Here is my account of the experience working with the team on the Khairpur project and what I learned from it:

This spring on my trip to Karachi I planned to meet the Developments in Literacy (DIL) team in Khairpur to pass on the sustainable building practices that I have learned while working with the Heritage Foundation in Karachi over the past two years. DIL, an organization that aims to provide life-changing education to impoverished children across Pakistan, had lost three of their schools in Khairpur in the 2022 floods, and I wanted to help in the rebuilding effort, and try to make the rebuilding effort as environmentally sustainable as possible so as to not contribute to the climate change which is worsening the floods in Pakistan. I am a junior in high school in New York and I had flown into Karachi the night before the meeting. I attempted to wash off the jet lag, and put on a collared shirt to look professional, and with my presentation in hand; I was confident. I was looking forward to virtually meeting the three engineers and construction managers in Khairpur to display my knowledge and impress them with the importance of using sustainable local materials and floodproofing the new school buildings so they will survive future floods.

When my zoom screen opened, I saw a room filled with 10-12 adults, representatives from DIL, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and Naz Old Boys Welfare Association (NOWA) had joined the DIL team in their work on the project. Despite having the glitchy connection, they were all committed to the discussion, constantly reacting to my ideas and suggesting their own, but most of all they were glad. Glad to talk with someone new and someone who cared, they had been concocting ad hoc solutions to increasing challenging building conditions. I was humbled by their seriousness, floored by the extent of their struggles, and saddened by the lack of resources that were available to the team.

The engineers were unsure of how to reinforce the schools against the floods. Since two of the schools foundations were already in place, I brought up the idea of using aquifer wells around the schools, openings dug into the ground and filled with permeable materials such as gravel that absorb floodwater and replenish groundwater reserves, but soon learned aquifer wells would probably not attain the desired effect in Khairpur. Water is only 2 feet below the soil, and the once fertile region has suffered appalling environmental degradation. Sandwiched by unlined irrigation canals that constantly seep water into the land and frequently subject to floods in the rainy season: the soil degradation due to rising salinity in Khairpur is severe and waterlogged land makes construction and preservation of buildings a constant struggle. When I switched to explaining the importance of building the last school on a platform, I was surprised to learn they were already doing that. The regional construction managers told me that they had no choice but to build on platforms and raised concrete blocks because the water consistently rises up the foundations and walls in the whole region during the rainy season. The team was especially concerned with how to flood-proof roofs and walls of the schools and how to prevent the saline water from eating away at foundations and walls. They were desperate for new ideas and really needed help. Having only stayed in Karachi I had not witnessed how severe the environmental degradation was in interior Sindh and how it was impacting people’s lives daily not just during floods. In the meeting I promised the Khairpur team I would help find a solution and started by going back to Ms. Lari and her dedicated team at the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan, who frequently work on sustainable construction projects in the region, explain the dire situation and ask for advice.

They were happy to help, and it turned out they had dealt with similar problems and had found a solution to the problem of soil salinity around buildings. The use of lime-mud bricks instead of concrete in the foundations, raising the building even higher, and then applying coal tar at the plinth level to a big structure will keep water deep underground and unable to push salt up to the surface. Though coal tar is not carbon-neutral, a byproduct of combustion, it’s necessary and accessible making it an ideal cheap building material that can address the water table problem. The engineers at the Heritage Foundation also shared valuable information on using thatched extended roofs composed of layers of bamboo, and leaves to cover the schools from the rain, both sustainable and accessible materials, as well as using lime-mud brick layer on the walls to protect them. These novel locally created techniques such as the idea of thatched sustainable roofs, can be implemented in the buildings with foundations already in the ground.

The fact that the local engineers in Khairpur had already understood the importance of raised foundations, were experimenting with water proofing foundations displays their ingenuity and desire to build sturdy flood-proof schools. The additional water-proofing techniques for the walls and roofs provided by the Heritage foundation were welcomed by the DIL-lead teams in Khairpur and are being implemented as I write this article. The engineers in Khairpur were so happy to learn about them from Yasmin Lari’s team and will be working more closely with that Foundation’s architectural team in the future.

The project really displayed to me the value and currency of knowledge. By finding a way to connect two organizations doing great work in Sindh who hadn’t previously communicated, I was able to help find a possible solution to the pressing issue of keeping schools safe and open for the children who need to be educated. Environmental degradation is not only ruining agricultural livelihoods in Khairpur, it is making homes unsafe due to erosion and it is preventing children from going to school. Everyday people all over interior Sindh are struggling with these challenges and the Heritage Foundation has shown that there are local, sustainable materials that can be used to build and maintain more carbon friendly and human friendly buildings.

Fostering an environment and opportunities where hardworking Pakistanis are able to connect with other innovative and thoughtful Pakistanis and exchange ideas is crucial to finding solutions to problems facing Pakistan, especially climate change. These connections provide value to nations across the world, not just Pakistan, that are trying to meet goals and find solutions to pressing issues such as climate change; there is a tremendous amount of local knowledge that needs to be harnessed and a tremendous desire from the citizens to address their problems. People have to be supported in experimenting with local materials and be able to share good ideas with one another. We can teach each other to change our habits, find collective solutions, and live more sustainably. I went into the meeting expecting to teach the local team superior, greener, building practices and instead they taught me how much they had innovated, how deep their problems were, and how curious and open they were to new knowledge. Working with them has been a humbling and inspiring experience, the enthusiasm with which they do their work is infectious and believe that by connecting more non-profit organizations with one another, locals can create the knowledge bank needed to fix the environmental challenges facing Pakistan because the people who live their are committed to saving their homes, schools and livelihoods.