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Women At Work

Posted by on June 21st, 2012

 

Female workers helping to finish the Panigram bridge

During my visits to the site, it never fails to amaze me how many female workers are working alongside the men (30% of our workers are women).  Not only is it rare to see women at a construction site in general, yet here at Panigram, it’s nothing out of the ordinary.  The women help with digging, transporting materials, and backfilling among other duties.  It’s tough work but they’re getting the job done!

 

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Making It Happen

Posted by on June 21st, 2012

Workers preparing the thatch roof

With construction well on its way, the resort is taking shape. It’s an exciting time to see how the plans and designs on paper are now transformed into physical buildings. The foundations have been poured and structural elements are in place. We’re also experimenting on finishes and materials on prototype buildings to enhance the feel of the resort. It takes time, but it’s a process that we know will achieve amazing results. There are over 200 workers from the local area working to make this resort a retreat in paradise. For more photos, visit us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/panigram.

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Construction Work Begins!

Posted by on December 23rd, 2011

This is the site of our first bungalow – the “Jackfruit Bungalow” (so named because of its location in our jackfruit grove.) The tree in the middle (not a jackfruit) will unfortunately need to be removed, but we are shifting the bungalow a bit to try to save the nice jackfruit tree at the back. Stay tuned for more construction updates!

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Surveying Our Villages

Posted by on July 1st, 2010

The past month of work has been an eye-opening experience for me as I explore Panigram’s surrounding towns with my fellow interns.  My project for this summer is to collect baseline demographic data on these villages in order to better understand the community’s current condition—and its most pressing needs.  Since the Bangladeshi government has no demographic information (and not even any maps of the area), it’s up to us to do what in the United States would include census administration, map-making, and social outreach.  What our team is working on right now is the surveying: we visit villagers’ homes and go through a list of basic questions about household size, income, health, work, and education.  By obtaining a snapshot of the community’s current state, we hope to gauge Panigram’s impact in future years by comparing today’s data to subsequent years’.

Some of the villagers in our host community.

Some of the villagers in our host community.

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August 14th – A Day of Trauma and Triumph

Posted by on August 29th, 2009

The Panigram Pavilion on the river at Panigram Resort.

The Panigram Pavilion on the river at Panigram Resort.

Koli and I sped down the road on his motorcycle in a torrential downpour. He had left our motorcycle helmets at the project site, so I held my hand over his eyes like a visor to block out as much of the monsoon rains as I could so that he could see well enough to keep us on the road. The van, holding three of my interns, two large blocks of ice, all of the cooking utensils from my kitchen, two gas stoves, and several pounds of food followed us. We got to the edge of town and saw that the road was completely blocked for repairs. While the motorcycle might have been able to squeak around the barricade, the van would never make it; fortunately Koli knew an alternate route out of the city. We were already an hour late: the van was delayed, our landlord had padlocked us in the building (it took us 20 minutes to find him and have him come open the door), and we had to stop at the bazaar to get ice. Read the rest of this entry »

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Taking Tea with Chi Chi: How to Motivate People and Win Friends in Bangladesh

Posted by on August 3rd, 2009
Chi Chi Stands with her capentry team

Chi Chi stands with her carpentry team

No construction project every progresses according to plan; Bangladesh is no exception. Workers show up hours late, materials arrive of the wrong specifications, and the weather doesn’t always cooperate. As the architecture intern for Panigram, Chi Chi knows first hand the difficulties that arise during construction projects in Bangladesh.

Rising every morning at six A.M., Chi Chi faced the challenge of working with unfamiliar building materials, supervising her first construction project, and leading a construction team as a female in a male-dominated culture. Last night, I had the opportunity to sit down with Chi Chi and discuss the details of her pavilion project. We talked about her design, her team, and how she managed to overcome the many difficulties that arose while building the pavilion.

BRIAN: This is your first project, Chi Chi. Can you describe the challenges that you faced as a young architect working with an international crew?

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Two Cows, Four Interns, and 120 Cubic Feet of Mud

Posted by on July 30th, 2009
Chi Chi stomping in the mud
Chi Chi stomping in the mud

The mud pit was empty, the rice straw hadn’t arrived, and the cows were nowhere to be found. When we arrived, we found our workers taking a prolonged smoke break, burning daylight with their tobacco with nothing to show for the hours they were supposed to have already worked.

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