COSTFORD, in general, has two main focii of activities, namely, social activities and construction activities using appropriate building technologies.
Its main activities are advocacy, empowering poor communities, research and development, local level development and planning, multi-disciplinary technical support teams, transfer of technology, human resource development, studies and dissemination of information among other things. They also have a strong focus on training and have trained many masons, students, and professionals in appropriate building technology.
Advocacy
They undertake advocacy for issues dealing with devolution of more funds from Centre to State and from State to Local Governments, people friendly policies, access to credit for the ‘unbankable', responsive and effective administration, the right to information, recognising housing as a fundamental right, health and total sanitation and environmental issues such as prohibiting sand mining in the rivers etc.
Empowering poor communities
They empower poor communities by forming self help groups, facilitating composite credit mechanism, disseminating information, skill development and skill upgradation, motivating and encouraging people to attend Grama Sabhas, the village level meetings to presenting grievances and felt needs, building up capacity of poor people to generate ideas and to influence development process, increasing their access to and involvement in management of resources and institutions, encouraging participation which will lead to changes in knowledge and attitudes and skills to improve livelihoods, enabling to have access to resources and expansion of knowledge.
Promoting local level development
They promote local level development and planning by exploring, identifying and diagnosing urban and rural conditions with active involvement and participation of people at the local level, by designing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating projects with people's participation by developing, extending and transferring location specific technology, by facilitating in policy formulation and decision making, by promoting participatory planning by involving people in identification of activity, decision making and planning, sharing costs, implementation, receipt of benefits, monitoring and evaluation.
Construction
COSTFORD has a very large program of construction, which includes many projects, government as well as private construction work. They have carried out massive rural development projects of Central and State Government agencies. They take up projects in which the client allows them to apply the principles of construction that they believe in. Currently, they also have a water and sanitation program.
COSTFORD in Trivandrum
The COSTFORD office in Trivandrum is perhaps the closest in contact with Mr. Baker and hence focuses more on architectural aspects than the rest. Collectively COSTFORD has been able to realise about 20,000 buildings in Kerala.
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