Hope Is A Verb - Yasmeen Lari - Zero carbon. Zero waste. Zero poverty.

Episode Date: February 16, 2024

Meet Yasmeen Lari, 'starchitect' turned humanitarian who in the wake of the 2022 floods in Pakistan, vowed to build one million zero-carbon, disaster-resistant homes for displaced families. It's an astounding feat and one that she is bringing to life, thanks to a zero-dollar, zero-charity model. Find out more: https://www.heritagefoundationpak.org/Hf This episode of Hope Is A Verb was hosted by Angus Hervey and Amy Davoren-Rose. The soundtrack for this podcast is "Rain" composed and performed by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠El Rey Miel ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from their album "Sea the Sky." Audio Sweetening by Anthony Badolato- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ai3 Audio and Voice⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. You can contact us at: [e-mail]

Welcome to Season 2 of Hope is a Verb, a podcast that explores what it takes to change the world through conversations with the people that are making it happen. I'm Amy. I'm Gus, and these are the unknown heroes who are mending our planet, stitching together a better future and showing us the best of what it means to be human. Ever since I've been working in the humanitarian field, I find that's the most rewarding work that I could have ever have done. Because somehow everything else I did was for myself, okay, always. I was brought up in absolute luxury.

I had a wonderful life, and I feel I need to atone for that in many ways because I have no right to have had all that with my other people in my country and the state. And so that's the whole thing now. How do I see that I make a difference for them? In 2022, extreme floods put a third of Pakistan underwater. And in the wake of the disaster, architect Yasmin Lowry vowed to build one million homes

for the families who were suddenly displaced. A million homes is a big call, but you only need to spend a few minutes with Yasmin to know that she is more than up for the task. This internationally celebrated starchitect turned humanitarian is empowering communities to rebuild by using Indigenous construction methods and local materials like mud, lime, bamboo and stone. Yasmeen is clear that these are not simply relief shelters

but disaster-resistant homes. And her commitment to creating a sustainable future for the people of her country has inspired her to redesign the whole model of disaster management. This is zero-carbon, zero-waste housing that comes with a zero-dollar price tag. We usually start these conversations by asking our guest about a good news story,

but because Yasmin's flood project had featured in one of our recent newsletters, we were eager for an update. Yasmeen, we've been following your work for a while. Most recently, your commitment to build a million homes in two years after the 2022 floods in Pakistan. Where are things up to? That's a very interesting question because I thought I had it all laid out very well.

I first designed something called a holistic model, which meant that within $150 per family, you could have all the basic facilities, such as one room house, which would be climate resilient. There would be a shared toilet, shared water supply, shared solar light, and of course the chula, the Pakistan earthen stove. And I thought everybody will jump at it.

The state and World Bank and all the rest of them will say, well, fine, let's take it up. Because $150,000 would have got us a million families totally rehabilitated within a couple of years, actually, as I had thought. But it was not to be. So I decided in last March, I thought, well, I've declared 1 million and I'm not getting anywhere because we'd done only about maybe 4,000 families had been rehabilitated with the funding that I could secure and the one that I could put in. So now it's a zero donor model. And that means no money from anybody. And that's doing pretty well, actually, I have to tell you. money from anybody. And that's doing pretty well, actually, I have to tell you.

Do you have any figures or numbers on how that's going on the ground or an indication of where things are at? Yes, we launched the program in April of last year, and we've reached 403,000 families, which is not all houses, but they're all food secure. So that's the first step. which is not all houses, but they're all food secure. So that's the first step. Because see, the problem is not only houses. It's really like starting your life again. So that means that you have to have all the basic facilities. You also have to have measures for mitigating floods. Because in this region, in this area, we keep on having floods every year.

And unless we make people strong enough that they are able to secure themselves or have security where they are and they don't get displaced, whatever you do is not going to be very meaningful. Okay, I want to pick up on this idea of using a zero dollar model to rebuild these communities. Because I mean, this is a pretty revolutionary idea. I knew that your work involved zero carbon and zero waste, but achieving this with zero dollars really takes it to a whole new level. So it's really four zeros, zero carbon, zero waste, zero charity, and it leads to zero poverty. I don't believe in stuff being brought from elsewhere. I don't believe in alien ways of doing things.

I believe there's enough wisdom, ancient wisdom, among people that we have normally ignored because most of us are educated that come and work in these areas and we feel that we know better. But a lot of times I found that there were ways of doing things in these communities that really knew how to work with very restricted resources and still survive. A country like Pakistan is a very good example

where we have about 50% living below the poverty line. So really the resources are not there. So for World Bank and other institutions to come in and think that they should put up these very expensive 300,000 rupee worth of houses doesn't make sense. Because that means bringing in material from elsewhere. That means that local economy will never flourish. That means all the benefits go somewhere else. And that's what's been happening all these years. So what I would like is I'm trying to make use of every resource I can find,

whether it's human resource, their time, their effort, their struggle, or it's natural resource, water, whether it's grass that grows, reeds, and all kinds of things. Then, of course, there's also a lot of waste that exists in the countryside particularly. If I can just make use of all that, then I get a very affordable, very economical construction technique. When you work with these constrained resources, then I think what you do is to start thinking creatively. And that's where I think we need architects to be part of this whole thing. I don't see many architects in the game because they're working for the rich.

Mostly all of us did. That's what we are taught. Okay. I mean, what you're talking about here is an empowerment model. And listening to you, it feels really different to the approach that's been traditionally used by a lot of charities. Can you talk us through exactly how this works? Well, very interesting that you ask this question because I think mostly people think that whatever has been adopted by the UN system or the INGOs, so-called, or NGOs is the right way to go. And over the years, I worked with a lot of

international agencies and I found that the system is not working because when the money comes in, it's given out as charity mostly. And once the money is gone, then that's the end of the program. So there's nothing sustainable about it. Nothing can go on because people are not made self-reliant. So a few years ago, I decided I will not be part of that system. I call it the international colonial charity model that is not working for us. And I decided that I would just find my own way of getting it done. And I found that what I was doing had a long-term impact.

People began to learn, they became self-reliant, and they were able to take care of themselves. How do you create a mindset of self-reliance rather than getting into the circle of waiting for charity? Because that's what the international charity model has done for us. They are displaced, but they are not disabled. Their people have the capacity.

They've survived on their own for so many years, except now the disasters are so acute now. I mean, the intensity is so high of everything that people can't manage anymore. And that's what they need to do. We have to teach them how to manage the disaster. Because my dream is that everybody in my country at least doesn't get displaced. And I can only get it if I make everybody skilled enough and competent enough to be able to build themselves unless they know they are able to save themselves from disasters or protect themselves we'll have the same problem every year again and again okay this is it's pretty radical. It's obviously revolutionary.

And from what you're telling us, transformative as well. You must have gotten so much pushback though. I mean, UN agencies, INGOs, NGOs, I'm sure they don't take kindly to a former architect coming in and saying you're doing it all wrong and you need to do it differently. What's the pushback like? Well, initially when I was doing this kind of work, and of course, my peers, my architectural profession,

I had done some major edifices, if you like, in the cities here. And so everybody was, first of all, they thought I was gone mad or something. I was getting old and losing it. Anyway, it never bothered me then. It doesn't really bother me even if people feel that I've gone a bit mad. Anyway, it never bothered me then. It doesn't really bother me even if people feel that I've gone a bit mad. But the UN system and all are pretty oblivious. They are in their own world because they think they have the money

so they can do everything. Well, money is not everything. And I have to come to the conclusion that if there's less money, the better it is actually. With the floods, we had 33 million people displaced in 2022. Now, where is the money for that kind of people? The 3 million families have to be housed. Who will bring that money?

How will it be spent? How can it be possible? But if you do it with people and make them skilled enough, then they start working. So today my 400,000 families have done only 60,000 houses but they are food secure so they are surviving, they are not hungry. That means that tomorrow now that they've learned they'll be making more houses, they'll be making more structures, they know how to do it. They don't have to wait for anybody to come. Now at this point it probably won't surprise you that Yasmin is no stranger to trailblazing.

She broke through a male-dominated field to become Pakistan's first practicing female architect. And during her 38-year career, gained international recognition for landmark buildings like the Finance and Trade Center in Karachi. for landmark buildings like the Finance and Trade Center in Karachi. So you may be wondering, what made this former stock architect trade skyscrapers for a zero-dollar self-build movement? The answer is both simple and heartbreaking. An earthquake. I want to ask you about the earthquake in 2005.

It hit northern Pakistan, left almost half a million people displaced. And you were retired at that time, but obviously your retirement didn't last very long. Why was that event such a turning point? I mean, you didn't have any experience in disaster management. So what happened there? What did it stir up in you? I don't know, Gus. It was, you know, like, I think in a sense, I find that I was very lucky to have experienced something like that because it doesn't happen all that often. I wasn't the only one, I might just tell you.

You know, the whole world literally came to help out at the time because there were really about 80,000 people who died, you know. 400,000 families were displaced. We all wanted to go and help. Everybody did, whatever you could do. I didn't know what I could do, but I just felt I had to go too, you know, like everybody else. I went there and I found that I could do something. It was winter, I was closing in and there was a lot of debris

around and I thought I could use it. So that's how I started to design and use the material there and mobilize people for the first time in my life. I'd never done it before. I had never sat or stood where a layout of a house is being done because it was always done by my consultants or by my contractors or my staff. So I never knew any of that. And most of all, of course, when you work like that, you have to just forget about your ego. You can't use your great ego of an architect anymore. So more than that, I think I began to also understand what my country was

all about. I had not known that. For the first time, I understood how, what displacement feels, what happens to one when you lose so much. So it really is a life transforming experience. And only very few people, I think, have a chance to experience something like that. I was the only one who could go into the women's quarters because most of the teams were men. And I was very lucky as a woman, I could go there. So I began to interact with women that hardly anybody had done before. And they'd been totally left behind, left alone because nobody could enter their quarters. And then I found that women were, you know, they were so skilled. They were always,

craft is everywhere in my country. And so I started to think of it, how we can start working together for their very beautiful beadwork that they did of bracelets and earrings and all kinds of things that they'd done before. And suddenly they decided to earn money and their lives began to transform. So I was just lucky that I managed to find my niche in how I needed to work. But I had the possibility of working at the grassroots with the people and understand what my country was about. I think that was a great learning experience. what my country was about.

I think that was a great learning experience. Yeah. Yasmin, listening to you speak, it's like that moment where you really connected with your country. It was the beginning of a different relationship of you and Pakistan together. If you look back, was there a moment or a person in your childhood that might have planted the seed for that moment to happen? Well, I don't know.

It's difficult to say that, but I do know, for instance, that my father had been a British civil servant, which was very difficult to get into by natives at the time in the 1930s. And he had passed exam. He had become one. He was a British colonial officer, if you like, at the time of independence in 1947. And then when the country came into being, he was appointed at a city called Lahore, which was where a lot of migration was taking place both ways. People were coming and fleeing from India and the ones who were going from Pakistan towards India.

My mother and he were deeply involved, of course, in the whole thing, and that was discussed a lot. I think that probably had an impact on me because I heard the stories. It was the most dreadful experience for anybody, actually, although I was very young at the time, but what stories we heard were terrible. And I think that way, somehow, I've always been, although I'd been brought up in a very remote manner, I never knew anything about my own country.

We were in a very privileged kind of position. We lived like as if the British Raj still continued because we were in the same kind of area like the British officers had been. And we were treated in the same way. And then, of course, I went to England. And again, I came back and not knowing anything much about myself or my culture, but I learned as I came back. And I think that I gradually it's kind of I realized that, you know, this country requires people who will develop empathy with generally what is around you. And I had the good fortune to be able to understand that.

Yasmin's relationship with her country could seriously be its own episode. In many ways, they grew up together, her childhood tracking against the early days of Pakistan's independence. When I was doing research for this interview, I was so tempted to dive into the many milestones of her incredible story, but I quickly realized that this is a woman who is not prepared to rest on past achievements. She's someone who prefers to look forward. It's also worth mentioning that as radical as a zero dollar model sounds, this idea of empowering local communities has been at the heart of Yasmin's humanitarian work

for almost two decades. She refers to it as building a barefoot economy. In addition to learning how to build their own houses, communities are also taught to make everyday products that they can sell to each other and by which they can sustain themselves locally. I was curious to find out exactly how it worked. Because there's so many poor people in my country, there's a whole barefoot ecosystem that has not been taken care of

or never been considered to be important. But they all have their basic needs, the unmet needs. And if I can just get everybody to learn to respond to each other's needs, so once they all get activated, they start making money because they are making

things that can be sold around them. They don't have to go anywhere else. So if you use all the resources that are available, somehow have been overlooked, then you can really have a model where you don't need any money from anybody. You can make people or empower them to be able to do it themselves. I think we have to change the whole humanitarian system if we want to get to people who really need it. Otherwise, so much money goes into so many directions, into administration, into fundraising. I mean, all kinds of things. What are we doing? I think we just need to put a lot of faith in people. I call it the humanistic humanitarianism. It's not the same kind as the international model.

But I think I see a different kind of spirit emerging in the whole area. People are taking care of each other. You know, in the Renaissance, there was a whole thing about humanism and the whole movement about this benevolence and generosity and empathy and taking care of each other, right? That's gone now. But I think you can bring it back. I hope you don't mind if we keep on asking you about specifics, because I'm so curious, just to get a picture for our audience of what this actually looks like on

the ground. You go into an area, communities there have suffered floods, disaster, they don't have much left. How does your team then take actual individuals on the journey to becoming barefoot architects, entrepreneurs? What does that actually look like? See, I've been doing this work now for some time. So somehow when we go, people know about our way of doing things because first of all, we have dispelled any kind of hope of being given any handout. That's the first battle we have to fight every time. And when we go there, we say, look, we are not here to give you something. We are here to help you. And then the technique that

I'm now using, especially for my zero donor model is to train the locals. I call them the brigade. These are my real entrepreneurs. They're the ones who go and they're teaching, they're sharing knowledge. And within 15 days, they have to get people to understand how to start growing food, to start growing vegetables, to start raising chickens, and also to start a breeding fish. Because lo and behold, because it's a floodplain, and I said, let's dig a hole. As we dug a hole, we went up to six feet and the water stays. So I said, let's put some fish in it. Well, every family has fish now.

So within 15 days, they are taught exactly what to do and they start doing them, which is to organize their own village, start having their own clusters and start taking care of their own areas and they start doing it. So it's a matter of just awakening them to the fact that they can do it. They have the possibility. I have two questions for you. The first one is, this is great in principle, you're imparting knowledge, but eventually at some point, people are going to need supplies.

They're going to need seeds. They're going to need rakes. There will need to be some money involved at some point. So how do you account for that? And the second question, which may or may not be related, is you've been doing this work now in this specific area, it sounds like,

for five or six years. If you look back over that time, what do you think has been your biggest mistake? Or maybe if you could change one approach or one thing that you've done, what would that be?

Interesting question. Well, first, let's take the first one that you asked first you know my barefoot entrepreneur that go to teach they also take seeds with them for instance and within 40 rupees they can give them that as well so again it all covers the costs they go and tell them how they can draw water from the canal that they never did before because they have no source of water right that also costs about 40 rupees per family and they're able to do it then and they give them the supplies whatever is needed each one is a specialized person like a specialized consultant each one goes in charges a small amount of money i call it potential in poverty

now if my entrepreneur goes and says, I will charge you 30 rupees, and the person says, I'm sorry, I can't pay you today. They say, fine, it's okay. You can pay me later. It doesn't matter. So these people go not only to tell them what to do, but tell them how to do it. And once they have seen how it's done, then they just, it's amazing. The kind of initiatives they take then are quite remarkable. For instance, if I give you an example, there are lots of abandoned ghost ponds in all these areas. We find that every fourth village that we hit,

there's a ghost pond there somewhere because it's the ones that were dug up and then the water stayed and become stagnant and so filthy and dirty. Again, the barefoot entrepreneur goes and he organizes the village and says, now there's a pond and we have to now see what to do with it. So first you clean up. So you put azolla, which is this fern that grows freely and then it starts getting cleaned up. Then we say, okay, first, now you can start growing vegetables in it.

So the vegetables are given to them as to what they can grow and they start. Now one vegetable is very rare. It's called water chestnut. So they were given some and they started off. And then lo and behold, I found that in many other ponds where my team had not gone, they were growing. Where has it come from? Well, they've gone and they've also collected from somewhere else. I mean, you should not underestimate the capability of these people they're all non-literate but they're very smart and they're farmers they've lived in that area they've tilled for the rich why can't they do it for themselves that's all they're doing they're doing it for themselves now okay that's a great answer what about your biggest mistake or something that you wish

you could change looking back on it? You know, I'm a creative person. I just design and I look at things and say, well, what can I do with it and make the maximum out of it? And so the greatest mistake could be if I think about it was to continue with my star architect posture for such a long time. Maybe I should have decided to leave earlier. I might have been happier or doing more work that was useful. I don't know. I have to say I enjoyed everything that I did before also. I can't really say that I, you know, I would like a change.

And anyway, now you can't change anything that has happened. So you just go on with life. I know there must be so many stories, but is there one particular family or community that really stands out for you that you could share with us? Well, I think in all the work that I was doing, what was amazing was we started to work with some beggar community in Makli. Makli is this World Heritage Site. It's a fantastic, it's the largest Muslim necropolis. Amazing, a fantastic site. And because it's got lots of shrines, there were lots of beggars, because you get alms when you go there and you get this soup

kitchen and you get this horrible food that you eat and you survive. So because we were working there and I wanted to do something for them, so we tried to see how we could lure them into doing some productive work, but nothing doing. They said, we are quite see how we could lure them into doing some productive work but nothing doing they said we are quite happy what we're doing either give us something or go away finally we managed to get one woman who began to get interested called karima so karima learned to make these miniature very beautiful glaze tiles and then she began to sell them where she used to beg. And suddenly she started to make money. And lo and behold, we managed to get the whole village come and join and start to learn, especially women. And then they all were taught by Karima and so on and so forth. So again,

that opened up another whole world for me that I could really reach out in that way to communities whole world for me that I could really reach out in that way to communities where craft was, is being lost because we are told that craft is for the, for the rich, but here suddenly started to make money. It's, you know, the houses, I mean, everything improved for them. So that's what I need to do is somehow see how I can just spread the craft everywhere. And yeah, that was, yeah, that was amazing that we were able to convert the beggars into this. But then we also had great success. We trained about 250 beggars later on. And now some of the women are making

these wonderful terracotta tiles that I've used in a project in Karachi. And now I think it's going to spread a lot. So we will be spreading this particular craft everywhere, I hope. Yeah. Thank you. It's a great story. Amazing.

I love it. This might sound glib, so feel free to change the question or push back on it. Do you think that there is a lesson that you've learned from your time on the planet? Yeah, I didn't know that before, but ever since I've been working in the humanitarian field, I find that's the most rewarding work that I could have ever have done. Because somehow everything else I did was for myself, okay? Always. I was brought up in absolute luxury.

I had a wonderful life. And I feel I need to atone for that in many ways, because I have no right to have had all that with my other people in my country and the state. And so that's the whole thing now. How do I see that I make a difference for them, for them to be able to live a life of dignity, especially women in my country. So that is the effort now. I enjoy it. It's wonderful when I hear good news as to what's happening, where they're getting, how much has been achieved by them themselves with their own effort. It's quite remarkable what they're able to do. And that's quite rewarding. Yeah. This may follow on from that, but can you give us a recommended set of design principles for mending the planet well it's a very tall order but of course a lot of things are being said

and a lot of people do understand what needs to be done there's a lot of discussion on the whole thing and i know that that decarbonization efforts are going on in many countries. Of course, a huge burden does lie on built environment professionals, whether it's architects, engineers, or planners. But I think that the problem, of course, is that in the global north, there's too much consumption. And you had a tradition of industrialization, which required that. And of course, prosperity does have its own problems in terms of opening up so many things that people don't know where to stop.

But I think the world is getting a little bit more sympathetic to the idea of trying to save the planet. I think I have great hope from young people. As a visiting professor at the University of Cambridge last year, I had a chance to meet lots of young people, not only in Cambridge, but also in London and other universities. And they are very conscious of the fact. And I'll tell you one story.

I was just so touched by it. There were three young people from London, just fresh graduates. One English, the other one Chinese-British, the third one was a woman, Pakistani-British. They raised the money for building a school back in one of the flood villages. They came all the way themselves. They spent three weeks in that village. I didn't have to do anything for them.

And they built a school there. Now, this is what's happening today with the young people it is so impressive what they want to do what they can do and i think that's what we need we need a more humanistic world where we start taking care of each other that itself will change a lot of things but now what we have to do is to see that everybody does take it all seriously. Yeah. But are we committed enough to start doing the right thing? So let's say in 50 or 100 years from now, the seeds that you've planted over the course of your life and your career have flourished. What kind of world would people be living in?

Well, I don't know about my past work, actually, because that I did only, that was mostly for the rich, right? I don't expect much from them in my country, anywhere really. But I think if I can reach out to a 1 million mark, 600,000 families next year, that is quite a substantial number of people who are beginning to take care of themselves and beginning to take care of each other as well. I would very much like to see a whole social upheaval there really. I'm hoping that women will rise.

They're in the lead. They're doing a lot of thingsheaval there, really. I'm hoping that women will rise. They're in the lead. They're doing a lot of things and they become very confident. And if somehow we can achieve that, and I think I'm hoping that from the team that we have, my brigades that are going in, there'll be this informal way of also spreading to everybody.

Now that means they'll start, at least the impact of flood will not be as severe as it's been. It means they'll start, at least the impact of flood will not be as severe as it's been. It may still be there, but maybe we can save some. So that is the hope. And I think if that can happen, then there'll be a social transformation. And that's what I need to see now to bring that about in my country. You just used the word hope, and this is our final question. What does the word hope

mean to you? Well, I think for me the hope is today that each person, each family in my country becomes so self-sufficient that they are not displaced. That's the only hope I have. If I can spread the message far enough, everybody learns how to protect themselves and not to be displaced. That's the worst thing that can happen to anybody in one's life. I mean, I can't stop the conflict migrants. I can't stop others. but maybe in my own country I can do something. That's what I'd like to do. That's my hope and my mission, actually. So let's see.

I love that you are an architect and your hope is giving people homes, making sure that everybody has a home. Safe home. Safe home. Yeah. One of the big ideas we're taking away from this conversation

is how important it is to challenge and reimagine existing orthodoxies and what we assume to be the solutions to redefine what it really means

to help people. Perhaps if more of us follow Yasmin's lead and become architects of change, we will create a better, fairer, more sustainable world more quickly than what seems possible right now. If you want to find out more about Yasmin and her work, you can check out our show notes for details. This episode wraps up our second season, which can I just say has been such a joy for us to make. We have stepped away from every one of these interviews feeling like our tanks have been topped up and our faith in humanity restored. And it turns out there are actually a lot of good people out there. So rest assured our guest list for Season 3 is already well underway. On that note, we'd really love to thank our paying subscribers

for making this project possible. And if you're interested in becoming a paid subscriber, check out futurecrunch.com. This podcast is recorded in Australia on the lands of the Gadigal, Wurundjeri and Waiwurrung people. There are a lot of podcasts out there. It means a lot to us that you chose this one.

If you enjoyed this episode and you would like to support Hope as a Verb, please subscribe and leave a review. And if you want to reach out directly, email us at hope at futurecrunch.com.au. Thanks for listening.