Socially responsive architecture- Construction of a Prayer Place in Gharo

IET’s latest project- the construction of Prayer place at Mehran Human and Institutional Training Center, MHITC, Gharo is an attempt to provide the trainers trainees and other visitors a safe and clean space to offer prayers.

Prayer places have played an integral role in the social formations in communities, functioning as places of social interaction and community building. In the wake of the recent bombings it is heartening to see a revival of an active approach by civil society in reviving this conception of religious tolerance and ownership by the people. IET responds to this active approach by undertaking the construction of this Prayer place.

As our CEO Shahid Sayeed Khan explained- IET’s most successful program Livelihood Employment and Enterprise Development Program (LEEDP) with has 1435 beneficiaries, 70% being women. Women and men who come to the Mehran Human and Institutional Training Centre (MHITC) and have no where to pray. This prayer place thus came about as a response to the request by the community members regularly visiting and undertaking training at our center.

This prayer place is inside the perimeter of the IET’s established community training center and therefore managed and controlled by the villagers and beneficiaries of IET. It is IET’s attempt to revisit the places of prayer as spaces of social interaction and community building.

Features of Prayer place

  • Entirely made from Rammed Earth and Bamboo. This technique is a specialty of IET and used in its program, Indigenous Housing Systems.
  • This construction is fully functional, habitable, environmentally friendly as well as climate adaptive.
  • The Prayer place will be equipped with Solar lighting and fans
  • Physical labor for this project is being provided by the community members of Ishaq Johkio Village – adjacent to MHITC.
  • They villagers will be trained in this construction technique which has not been used in Sindh since the last century.

We have received a donation of Rs.50000 for our the Prayer place at MHITC, Gharo, and we are hoping for more generous outpourings from all of you.

Please join us in funding this project and allowing positive ownership of areas of worship.

For detailed pictures and plans

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