Ashoka
Introduction
Enny Soekoer utilizes low-cost technology to provide environmentally-sound housing alternatives for Indonesia's poor.
The New Idea
Enny as a young and committed public entrepreneur is perhaps a greatest asset of her own project. Though the project only started one year ago, it is certain a multitude of poor Indonesians are going to benefit from it. In the long run, the pioneering model Enny is trying to establish might spread to other parts of the country as a viable solution to the chronic housing problem.
The Problem
Providing habitat settlement in an environmentally-sound fashion for the poor is a chronic problem in industrializing Indonesia. Only a very limited number of architects willing to pioneer low-cost housing for the poor.
The Strategy
Enny Soekoer is providing technologies for low-income earners to construct low-cost houses that meet the important basic requirements such as ventilation, sanitation, and flexibility. Yabaka, the organization which she works with, helps the lower classes of Semarang save money on a monthly basis. Yakaba uses this money to collectively purchase land on the fringes of the city, using good contacts with the regional and municipal planning authorities. Soekoer designs the units to provide adequate decent shelter while allowing maximum flexibility for the family to develop the house as income permits. typical plot is 96 square meters, and the low-income housing that Enny is designing is typically a 3-room, untreated bamboo frame affair. The fact that the bamboo is untreated makes it far cheaper, but it also presumes that the family, once in place, will work at upgrading the facility. The concept is specifically providing adequate, decent shelter to begin with and allowing maximum flexibility for the family to develop the house as income permits.
The Person
With her degree in architecture from Diponegoro University, Central Java, Enny Soeker chose to enter the pioneering field of appropriate technology rather than the profitable route of conventional architects. She also goes beyond the area of the appropriate technology specialist in her direct involvement in the community development.