equipment, creating community, empowerment, and speeding recovery.

Each Communitere office is different and its programming is designed around the requests of a community. Communitere does not start building without specific requests for action. To understand the particular needs of a recovering community, Communitere typically hosts a variety of community meetings and workshops where survivors are encouraged to make their needs known. Moreover, the offices are set up so that the community can take over their management, keeping it going as-is or transitioning it into what is most needed, such as an educational facility or accelerator for entrepreneurs.

As an example, Haiti Communitere hosts approximately 7,000 Haitians per year and provides the following services:

• Internet Café
• Tool Lending Library
• Makerspace
• 3D Printing & Innovation labs
• Co-working offices
• Training facilities

Communitere’s innovative model approaches disaster reconstruction from the bottom up, involving survivors from day one. Their work shows how recovery practices rooted in dignity translate across the world.

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Post-disaster, NGOs and government agencies often rebuild in ways that are not culturally appropriate or even earthquake resistant. By mobilizing people, money, and technology to transform systems for regulating, financing, building, and improving houses around the world, Build Change puts resilient communities within reach. 

In addition, the organization places an emphasis on supporting women. Build Change employs women trainers and engineers, leading to an increase in the number of mentors and role models for girls, while also working alongside female homeowners, brickmakers, builders, and other community members to encourage female participation in resilient construction practice. 

Using simple, culturally appropriate, and cost-effective retrofitting techniques, Build Change has overseen the construction or reconstruction of more than 90,000 homes and schools, often revitalizing entire neighborhoods in Haiti, China, Nepal, and around the world. 

In Nepal, Build Change has used a combination of technologies (such as AI, ML and VR) to advise the government on resilient housing policy, as well as directly support the recovery of rural communities following a 2015 earthquake. As of 2021, Build Change’s work in Nepal had resulted in more than 150,000 safer people.

Throughout 2020, Build Change piloted a comprehensive technology platform to enable housing evaluators and contractors to digitally assess at-risk homes and strengthen them on behalf of the Government of Colombia’s Casa Digna, Vida Digna program. By the end of 2020, even amidst the pandemic, more than 3,500 homes had been assessed.

In 2021 Build Change released its flagship publication, The Build Change Guide to Resilient Housing: An Essential Handbook for Governments and Practitioners, which consolidates Build Change’s experience developing home improvement programs in 24 countries since 2004.

We had a chance to talk to Dr. Hausler to hear her thoughts on how to make a more resilient world on Social Design Insights. Listen to the episode below.

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Community and environmental resilience work means planning for acute disasters, such as hurricanes, as well as considering slow-change impacts such as sea level rise, urbanization, and economic inequity.  GCCDS addresses both aspects of resilience with the understanding that working on day-to-day issues such as storm-water management, strong and affordable housing, and community-driven decision-making will prepare a community for acute threats as well.

GCCDS works with historic, low-income communities that have been impacted by expanded flood zones, assisting with mitigation to houses and landscape projects to increase the capacity of flood ways with tidal marsh restoration.  Such projects not only increase infrastructure resilience but also lead to more community environmental stewardship.

As the arc of recovery continues, the work of the Studio evolves. Its portfolio now includes projects focused on long-term sustainability and community prosperity. GCCDS has emerged as a national leader in best practices for its community-driven approach.  Through direct and continuous contact with the community over the long term, the Studio has functioned not only as a place to gather design assistance, but also as a genuine community hub. For example, the Studio hosts weekly gatherings, called “Friday Morning Serial” with a variety of community leaders telling the story of their work, so people can gather, chat and learn.

Since 2017, GCCDS has expanded its multidisciplinary studio staff to include a public health professional in addition to the planners, landscape and building architects in order to more effectively address the social determinants of health.

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Geohazards International shares their groundbreaking methods for disaster mitigation.

GeoHazards International is a Curry Stone Foundation Social Design Circle Honoree. Read more about it here.

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Mohammed Rezwan grew up in this region and witnessed friends and relatives being denied access to education during monsoons. In 1998, with $500 of savings, he founded the non-profit Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha to bring education and improved livelihoods to rural communities in northwestern Bangladesh.

Mohammed Rezwan of Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha details his designs for floating communities.

Mohammed Rezwan is a Curry Stone Foundation Social Design Circle Honoree. Read more about it here.

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Yasmeen Lari details the growth of resilient architecture and sustainable development in Pakistan.

The Heritage Foundation of Pakistan is a Curry Stone Foundation Social Design Circle Honoree. Read more about it here.

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