Manu Narendran, A Structural Engineer from Udaipur, is Making Homes in Nepal

Manu Narendran and his friends have been in Nepal since a month. With their determination to help people affected by the earthquake, they are helping build homes in Dhulikel village of Kavre district. 

The devastating chain of earthquakes in Nepal had shocked the world. Support poured in from all over and people tried to help in the best ways they could. While some went in to help directly, not many volunteers stayed behind. Most disaster ridden areas are provided with relief materials for a short period of time, and most volunteers usually make their way home after a bit.

However, Manu Narendran, from Udaipur, is yet to return. It has been a month and he is still out there helping the people of Nepal by building permanent shelters or houses for them. He is a structural engineer and a bamboo scientist by profession, who along with four other volunteers, is making homes for those who have been left homeless after the disaster.

Source: Flickr

They are not just monitoring the construction, but are also readily carrying construction materials on their head down into a valley in Dhulikel village of Kavre district.

The other volunteers with him are his friends Ata-ur-Rahman, Areen and Azeer from Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Mumbai respectively. All four of them had saved money to buy motorcycles for a trip to Leh-Ladakh in the summer, but disaster struck and they decided to use their savings to help people in Nepal instead.

Photo for representational purpose only. Source: asianspring

The group is living with minimal facilities, sometimes sleeping in tents and sometimes living out in open, but they want to help people and that is what is keeping them going.

Manu Narendran is a graduate of CEPT (Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology University), Ahmedabad, where he studied structural engineering. He is one of the few renowned bamboo structure scientists in the world. Having worked in Singapore and Malaysia on similar projects previously, he also teaches about sustainable living structures at various universities.

“We are a team of architects and structural civil engineers with working experience on bamboo, earth and other alternate natural building materials. Initially, we worked hands-on setting up community shelters made of bamboo and canvas. Right now, we are working as volunteers on a permanent house shelter programme using bamboo and earth,” he told The Times of India.

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