First eco-friendly village established in the north

Haji Rasul Fakhir Muhammad sits in a pile of straw taking a break from building his house. But the straw he leans against is not just for comfort - it is the building material for his home. At the age of 74, he has seen his house and his village of Kandal in northern Iraq destroyed by the regime three times in 30 years. But now he is part of a revolutionary experiment in northern Iraq in the framework of which Kandal is being rebuilt as an environmentally friendly village, using natural materials. Until now Haji Rasul, like the other 70 Kurdish families in Kandal, an hour’s drive from Arbil, thought straw was something just to feed animals in winter. Thanks to some lateral thinking by the US-based NGO Counterpart International and US $320,000 funding from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the common farming product is being used to make 52 houses for people who had been displaced from Kandal for years but have returned since the end of this year’s war. The idea of creating an environmentally sustainable and ecologically friendly village came from Counterpart’s country director, Galawezh Bayiz, who studied permaculture while living in Australia. When she returned to Kurdistan she couldn’t wait to apply what she had learnt, and brought with her an Australian consultant, Geoff Lawton, to show the villagers how to build straw houses. The houses are extremely efficient, staying warm in winter and cool in summer, this facilitated by their 50-cm thick walls and concrete roofs with an inlaid ceiling made from plastic tiles. They are also about half the price of common concrete block houses. Each house will be built to accommodate an average Iraqi family of six, comprising two bedrooms, a reception area, kitchen, bathroom and toilet connected to a septic tank. Waste water from the house runs into a settling tank, is then channelled into one of five reed beds which filters and purifies it before it is diverted into communal gardens for irrigation. Counterpart has also built two large gabions or dams to collect the water and soil that runs off the nearby hills and can be used to improve the quality of the soil around the village itself. In addition to this, compost bins have been built and women taught how to make compost for the gardens using leftover straw, vegetable and wood scraps and animal manure. The villagers will be given poultry and sheep, as well as vegetable and flower seeds to sow around their houses. Counterpart has also built a community hall and is drilling a well nearby to provide clean drinking water. Work began in July, and Counterpart’s field manager, Biner Aziz, told IRIN in Kandal that it was hoped that the first families would be able to move into their new homes within weeks. At present most of them are sheltering in tents supplied by the UNHCR, pitched near the new houses. Biner said an important component of the project had been to have the villagers build the houses themselves and thereby learn the techniques of straw-bale construction. The aim was that Kandal should have at least 30 men capable of earning a living by teaching other villagers in the region to build straw houses. "We’re not here to just give them the building blocks and leave them to it. We want to provide a package that includes income-generation for the village. I think Kandal can be a model for all of Iraq," said Biner. The project also had benefits reaching out beyond the village, with the straw - 15,000 bales - being bought from nearby farmers. But convincing the villagers that straw is a durable material for houses is still taking time. One of the residents, Jabbar Husayn, told IRIN he that feared cattle would knock the walls over or mice would eat the straw from the inside. "When I punch the wall I can destroy it," he asserted. He also worries that he will not be able to use a kerosene heater inside for fear of burning his house down. Counterpart’s Iraq Programme Officer, Sam Jones, assures him that straw houses are not only safe and strong but are built all over the world and will be very warm anyway so he may not even need a heater. "But how will I dry myself if I get wet though?" Jabbar retorts, still worried about having a heater inside. He would have preferred a concrete block house, and says straw houses would be better for a holiday home by the sea that people could use for fishing. But despite his complaints, he remains keen to move into his new house with his 10 children when it is completed. Biner said people’s concerns were natural given that the material had never been used in Iraq before and people had no idea of its benefits. "If you come back in a year I think you’ll see a lot of happy people. When we built the first wall they said it was too small and then, after all the walls were up, they said it was good," he said. "When we put mud on the straw they said it wouldn’t last, but then they said it was OK," he explained, adding: "When we put the concrete sealing on the outside they said it wasn’t the right type, but now they like it. If we’d listened to them and what they said, the project would have stopped long ago." The reality is that Kandal is one of the fortunate villages to have been chosen for reconstruction. La’ali Rahman is a widow with five children. For her, the chance to move out of the tent she has been in since returning to Kandal in April is a miracle. While she too had some concerns over how durable straw would be, she said it would be much better than sheltering under canvas. She had been living in Arbil until the fall of the regime. "It’s our village and we are so happy to be living here again. Arabs occupied our land, but now we have it back - we have so much land."