The significance of community training centers in building affordable housing and developing settlements

Jan Bredenoord, Joon Park*, Kyohee Kim

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

This paper examines the visions and the roles of community training centers (CTCs) in community development and housing provision in developing countries from the perspective of assisted self-help housing. It reviews a Korean community center that contributed to community-led self-help housing for low-income groups in the 1970s. It also reviews a few notable CTCs from India, Uganda, Nepal, and three countries in Central America to examine the functions and contributions of the CTCs. It was found that CTCs play a central role in community empowerment and the production of affordable building materials receiving technical or financial assistance from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and governments. The paper makes a compelling case for CTCs by drawing on these exemplary cases to provide a development model that has the potential to facilitate the improvement of the living environment in developing countries.

Original languageEnglish
Article number2952
Pages (from-to)1-22
Number of pages22
JournalSustainability (Switzerland)
Volume12
Issue number7
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Apr 2020

Funding

This research received no external funding. The authors would like to thank the Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centers (SPARC), India, for assessing the first version this paper, and for their valuable feedback. The authors are especially grateful to Smruti Jukur and Maria Lobo from SPARC for reviewing the text. The authors also thank Francisco Azarug Justel Arbelo for executing additional research in the mentioned housing cooperatives in two municipalities near Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Keywords

  • Assisted self-help housing
  • Community center
  • Community participation
  • Community training center
  • Low-cost housing
  • Sustainable building material

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