Since August 2017, over 700,000 Rohingya have fled genocide in their native Myanmar for Bangladesh and what have become the world’s largest refugee camps – outnumbering the local population. The more than 75 percent who are women or children are particularly vulnerable to abuse, exploitation and gender-based violence.

The programming, design and construction of these six spaces was a profoundly participatory process involving both refugees and locals. They comprise, first, a women-friendly space containing not only areas for counselling and life skills advice as standard in such structures, but also for community-based protection activities, psychosocial support, breastfeeding, and a courtyard where women can chat and girls can play safely. On a similar model in another camp is a safe space for women and girls that caters to both refugees and locals. The third space, a display and production centre, offers a livelihood generation platform for Rohingya women to craft products that showcase their culture and sell them to visitors. Finally there are three community centres: one unusually with an upper storey, necessary here due to limited ground space; another, serving a Hindu Rohingya camp with particular domestic violence issues as well as the host community, separated into men’s and women’s buildings; and the last, focusing on socio-economic support for the host community, which is designed around the donated site’s pre-existing betel-nut trees, resisting the tendency towards deforestation.

Materials used vary from the locally available and traditional – bamboo, brick, betel-nut wood and thatch, relying on local and Rohingya craftsmen’s expertise – to conventional cement and corrugated metal. Each centre has unique features that tie it to its context: a gatehouse traditional to the region at the first women-friendly space; paintings by craftsmen and adolescent girls at the second; Burmese welcoming inscriptions and floor paintings, and an entrance inspired by those of Rohingya houses, at the display and production centre; local natural mats over steel window panels at the first community centre; and triangular wall perforations at the others, inspired by a feature used for ventilation in the region. Plantings use indigenous species that carry emotional and cultural significance within the Rohingya community.

Source: Aga Khan Trust for Culture