Disasters like the Fukushima nuclear accident, the Haiti earthquake, and Hurricane Sandy turn into old news pretty fast. The world’s attention moves on, whereas the regions affected by the disasters often can’t. The devastating 2010 floods in Pakistan’s Indus Valley, cradle of one of the world’s oldest civilizations, knows painfully how this works.
But Resettling the Indus (RT.Indus), an organization formed by a group of Pakistani professionals, aims to break the cycle of misguided development and cultural insensitivity that waylay many international relief efforts. The RT.Indus plan relies on implementing the Indus region’s recovery locally. (It’s 21st century Jane Jacobs.) The plan focuses on providing the communities in the region the opportunity to engineer the recovery. The guiding principles are economic responsibility, realistic planning and cultural self-determination. Now three years after the floods, listen to a recent interview with the architect and RT.Indus co-founder, Hydr Ibrahim, at HazelKahan.com.
