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Faces of Change

Safina's Home

Safina is a 32-year old housewife and mother of four children living in Chatorkhand Village, located in the Ghizer district of the Northern Areas of Pakistan. The winters in her home area are very severe. Part of Safina's daily routine is the backbreaking chore of fetching loads of fuel wood to use for cooking and heating purposes in her home. In addition to her husband and children, there are six other family members, including in-laws, who live in her home. Given the demand for a large supply of firewood, much of her time used to be spent collecting the wood.

Safina's house is a traditional mud-timber house with an open hole in the roof for ventilation purposes. The firewood that Safina collects is burned inside the poorly ventilated and badly insulated house for cooking and heating. Due to the continuous smoke and lack of fresh air, the children constantly suffered from coughs and eye infections. The young children sometimes urinate in bed, causing the stuffy and cold home to smell worse, and leading to unhygienic conditions on the family's health. Even though the family had productive agricultural land and access to a relatively nutritious food supply, Safina's health suffered with her constant fatigue from fetching loads of firewood. The darkness in her house with cold, damp air, smoke and dust did not help the situation either.

One day Safina participated in a road show presented by the Building and Construction Improvement Programme (BACIP), a project of Aga Khan Planning and Building Services.  At the exhibition learned about home improvements that helped to control smoke, provide better ventilation, increase lighting, improve insulation, and control leakage and dampness.  There were energy efficient products available such as fuel efficient stoves, water warming facilities and solar geysers. Other improvements involved earthquake-resistant construction.

	View of a house whose owner has adopted a number of home improvement ideas put forth by BACIP. On the roof of the house a BACIP-designed storm window is seen covering the traditional smoke hole. The window can be opened to let in fresh air in the summer and can be shut in winter to prevent heat from escaping.
	The whole family gathers to install a new, energy-saving roof-hatch window.
	The BACIP products most in demand are the smoke-free stove and water warming facility.

Intrigued to learn more about these house improvement products, she participated in a BACIP field trip to a neighboring village where she witnessed the direct impact of BACIP products in homes that resembled hers. The women exchanged their experiences on how the products dramatically improved health, hygiene and sanitation in the home.

Despite her husband's small cash income, Safina soon invested in a BACIP smokeless and fuel-efficient stove with a water warming facility. She bought these products from a local entrepreneur that coordinated through BACIP. As a result, her house was immediately free from smoke and warm water was readily available for her domestic chores. Her children had fewer respiratory problems and eye infections.

The following month, Safina bought a roof hatch window from a bona fide BACIP entrepreneur and closed the open roof hole of her traditional house. These improvements had many positive effects, especially for women and children who spent the most hours at home. The amount of firewood burned decreased by half.  In parallel, the amount of smoke generated into the living, sleeping and communal kitchen areas of the house was reduced. The roof-hatch window increased sunlight in her home and also served to ventilate the house better. She could operate the shutter as she wished, so that the dust from the outside did not get into her house (as it had constantly before). Yet, she could open the windows when the house needed some air. Keeping the window closed, when needed, was also more thermo-efficient as the warmth was more easily retained inside the house. After installing BACIP home improvement products, the household's fuel-wood consumption dropped dramatically by nearly 60%. Safina was able to devote more time to her children instead of collecting large quantities of fuel wood.

“ … the visual, physical and emotional impact of a decent home can light the spirit of human endeavor. A proper home can provide the bridge across that terrible gulf between utter poverty and the possibility of a better future.”
-- His Highness The Aga Khan

Having benefited greatly from the changes made around her house, Safina continued to make improvements in her family's living conditions. She soon bought a bedding rack that she could install on one of her walls. She could now store bedding off the dusty ground, keeping it dry and dust free, and air it out daily. The next winter was so comfortable for the family and for Safina in particular. For the first time in memory she was able to sit and enjoy her “dow-dow” soup. During the past fifteen years she had always cooked, but had been unable to sit at peace in a warm place to eat a meal. She now finds time to do some embroidery and spends much more time with her children.

Convinced that other women in her region should also experience the tremendous benefits from these home improvements, she became a volunteer resource person for BACIP and started promoting BACIP products in her village. She even persuaded unemployed men of her village to get training from BACIP. Eventually ten individuals from her village received formal manufacturing training from BACIP. Two of them now manufacture and sell BACIP stoves in their village and neighboring villages. Safina now works as a village-based sales person for BACIP entrepreneurs on a 10% commission and is very active in promoting and selling BACIP products to her own and neighboring villages.

From 1997 to March 2007, BACIP has facilitated the installation and use of 22,993 energy-saving and home improvement products in over 11,000 households in 125 villages.  The product most in demand is the fuel efficient stove, with 11,429 sold since 1999.  Eight percent of the total number of households in northern Pakistan now have a fuel efficient stove.