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UPG & Me: 20 Years of the Graduation Approach | Reflections from Khondaker Hasibul Kabir

One of my earliest encounters with extreme poverty was through BRAC’s Ultra-Poor Graduation (UPG) program. Although I grew up in a village myself and was accustomed to poverty, UPG made me realize what it really means to be extremely poor. As an architect, working with the ultra-poor participants of UPG shaped my future research interest in rural and sustainable architecture. In this sense, UPG helped me experience a transformative graduation from just an architect to an architect of the people – a community architect.

In 2000, after completing my Bachelor’s degree in architecture, I worked in participatory action research projects for developing building-for-safety options in flood-prone rural areas of Bangladesh. It was during this time when I realized that there was a huge dearth of knowledge among architects on the vernacular science of designing rural homesteads and the importance of outdoor spaces in a typical rural homestead. To learn how to design outdoor spaces I did Masters in Landscape Design in 2004. Keen to know more, through the Department of Architecture of BRAC University, I embarked on a journey to Holholia village of Domar, Nilphamari, to work with participants of the CFPR/TUP (Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction/Targeting the Ultra Poor) program, now known as the Ultra-Poor Graduation program. I was advised and supervised by Professor Fuad Hasan Mallick and Dr Imran Matin.

For the ultra-poor in Bangladesh, day-to-day survival is the primary concern of life. From the outside, it may seem that the ultra-poor communities live in the most basic forms of shelters. However, a closer look reveals that the building practices of these communities address sustainability, affordability, and a host of socio-cultural and environmental issues with deeper concern and wisdom than is immediately apparent.

My objective was to better understand rural people and their homesteads—the perceptions and thought process behind designing outdoor spaces and compounds, the concepts of land organization, and the materials used, among other things. In order to truly understand the landscape of the village and its people, I started living in Holholia, in a small neighbourhood called Mozelpara, and was welcomed into the home of two TUP members, Dholi Apa and Shoru Apa. Despite their inability to afford a decent meal for themselves, they would arrange the best possible meal for me, for example, some taki maach with stir-fried potatoes and rice.

A homestead building wall indoors during the dry season. There are no windows in the house. Air and a little light come through leakages in walls and translucent polythene sections. In the building, there is a cooking space and sleeping space through which the cowshed is accessed. A timber yielding, fast-growing tree started to grow spontaneously from the earthen plinth of the building and the family has kept it with care.
An outdoor wall during the dry season — Ms Jalima uses any available materials in its construction, from bamboo, jute rope, tall grasses, rice and wheat straw to polythene, old thin iron sheet, paper, fabric and palm leaves.

Mozelpara was home to the families of six TUP members. I began by documenting everyone’s homes through measured drawings, and the entire neighbourhood joined me in this exercise.

I had no idea that it was possible to engage and work with so many people at once; this is something I learned from my colleagues who were stationed at the BRAC RED research station at Domar to work on the CFPR/TUP program. Actually I learned much more from them. In the early days, I would often accompany the anthropologists and researchers at Domar on their field visits and observe how they would extract valuable insights from local people through conversations and discussions. I was fascinated to see the qualitative research methods like focus group discussions (FGDs) in action.

And it eventually helped me develop my own research method—focus group drawing and discussion (FGDD) and focus group photography and discussion (FGPD). During these discussions, I asked the people of Holholia: if you had the freedom to design your homestead in any way you wanted, without worrying about money or any other constraints, how would you design your home?

We found out that each individual in a household—a boy, a girl, a man, a woman—had different requirements, priorities, and aspirations for the same homestead. Although they were the poorest of the poor, their aspirations were not simply limited to basic needs, and their wish lists were not distinctly different from that of a wealthy individual. Some wanted adequate light and air, some wanted to hear the chirping of birds, and some wanted a private space. We realized that we never really consider any of these requirements when designing rural homesteads, and we never even ask the ultra-poor households how THEY want to design their homes. We simply assume that a basic house will suffice, and that homestead design is the least of their concerns. This was our big takeaway from the UPG experience: freedom to design one’s own spaces heightens aesthetic sensibilities.

Besides this takeaway, we were able to argue that simply providing basic shelter is not enough and rural homesteads need to be designed and built in a collaborative approach along with the people who are meant to inhabit them. In this approach, each household member’s opinions need to be taken into consideration so that they can proudly call the house their home. This is what would be value-adding and sustainable in the long run.

My early experience with UPG participants and their communities also made me see the missed opportunities: rural people are often not aware that they already have access to low-cost, sustainable building materials within their community. They are often guided by preconceived notions of what a non-poor household is supposed to be, for example, a “rich person’s house” is one made of concrete and bricks (i.e., a paka bari) and a mud house (i.e., kacha bari) is a “poor person’s house.”

Instead of simply building concrete units for the ultra-poor without their contribution or participation, we can consider identifying the unique requirements of the homestead and the challenges faced by the communities while living in mud houses. We can equip them with knowledge of cost-effective solutions so that they can find their own housing solutions. This process of collaboration, co-creation and participation can not only provide cost-effective, well-designed housing solutions for the ultra-poor but can also help instil a sense of ownership over their homesteads, while ensuring their dignity is preserved.

Another outdoor wall. A climbing vegetable grows and covers the rooftop. Ms Jalima and her family cut tall grasses grown around the pond and stack them against the wall to dry, ready to be used for repairing buildings.

All these insights profoundly shaped my approach to action research and teaching, and consequently, my life’s goal as an architect of the people of vulnerable communities. Now I prefer to introduce myself as a ‘community architect’.

To me, the most profound aspect of the Graduation Approach is that it instils courage in people who may have thought their fates were sealed to the label of “poverty.” I too, went through this graduation, thanks to my involvement with the program. I now have the courage to live and assimilate with any community I work with – be it in Domar, Korail or Haiti – and learn from the people themselves. In working with people, I learned the breadth and depth of knowledge they have to offer—their insights are so practical, contextual and cost-effective that I now rely on them to provide solutions to complex development challenges. This upside-down approach of having conversations with and learning from people, gaining their insights, and then coming back to the drawing board to design interventions is something I carried forward in my research, academic career and in my practice.


Khondaker Hasibul Kabir is an Assistant Professor of the Department of Architecture, at BRAC University.

“UPG & Me: 20 Years of the Graduation Approach” is an ongoing blog series from BIGD where researchers and practitioners reflect on the impact of the Ultra-Poor Graduation in framing their perspectives in their worldview. Read the first part here, the second part here, the third part here, the fourth part here, the fifth part here, the sixth part here and the seventh part here.

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