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Careers
Get Involved: careers.hunnarshala@gmail.com

While sending an independent application for involvement, please do try to mention the unit, as described below, which seems to be more aligned to your interests so that it will be easier for us to respond to your application.
 
Hunnarshala constitutes of the following two specialised units amongst which all the work is divided. They were formed so that the teams can focus better on its set objectives, and to develop diverse specialisations. Both the units take independent work according to their nature of constitution, however they actively support each other through their core specialisations.
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ARTISAN EMPOWERMENT UNIT

“Without craftsmanship, inspiration is a mere reed shaken in the wind.”
                                                                             – Johannes Brahms
 
The artisan empowerment unit was constituted with a clear focus on the traditional skills brought by the artisans and to attempt to link them with the contemporary practices. Since inception, Hunnarshala has realised the central platform that the karigars, or artisans, rightly deserve in the building industry. Working towards achieving this, the artisan empowerment initiative supports the artisans in an active manner by connecting them with contemporary market. A program has been specially developed towards this for all the artisans that have been recognised over the years of practice of Hunnarshala.
 
The main objectives of this Artisan Entrepreneur Program at Hunnarshala are as follows:
  • To understand the traditional knowledge, validate them through research initiatives and link it with the contemporary application through local artisans and educational initiatives.  
  • To promote eco-friendly, cost effective and low energy building designs, materials and techniques, which have glimpses of local culture and aesthetics.

To encourage the building artisans to become entrepreneurs, the artisan entrepreneur program is functional with a vision of empowering building artisans and strengthening artisanal practices to promote traditional skills and wisdom in contemporary market. Artisan’s involvement in design processes help in synthesising traditional skills with the contemporary, resulting into innovation of new products.  
 
Over the years, Hunnarshala has evolved as a platform for artisans to participate, learn and later practice independently. The artisan entrepreneur division provides the required environment by involving the artisans in projects wherein they further develop their skills in a particular construction technique. Participation in projects also builds confidence in artisans to venture into the mainstream market. From the social perspective, the artisans progress in life and live with dignity.
 
Accordingly, the unit has been involved in several restoration works around the country which involve traditional materials and technologies. The works have been executed through the artisans at the centre position. The unit also actively collaborates with other organisations and design firms to provide solutions in a contemporary context through traditional wisdom. Further, in an attempt to expand the field of its expertise in environment friendly technologies, the unit also provides support with decentralised waste water treatment system (DEWATS). 
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COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT UNIT

“Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.”
                                                                                      – Helen Keller

The community empowerment initiative majorly focuses on working with the communities that are displaced or affected due to natural disasters like floods or earthquakes, or due to man-made circumstances like violence, or are under-served and marginalised like slum dwellers or urban homeless. Provision of dignified housing and infrastructure becomes a tool to empower these communities.
 
The initiative believes in the collective strength of these communities, their core values, and hence encourages a participatory approach towards finding appropriate solutions. This approach helps achieve unique and tailor-made outcomes for every community. Additionally, the initiative actively looks for collaborations with individuals and institutions having similar ideology, which become a supporting structure to the participatory approach. These collaborations help us bring the strengths of a social expert together with the strengths of an engineer, an architect, or an artisan etc., and to provide a palette of holistic solutions for the communities to look at and take well informed decisions.
 
Along with the provision of appropriate solutions, documentation of such communities, keeping the built habitat as focus, becomes an important exercise for the unit. These documentation exercises capture the traditional knowledge systems of these communities including their tradition of building technologies and value networks in general.
 
Additionally, we also work on design and implementation of institutional facilities, like schools, that give us the room to explore the traditional building technologies in an experimental manner, keeping the local master artisans as our guides.
 
Following the above mentioned guiding objectives, in the course of last few years, we have been involved with several slum up-gradation projects, as well as planning projects looking at the housing shortages at the city-level. We have documented rural houses in several states in India, and consequently proposed appropriate housing options for these states to the government. We helped a riot affected community build their homes in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh. We assisted a group of Tibetan nuns to rebuild their houses in a remote village in Nepal that was destroyed after a massive earthquake. We are still working with the earthquake affected communities in Nepal through capacity building, technical support and facilitating participatory architectural design. We are also expanding our area of interest to the public spaces in the cities, beginning with an attempt to understand the street vendors.