[Music]
imagine sitting on a treasure and not
knowing about it so I’d like to share
the story of how an idea how a
organization came to be it all starts
with this man my dear friend Ghulam in
late 2015
so gunam used to be a navigator working
on board of a big container ship for
steena shipping company and he sealed
the world for many many years at some
point he had to return to Yangon to look
after his two sons his mother his sister
and a few other family members he had
some savings from his time as a
navigator and he also started working as
a taxi driver to earn some extra income
and so for a few years he was able to
make ends meet but in late 2015
Ghulam ran out of savings while his
mother fell ill and school fees for his
two sons were due and it was to me that
he turned for help now it wasn’t that I
had any track record of helping people
avoid depth in fact rather the opposite
up until then had mostly been working on
pretty abstract governance issues but
other than giving him the money he
needed an idea for a more sustainable
solution did come to mind so I had
always been a big fan of heritage
buildings renovating and moving into an
old building when I first arrived mm er
four years ago at that point it wasn’t
very common yet for foreigners to stay
downtown in fact it was somewhat
discouraged by local authorities as some
of you might remember as that meant I
couldn’t find a broker who would show me
places I roamed the streets for many
many days taking notes of areas and
buildings where I wanted to live and I
chatted with people on the sidewalks to
find out what was going on inside these
buildings and whether I could perhaps
stay there and I remember that people
were really surprised that I was in
staying in these old buildings rather
than in a new modern condominium and I
also remember that I was really
surprised that people didn’t seem to
realize the beauty of these buildings
and so after days of such wandering
around I found the building where I
still live today and in fact this man is
now my neighbor so back to my friend
Ghulam who was in financial trouble he
was in financial trouble but he also had
a second apartment next to his own on
historic Bogle is a street he’d been
renting it out but as it was quite
rundown he wasn’t receiving a lot of
money on it so I suggested to renovate
the units and see if we could increase
the rent so we set out to create a
modern design that also kept the old
heritage elements we found the money
that he needed to borrow to renovate it
and after the renovation was complete we
found a new tenant and guess what
the new tenant was willing to pay four
times more the amount who long have been
receiving previously and so that meant
that renovation was paid back within a
year and that the family started
enjoying a solid monthly income now
before we knew it friends and family
members started coming to us asking us
if we could help them do the same and
after some deliberation Ghulam and I
decided to team up and we started
renovating these places and it was in
this process that we started having an
important realization and that is that
heritage conservation can be so much
more so much more than the dogmatic
imperative it often is one must preserve
history one must preserve colonial
history that is even what we realized
was that heritage conservation can also
first and foremost improve people’s
livelihoods and their neighborhoods
now let me share a little Side Story so
while we are renovating our fifth
property on lower 27th Street we noticed
the space behind the property we have
been talking about how little public
space there was in downtown yangon and
how we would like for there to be more
places to be outside and relax and we
noticed this back alley and I don’t know
how many of you have noticed the back
alleys in downtown yangon but they’re
dirty right and full of trash well we
probably had one of the dirtiest ones in
downtown behind a property but we
thought given there are so many of these
that it would be really nice to see if
we could clean it up and turn it into a
space that people could enjoy so we
decided to try it out and we turned 20
meters of such a trash alley into an
alley garden at first
at first people thought we were quite
crazy we were hanging out in this back
alley but when we organized a mural
painting workshop for the children from
the community during the my egg on my
home festival the idea started to pique
people’s interest and again other people
and individuals and neighborhoods
started coming to us to ask us if we
could maybe help them do the same and we
thought we saw a parallel between our
heritage conservation work and the back
alley project now let’s zoom out a
little bit Yangon is one of the last
cities in Asia with its historic city
center pretty much still intact there
are over 2,000 historic properties still
standing in downtown yangon and that
puts Hangang right up there with other
his stories for historic cities like
Hanoi Havana Bombay and Calcutta overall
the downtown bridge is pretty much still
as the British planted about 150 years
ago now after years of neglect many
buildings might still structurally be ok
but they no longer provide for safe and
healthy living conditions I’m sure many
of you have seen old buildings in
downtown yangon with red flakes that ycd
see I put on them indicating that they
will be demolished now because
renovation is such an expensive and
complex thing to do in the last year’s
demolition followed by the construction
of new buildings such as this one has
become more and more common there has
been a movement to protect heritage but
as in many other places around the world
this movement has largely focused on
saving big public buildings such as the
Secretariat or the railway station
building and so far it has mostly been
large institutions that have been
involved in saving these big public
buildings not ordinary people what I’m
advocating today is to preserve and
reuse smaller heritage landscapes
buildings and to do so in a bottom-up
and citizen-led wing heritage
conservation directly with or even by
homeowners and where possible a
financially viable ways because first of
all wouldn’t you agree that it is as
much the smaller heritage landscapes and
streets and buildings that make the city
so unique streets and buildings like
this one or this one or this one
and secondly more important when you
work on heritage conservation with
communities there’s a chance for
communities to prosper through caring
for something that they already have to
recognize what they already have as
assets and unlock the value of these
because with the growing interest of
both residents and visitors heritage
conservation doesn’t only need to be
about identity or history it can also be
a business case a social business case
of benefit to local families now this is
what I call acid based Urban Development
and this is exactly what we seek to
achieve with the organization called
Doane we have seen set up our home that
means now let me say a little bit more
about this acid based Urban
development’s because I’ve been giving
it quite a lot of thought so as a
development professional I often think
about the kind of development approach
that I feel can make a real sustainable
impact a development approach that I
feel can justify and guide my presence
here as a foreigner mingling in local
affairs and overall I have come to feel
most comfortable with acid based
developments acid based development is
all about sustainable development of
communities based on their own strengths
and potentials acid based developments
identifies resources within communities
which can be Natural Resources or
leadership resources or in our case
cultural heritage resources and then it
uses these resources to turn them into
products or services that
benefit the local community and when
this is done in the right way not only
does it lead to economic benefits such
as jobs or businesses also strengthens
these assets themselves now all of this
is the exact opposite needs-based
approach NEET based approaches are all
about what communities don’t have they
focus on weaknesses on gaps and then
they come up with solutions and
interventions to fix these gaps but what
often happens in the process is that
communities start feeling disempowered
passive recipients of help rather than
people actively in control of their own
lives now the active based approach is
beautiful to me because its departure
point is wealth abundance it helps
people realize all the strengths and
treasures that are already within their
community and it helps them to use these
and this is what I like about our
heritage conservation work all we are
doing is helping them become aware of
all the assets that surround them we all
perish homeowners realize that they’re
sitting on a treasure we help people
living next to trash alleys realize that
these trash alleys can be valuable
public space too and we see a lot of
other assets as well and by then
creating concrete financial and social
returns we create tangible incentives
for people to keep looking after these
assets after their heritage after their
public space and ultimately after every
unique square meter that forms the city
angong now of course I know it’s not as
easy has simply persuading people to
keep their heritage homes or to sweep
their back alleys there’s a lot of other
things that would need to be done to
things that are beyond us a key one that
I want to single out is in secure
property ownership I really hope that
this will be an issue that will be
tackled in the years to come the
government must give property owners as
well as land owners a chance to build
and capitalize on what they have there
are many other things the government
could do – if you take a look around the
world for example in Tanzania Zanzibar
the government itself that undertake
cost-benefit analyses of the value of
heritage conservation in Havana the
government lets heritage homeowners rent
out rooms in their apartments which
responds to touristic demand directly
benefits families and avoids the need to
have to build big hotels and in Hong
Kong where land is so expensive
the government compensates heritage
homeowners for giving up the rights to
redevelop let’s go back to my friend
Coulomb Coulomb is now the proud owner
of a heritage apartment and a big
heritage advocate he doesn’t throw trash
into the back alley anymore and he
reprimands his neighbors when they do
that he and his neighbors have realized
that looking after their heritage and
looking after their public space can
directly improve their lives and their
neighborhoods I wanted to end with a
vision or maybe it’s a request and that
is for us to stop looking at Yangon as a
place of problems to stop focusing on
everything it’d be difficult here such
as traffic or bad sewage but instead to
start looking at Yangon as a place of
opportunities to start focusing on
everything that makes the city so
special so unique on all the assets that
we can further develop I think this city
is amazing let’s invest and look after
it thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
imagine sitting on a treasure and not
knowing about it so I’d like to share
the story of how an idea how a
organization came to be it all starts
with this man my dear friend Ghulam in
late 2015
so gunam used to be a navigator working
on board of a big container ship for
steena shipping company and he sealed
the world for many many years at some
point he had to return to Yangon to look
after his two sons his mother his sister
and a few other family members he had
some savings from his time as a
navigator and he also started working as
a taxi driver to earn some extra income
and so for a few years he was able to
make ends meet but in late 2015
Ghulam ran out of savings while his
mother fell ill and school fees for his
two sons were due and it was to me that
he turned for help now it wasn’t that I
had any track record of helping people
avoid depth in fact rather the opposite
up until then had mostly been working on
pretty abstract governance issues but
other than giving him the money he
needed an idea for a more sustainable
solution did come to mind so I had
always been a big fan of heritage
buildings renovating and moving into an
old building when I first arrived mm er
four years ago at that point it wasn’t
very common yet for foreigners to stay
downtown in fact it was somewhat
discouraged by local authorities as some
of you might remember as that meant I
couldn’t find a broker who would show me
places I roamed the streets for many
many days taking notes of areas and
buildings where I wanted to live and I
chatted with people on the sidewalks to
find out what was going on inside these
buildings and whether I could perhaps
stay there and I remember that people
were really surprised that I was in
staying in these old buildings rather
than in a new modern condominium and I
also remember that I was really
surprised that people didn’t seem to
realize the beauty of these buildings
and so after days of such wandering
around I found the building where I
still live today and in fact this man is
now my neighbor so back to my friend
Ghulam who was in financial trouble he
was in financial trouble but he also had
a second apartment next to his own on
historic Bogle is a street he’d been
renting it out but as it was quite
rundown he wasn’t receiving a lot of
money on it so I suggested to renovate
the units and see if we could increase
the rent so we set out to create a
modern design that also kept the old
heritage elements we found the money
that he needed to borrow to renovate it
and after the renovation was complete we
found a new tenant and guess what
the new tenant was willing to pay four
times more the amount who long have been
receiving previously and so that meant
that renovation was paid back within a
year and that the family started
enjoying a solid monthly income now
before we knew it friends and family
members started coming to us asking us
if we could help them do the same and
after some deliberation Ghulam and I
decided to team up and we started
renovating these places and it was in
this process that we started having an
important realization and that is that
heritage conservation can be so much
more so much more than the dogmatic
imperative it often is one must preserve
history one must preserve colonial
history that is even what we realized
was that heritage conservation can also
first and foremost improve people’s
livelihoods and their neighborhoods
now let me share a little Side Story so
while we are renovating our fifth
property on lower 27th Street we noticed
the space behind the property we have
been talking about how little public
space there was in downtown yangon and
how we would like for there to be more
places to be outside and relax and we
noticed this back alley and I don’t know
how many of you have noticed the back
alleys in downtown yangon but they’re
dirty right and full of trash well we
probably had one of the dirtiest ones in
downtown behind a property but we
thought given there are so many of these
that it would be really nice to see if
we could clean it up and turn it into a
space that people could enjoy so we
decided to try it out and we turned 20
meters of such a trash alley into an
alley garden at first
at first people thought we were quite
crazy we were hanging out in this back
alley but when we organized a mural
painting workshop for the children from
the community during the my egg on my
home festival the idea started to pique
people’s interest and again other people
and individuals and neighborhoods
started coming to us to ask us if we
could maybe help them do the same and we
thought we saw a parallel between our
heritage conservation work and the back
alley project now let’s zoom out a
little bit Yangon is one of the last
cities in Asia with its historic city
center pretty much still intact there
are over 2,000 historic properties still
standing in downtown yangon and that
puts Hangang right up there with other
his stories for historic cities like
Hanoi Havana Bombay and Calcutta overall
the downtown bridge is pretty much still
as the British planted about 150 years
ago now after years of neglect many
buildings might still structurally be ok
but they no longer provide for safe and
healthy living conditions I’m sure many
of you have seen old buildings in
downtown yangon with red flakes that ycd
see I put on them indicating that they
will be demolished now because
renovation is such an expensive and
complex thing to do in the last year’s
demolition followed by the construction
of new buildings such as this one has
become more and more common there has
been a movement to protect heritage but
as in many other places around the world
this movement has largely focused on
saving big public buildings such as the
Secretariat or the railway station
building and so far it has mostly been
large institutions that have been
involved in saving these big public
buildings not ordinary people what I’m
advocating today is to preserve and
reuse smaller heritage landscapes
buildings and to do so in a bottom-up
and citizen-led wing heritage
conservation directly with or even by
homeowners and where possible a
financially viable ways because first of
all wouldn’t you agree that it is as
much the smaller heritage landscapes and
streets and buildings that make the city
so unique streets and buildings like
this one or this one or this one
and secondly more important when you
work on heritage conservation with
communities there’s a chance for
communities to prosper through caring
for something that they already have to
recognize what they already have as
assets and unlock the value of these
because with the growing interest of
both residents and visitors heritage
conservation doesn’t only need to be
about identity or history it can also be
a business case a social business case
of benefit to local families now this is
what I call acid based Urban Development
and this is exactly what we seek to
achieve with the organization called
Doane we have seen set up our home that
means now let me say a little bit more
about this acid based Urban
development’s because I’ve been giving
it quite a lot of thought so as a
development professional I often think
about the kind of development approach
that I feel can make a real sustainable
impact a development approach that I
feel can justify and guide my presence
here as a foreigner mingling in local
affairs and overall I have come to feel
most comfortable with acid based
developments acid based development is
all about sustainable development of
communities based on their own strengths
and potentials acid based developments
identifies resources within communities
which can be Natural Resources or
leadership resources or in our case
cultural heritage resources and then it
uses these resources to turn them into
products or services that
benefit the local community and when
this is done in the right way not only
does it lead to economic benefits such
as jobs or businesses also strengthens
these assets themselves now all of this
is the exact opposite needs-based
approach NEET based approaches are all
about what communities don’t have they
focus on weaknesses on gaps and then
they come up with solutions and
interventions to fix these gaps but what
often happens in the process is that
communities start feeling disempowered
passive recipients of help rather than
people actively in control of their own
lives now the active based approach is
beautiful to me because its departure
point is wealth abundance it helps
people realize all the strengths and
treasures that are already within their
community and it helps them to use these
and this is what I like about our
heritage conservation work all we are
doing is helping them become aware of
all the assets that surround them we all
perish homeowners realize that they’re
sitting on a treasure we help people
living next to trash alleys realize that
these trash alleys can be valuable
public space too and we see a lot of
other assets as well and by then
creating concrete financial and social
returns we create tangible incentives
for people to keep looking after these
assets after their heritage after their
public space and ultimately after every
unique square meter that forms the city
angong now of course I know it’s not as
easy has simply persuading people to
keep their heritage homes or to sweep
their back alleys there’s a lot of other
things that would need to be done to
things that are beyond us a key one that
I want to single out is in secure
property ownership I really hope that
this will be an issue that will be
tackled in the years to come the
government must give property owners as
well as land owners a chance to build
and capitalize on what they have there
are many other things the government
could do – if you take a look around the
world for example in Tanzania Zanzibar
the government itself that undertake
cost-benefit analyses of the value of
heritage conservation in Havana the
government lets heritage homeowners rent
out rooms in their apartments which
responds to touristic demand directly
benefits families and avoids the need to
have to build big hotels and in Hong
Kong where land is so expensive
the government compensates heritage
homeowners for giving up the rights to
redevelop let’s go back to my friend
Coulomb Coulomb is now the proud owner
of a heritage apartment and a big
heritage advocate he doesn’t throw trash
into the back alley anymore and he
reprimands his neighbors when they do
that he and his neighbors have realized
that looking after their heritage and
looking after their public space can
directly improve their lives and their
neighborhoods I wanted to end with a
vision or maybe it’s a request and that
is for us to stop looking at Yangon as a
place of problems to stop focusing on
everything it’d be difficult here such
as traffic or bad sewage but instead to
start looking at Yangon as a place of
opportunities to start focusing on
everything that makes the city so
special so unique on all the assets that
we can further develop I think this city
is amazing let’s invest and look after
it thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
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