For the first time ever, CR is building homes for slum dwellers.
The pioneering scheme involves initially replacing 16 dilapidated hovels in Dakshineswar, the test-bed for so many CR projects. In their place sturdy one-room homes are being constructed with low brick walls, metal poles and steel roofs – which won’t flood in the monsoon or blow down when a cyclone hits.
Woven palm panels will fill the gap between the walls and the roof.
Work started this month and should be complete in March.
The initiative comes from CR’s Swiss-German support group, Stiftung Calcutta Rescue, and is being funded by the Karuna Trust and ABZ, a housing association in Zurich.
It is hoped to expand the scheme, after the first group of homes is finished, to replace around 60 homes in the slum.
The lucky residents getting new houses are very excited about the prospect as they could never afford to improve their homes in this way.
Isabelle Hug from Stiftung CR was out in Kolkata this month and was able to meet them and see the start of construction work.
Isabelle said: “On my first visit to Dakshineswar in 2017 I thought ‘this is the Middle Ages’. Now, thanks to CR, the residents have water, toilets, electricity and concrete paths between their huts. But their homes are still at risk of collapsing in the next cyclone, so the idea came up to find funds to build more substantial homes. The first eight lucky families are now in temporary tents waiting to move in – and their smiles say it all.”
