Story Hinckley/The Christian Science Monitor

Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance speaks to a crowd in Canton, Ohio, on March 9, 2022. He calls it a “disaster” that congressional Republicans more than doubled President Joe Biden’s request for $6 billion in aid for Ukraine “to protect the border of a country 6,000 miles away,” while failing to build a U.S.-Mexico border wall.

At a campaign event in a dark church basement in Mansfield, Ohio, an older man in a baseball cap leans back and asks Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance about a controversial remark he made a few weeks back, in which he said he doesn’t “really care what happens to Ukraine.”

Mr. Vance – a former venture capitalist whose bestselling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” detailed his hardscrabble Appalachian upbringing – quickly assures the audience that he has prayed for Ukraine in church the past three Sundays. But he makes clear his position on America’s role in the conflict hasn’t really changed. “What should the federal government be doing in Ukraine?” he asks. “I think the answer is ‘Not a whole lot.’”

The next day, at a campaign event in Canton, rival candidate Mike Gibbons tells the Monitor he is “100% behind the Ukrainians,” adding that he “would crush” Russia with economic sanctions and supports arming Ukrainians “to the teeth.”

The Republican businessman, who narrowly leads the multicandidate primary field in polls, says he told his wife he wished he were in better shape so he could go to Ukraine and fight the Russians himself. “Any help we can give [Ukraine], I would do it,” says Mr. Gibbons. 

The diametrically different views on display here in Ohio, in one of the most expensive, most watched primary battles of the 2022 cycle, reflect a larger split playing out within the Republican Party over Ukraine – and, more generally, over American leadership abroad. As the world confronts the greatest threat to the global order in decades, the GOP is seeing a sharp resurgence of its traditional hawkish wing, even as its populist base, which had been ascendant during the Trump years, continues taking a more isolationist stance around putting “America first.”  

Jill Colvin/AP

Ohio Republican Senate candidate Mike Gibbons speaks at a campaign event at the Stark County GOP headquarters in Canton, Ohio, on March 10, 2022. With less than two months until the state's scheduled primary, the Republican businessman narrowly leads the field in polls, and urges stronger support for Ukraine.

Although former President Donald Trump recently called Russia’s invasion “appalling,” he has also praised Russian President Vladimir Putin’s moves in Ukraine as “smart” and “savvy.” North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “a thug,” while state-controlled Russian media has circulated clips of Fox News host Tucker Carlson questioning why “hating Putin” has become “the central purpose of America’s foreign policy.” Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene accused both Democratic and Republican leaders of having financial ties to Ukraine, warning in a Facebook Live video that “hard-working Americans living paycheck to paycheck don’t care about foreign wars or foreign borders.” 

At the same time, Republicans favoring action are increasingly vocal. Mr. Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, recently said there was no room in the GOP for “apologists for Putin.” And top Republicans in Congress, from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, have been pressuring the administration to increase sanctions on Russia and provide Ukraine with more support. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham has publicly called for Mr. Putin’s assassination, while retiring Ohio Sen. Rob Portman – whose seat Mr. Vance, Mr. Gibbons, and others are competing to fill – recently traveled to Poland as co-chair of the Senate Ukraine Caucus, and has been urging the administration to send air assistance to Ukraine. 

While most hot-button issues typically divide along party lines, the Ukraine-Russia conflict has jumbled alliances, says Ohio Republican strategist Mark Weaver. Far-right Republicans criticizing “the military-industrial complex” these days sound not unlike far-left Democrats of old. Meanwhile, more hawkish members of both parties have been urging President Joe Biden to take stronger action, with some all but accusing him of appeasement.

“Some people want us to do almost nothing, and some want us to send a lot of arms and have a no-fly zone,” says Mr. Weaver. “You are seeing that spectrum in this Ohio primary.”

“There are other issues here at home”

Ohio’s Senate race has generated an outsize amount of attention this year in part because it’s a rare open-seat contest. The fact that Mr. Trump has withheld an endorsement – a rarity that has garnered its own attention – has made the Republican primary even more competitive. 

According to OpenSecrets, Ohio had the highest fundraising hauls in 2021 of any Senate race, with two of the Republican candidates, Mr. Gibbons and Matt Dolan, putting more than $10 million of their own funds into their campaigns. Voters here can describe in detail the campaign ads that have been blanketing their TVs and radios for weeks. 

Still, a recent Fox News poll had “Don’t Know” leading the race with almost one-quarter of likely GOP voters. And more than 60% of voters said they may still change their mind. Even the date of the primary itself, currently slated for May 3, is up in the air. There’s a chance it will be postponed due to redistricting delays. 

Andrew Welsh-Huggins/AP/File

According to OpenSecrets, Ohio had the highest fundraising hauls in 2021 of any U.S. Senate race, including Ohio state Sen. Matt Dolan putting more than $10 million of his own funds into his campaign.

But when it comes to the Russian invasion, Ohio’s Republican voters display more consensus than their politicians. When asked to list their top priorities, more than two dozen people at GOP campaign events across the state cite the economy, election integrity, crime, abortion, the Second Amendment, and fortifying America’s southern border.

No one brings up Ukraine.

“A big one for me is feeling that our votes are going to count. After 2020 I feel hesitant to even cast a vote,” says Mike Barrett, a high school coach, at Mr. Vance’s event in Mansfield. 

“For sure the economy,” chimes in his wife, Susan, a retired nurse. “I just got half a tank of gas and it cost me $47.” 

When asked specifically about Ukraine, voters here don’t echo praise for Mr. Putin or criticism of Mr. Zelenskyy. Many say they pray for the Ukrainian people and are on board with the Biden administration’s economic sanctions against Russia. 

The limits to their support, however, are clear. 

“In the news we watch – Fox – it’s nonstop about Ukraine. And I understand why. We’re one step away from it coming here,” says Mr. Barrett. His wife interrupts: “But there are other issues here at home.” 

Many audience members nod in agreement when Mr. Vance calls it a “disaster” that congressional Republicans more than doubled Mr. Biden’s request for $6 billion in Ukrainian aid, authorizing $14 billion “to protect the border of a country 6,000 miles away,” while failing to give $4 billion to Mr. Trump for his U.S.-Mexico border wall. 

After Mr. Vance is asked about his past Ukraine comments, Matt Metcalf, a Richland county prosecutor, poses a follow-up: “I’m an America first person like yourself, but I don’t want to see Russia grow and spread communism,” he says. “When does that become a problem?” Mr. Vance replies that it’s a “different conversation” if Russia were to invade NATO allies, like Poland.  

“It’s not that you have to be heartless, it’s ‘What is in our national interest?’” Mr. Vance says later in an interview, after another event in a fluorescent-lit community center in Canton. “I think most voters actually agree with me on that – and not just Republican voters. I think a lot of Democratic voters agree with that too.”

A recent ABC News/Ipsos poll found that almost 80% of respondents supported banning Russian oil imports, even if it meant higher gas prices, while less than one-third supported imposing a no-fly zone over Ukraine if it meant drawing the U.S. and its allies into “direct military conflict” with Russia. 

This aversion to boots-on-the-ground conflict is nothing new for Americans, says John Mueller, an expert on public opinion and war at The Ohio State University. Typically, he says, it takes an attack on American soil to shift public opinion. It wasn’t until the bombing of Pearl Harbor that the U.S. became directly involved in World War II, and “almost everyone agrees that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would not have been fought if it were not for 9/11.” 

Even when America does become involved in conflicts overseas, domestic concerns often still dominate in politics. Professor Mueller points to former President George H.W. Bush, who saw his approval ratings soar at the end of the first Gulf War but then lost his reelection bid, in large part because of a poor economy.

“They thought he would win by a landslide because of his [Gulf War] victory,” says Mr. Mueller. “Foreign policy has hardly ever played that much of a role during elections, even during the Cold War. ... Voters worry about domestic stuff much more.”

Jeff Dean/AP

Ohio senatorial candidate Jane Timken (center left) poses for a photo with retiring Ohio Senator Rob Portman and supporters at a rally in Cincinnati on March 4, 2022. She says the Biden administration should have issued sanctions against Russia before the invasion, and that the White House could be doing more now to “squeeze Putin to the maximum capacity.”

Voters see energy as a national security issue

The war in Ukraine is amplifying certain domestic issues, however. Many voters here say it’s underscored for them that America needs to become more energy independent. 

“I want that pipeline opened,” says Fran Leitenberger at Mr. Vance’s rally in Mansfield, referring to the Keystone XL pipeline that would have transported Canadian tar sands crude oil to U.S. refineries. Construction of the controversial pipeline, which had begun under Mr. Trump, ended when Mr. Biden canceled its permit upon taking office.

“It’s like we’re sitting on a gold mine, and we’re buying gold from everywhere else,” says her friend Brenda.

“Not even buying,” adds their friend Cindy. “We’re begging.” 

In an interview ahead of a campaign event at the Sar Shalom Center in Mansfield, Republican candidate Josh Mandel goes so far as to blame the Russian invasion on Mr. Biden’s energy policy. If Mr. Biden had focused on ramping up domestic production, says Mr. Mandel, then the U.S. could have been exporting oil to Europe, undercutting Mr. Putin’s market and denying him the capital to invade Ukraine. 

During his hourlong stump speech, Mr. Mandel praises “the Judeo-Christian bedrock of America” and the brave soldiers who fought in World War II, but never mentions the conflict in Ukraine. Afterward, a dozen pastors encircle the former Ohio state treasurer and pray – separately and out loud – for Mr. Mandel’s candidacy, as the hundred or so audience members stand, arms outstretched. 

Other candidates echo Mr. Mandel’s Biden-energy argument.

“If we were energy independent, this attack would never have occurred,” says Mr. Gibbons to a nodding crowd of about 30 voters munching on chicken wings at an Irish pub in a Canton strip mall. “Putin has all the leverage on the world right now.”

Fellow GOP candidate Jane Timken, a former chair of the Ohio Republican Party who has been endorsed by Senator Portman, says the Biden administration should have issued sanctions before the invasion, and that the White House could be doing more now to “squeeze Putin to the maximum capacity.” 

In a phone interview with the Monitor, Ms. Timken notes that Ohio has one of the nation’s largest Ukrainian populations and says Ohioans of Ukrainian descent “are very concerned about what’s happening.” 

According to the most recent U.S. census ancestry survey, roughly 40,000 people in Ohio report Ukrainian ancestry. Many of them live in Parma, a suburb of Cleveland dotted with Ukrainian Catholic churches and pierogi shops.

Mr. Trump won Parma by a few thousand votes in 2020. But people here aren’t focused on domestic politics right now – in part because they’re too busy worrying about their homeland and their families.

Story Hinckley/The Christian Science Monitor

Olena Boichuk, who moved from Ukraine to Ohio with her husband five years ago, stands near a restaurant in Parma, Ohio. “There are two sides, and I see that,” she says of U.S. attitudes on the war in Ukraine. “Any American can say, ‘Ukraine is far away, why should we care?’” Yet she has also seen many Ohio residents go out of their way to tell her of their support for Ukraine.

“Here I am safe, but I can’t be calm for one minute,” says Olena Boichuk, who moved from Ukraine to Parma with her husband five years ago, and whose parents are still in Ukraine. “I lived in some of these cities and now I see the pictures – they are gone.”

Ms. Boichuk is aware that the question of American involvement in the crisis is politically divisive. “There are two sides, and I see that. Any American can say, ‘Ukraine is far away. Why should we care?’”

Still, she says Parma’s Ukrainian population has been overwhelmed with support, with people coming into the Ukrainian Village Food and Deli where she works, saying, “I have never been here before, but I want to buy some things.” On a recent day when she arrived to open the shop, a bouquet of yellow and blue flowers – the colors of the Ukrainian flag – had been left on the doorstep. 

“What makes me the most surprised is when Americans talk about Ukraine with tears. It’s very touching. That people are so not indifferent makes me cry,” says Ms. Boichuk. “I am always answering the phone at the store and people say, ‘Do you have any Ukrainian flags?’ And I say, ‘We are all sold out.’”

Ismail Al Abdullah, like other Syrians living in opposition-held northern Syria, knows the drill: Scan the sky. Don’t drive on an open road. Avoid crowds. And never, ever, trust a Russian cease-fire.

“I wouldn’t wish Russian aggression on any person or anyplace in the world, because it is bloody, brutal, it aims to break your will to live, and it never stops,” Mr. Al Abdullah, a rescue worker with the White Helmets organization, says over WhatsApp.

“I am watching the Russians trying to besiege Kyiv in the same manner they besieged Aleppo, and Homs, repeating the bombings and massacres I witnessed,” he says. “It feels frustrating to see it happening all over again.”

On the 11th anniversary of Syria’s revolution, with no peace in sight there, the parallels with Ukraine are hard to avoid.

As the Russian war in Ukraine deepens, and Moscow intensifies its bombardment and aerial campaign against Ukrainian cities, Syrians and outside observers say that if Ukraine cannot repel the Russian invasion, clues to that country’s future may be found in Syria’s present.  

Urban shelling as strategy

One image from Ukraine this week was familiar to most Syrians: a bombed-out maternity hospital in Mariupol.

“Russia’s strategy is always to target hospitals, public facilities, rescue workers, anything that gives life or sustainability for civilians,” says Mr. Al Abdullah, who has been displaced three times by the war in Syria. “Their true aim is to kill and destroy the will of the people and make them flee their homes.”

Most devastating, perhaps, is the tactic known as “double-tap” bombing, when warplanes bomb a site, wait for a crowd to gather and rescue teams to arrive, and then circle back to strike a second time for maximum casualties.

Most of the 240 White Helmet volunteers who have been killed fell victim to that trick, Syrians say.

Analysts say it is part of a brutal and efficient strategy to force local people to surrender or leave their homes without the need for house-to-house fighting.

“In terms of approach, the indiscriminate shelling of urban areas is absolutely one that we have seen in Syria and in Chechnya; there is continuity here,” says Tracey German, a professor of conflict and security at King’s College London.

“Russians learned in their first intervention in Chechnya in the mid-1990s that sending troops into urban areas is a very difficult operation that requires a lot of troops and sends home a lot of coffins,” she points out.

Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

Local residents walk past a block of flats destroyed during Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine, March 17, 2022.

Limits of Western involvement

Former Syrian fighters warn of another parallel between their battle and Ukraine’s – the West’s unwillingness to become fully involved, and to support a resistance struggle that could wane.

“The West gave us arms, training, and direction to fight [President Bashar] Al Assad, but without a no-fly-zone to protect us or our families, just as they are doing with the Ukrainians now,” says Abu Abdullah, a Syrian military deserter turned Free Syrian Army officer who fought Syrian government and Russian troops for four years.

Today Abu Abdullah – his name is a nom de guerre – lays tiles in a northern Jordanian village for $28 a day.

“The West’s support is fleeting, and democracies’ patience is thin. What will happen,” he wonders, “to these Ukrainians should the war drag on?”

Syrians warn of another tactic that Russian troops employed in their campaign against them – cease-fires that they used as opportunities to resupply.

“In Syria, Russians and the Al Assad regime used de-escalation periods and cease-fires to regroup and recoup before a major offensive. This is something to be on the lookout for in Ukraine,” says Natasha Hall, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington.

In so-called de-escalation zones, opposition forces struck Russia-brokered deals with the regime to lay down their arms in return for security guarantees. But within months the regime would tear up these agreements and seize the de-escalation zone with Russian backing.

Um Suhaib and her family returned from Jordan to a de-escalation zone in southern Syria in 2018. “They said they were offering a peace, an amnesty,” says Um Suhaib, whose three nephews have been forcibly conscripted or disappeared since their 2018 return. “This regime and the Russians do not believe in cease-fires!”

Russia has also blocked many efforts by the United Nations and independent aid agencies to send humanitarian aid to besieged Syrian towns. Foreign aid workers complain privately that the Syrian government and Russia insist that aid goes through them so that they can skim most of it off for themselves.

Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets/AP/File

Workers from the Syrian Civil Defense group known as the White Helmets extinguish burning oil tanker trucks near the towns of Jarablus and al-Bab, in western Aleppo province, Syria, March 6, 2021. Syrian opposition groups and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights blamed Russia for the suspected missile strikes.

Syria today, Ukraine tomorrow?

Seven years since Russia’s intervention in the Syrian civil war, peace has not returned.

A low-level conflict continues to simmer as militias roam the burned-out buildings that pockmark Syrian towns, and insurgents occasionally ambush a regime convoy.

Russia continues to carry out airstrikes on de-escalation zones and on the last rebel bastion in Idlib. Last week’s targets included chicken farms and a water station, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). 

Syrian regime forces continue to arrest suspected dissidents and protesters in territories they control; the SOHR reports 45 people from the Damascus countryside were killed by torture in February alone.

The war and Western sanctions have led to the collapse of the Syrian currency, hyperinflation, constant gas and fuel shortages, and a struggle for many families to feed themselves.

Some 6.6 million Syrian refugees remain abroad with few prospects of return; 6.7 million internally displaced Syrians, living in Turkish-controlled areas, are largely reliant on outside aid.

The Kremlin could tolerate such a situation in Ukraine, and even claim it as a victory, suggests Ms. Hall, the CSIS analyst.

“Russia has proven it is very comfortable with frozen conflicts,” she says. “As long as they are not spending a gratuitous amount of treasure and blood, they will accept a high amount of misery – as long as it is someone else’s misery,” she adds.

Syria’s future

Syrians say their own fate, too, hangs in the balance in Ukraine.

Should Russia succeed in occupying large swaths of Ukrainian territory, Syrians fear an emboldened Vladimir Putin will back a final campaign to seize Idlib and clear the last remaining Syrian opposition stronghold of its 4 million residents.

“We in Northern Syria are watching events very closely. If Russia can capture Ukraine, we think the next step will be Idlib,” says Mr. Al Abdullah, the White Helmet volunteer. “It would be a green light. If the international community cannot protect Ukraine, consequently they won’t care about Idlib and the civilians here.”

But “things can be different,” Mr. Al Abdullah hopes. “Now Russia is a threat to international peace, the international community must respond. If they do not, another country and another people will face misery.”

Scott Yates will be the first to admit that his signature campaign issue may not seem like a big deal.

With the slogan “Improving your life, one hour at a time,” the former journalist and tech startup founder launched his campaign to be the Democratic representative for Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District earlier this year with a promise to #LocktheClock and end America’s biannual time change. It may not seem like much, says Mr. Yates, who also hopes to address student debt and climate change in Congress, but ending the time change could be a step toward repairing Americans’ faith in Washington. 

“Daylight saving time isn’t the most important issue in the world, but it is an example of something that is broken and that we can fix,” says Mr. Yates. “So let’s do that first, and then we can fix what comes next.” 

This was a monumental week for DST activists like Mr. Yates. On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate passed the Sunshine Protection Act, which would make daylight saving time permanent. 

Daylight saving begins on the second Sunday in March, when almost all Americans move their clocks one hour ahead (often referred to as “spring forward”) and ends the first Sunday of November, when Americans revert to standard time (known as “fall back”). Under the Sunshine Protection Act, Americans would “fall back” to standard time in November, “spring forward” again in March 2023, and then stay forward forever. 

Sponsored by Republican Sen. Marco Rubio from Florida, the bill passed by unanimous consent, meaning that no senator objected. The Sunshine Protection Act still needs to pass the House and be signed by President Joe Biden before it can become law, but at a time when gridlock so often reigns in Washington and international relations feel dire, proponents say this week’s passage added a little light to their day. 

“We had no idea it was going to be on the docket. It came out of nowhere,” says Kevin Rosneck, who works in health care systems north of Detroit. He started a pro-daylight saving time Facebook group three years ago that has grown to several hundred members – a politically diverse mix from across the country. 

“Someone once described it as ‘a little big thing’ and I think that’s it,” says Mr. Rosneck. “By and large, the country just hates the time change, whether it be for daylight saving or standard time. They just can’t stand moving the clock, and I think that’s what brought a lot of folks together.” 

The pros and cons of DST

An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll from October found that only one-quarter of respondents preferred to “switch back and forth” between daylight saving and standard time. Three-quarters of respondents would like the United States to stick with one time – a level of agreement not found on other prevalent issues asked about in the survey. But that majority was split between preferring daylight saving time (which gives more sunlight in the evening) and standard time (which gives more sunlight in the morning), with about 10% more preferring standard time.

Many Northerners, who struggle with high-latitude-induced early sunsets, are in the pro-daylight saving group. “We have sunset in Rhode Island at 4:15 – 4:15!” said Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse earlier this week, adding that this leaves most workers commuting home in the dark. Pro-daylight saving advocates also point to studies that show robbery rates decreasing when there is more light later in the day. 

Those on the other side of the debate, such as the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, say lighter mornings and darker evenings are more in line with the body’s natural circadian rhythm, encouraging more productive days and better nights of sleep. This timing also makes students’ commutes to school safer, argues the group Save Standard Time, and it improves productivity for people whose workday is tied to the sunrise for religious or agricultural reasons. Standard time proponents argue that daylight saving time is promoted by lobbyists in the tourism, golf, and retail industries who have found a correlation between brighter evenings and consumer spending.

But one great aspect of the Sunshine Protection Act, says Mr. Yates, is that it allows states to make their own decision between daylight saving versus standard time. States could choose to be on standard time year-round – as Arizona and Hawaii already do – as long as they do so before November 2023, when the Sunshine Protection Act would go into effect. This would allow states to use the next year and a half to study their sunrises and sunsets and decide what works best for them.

How time changes got started

In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson followed the lead of European Allies and adopted daylight saving time as an effort to conserve energy with additional daylight hours during World War I. The measure was dropped when the war ended, and didn’t resurface until World War II, when daylight saving time – referred to as “war time” – was again mandated nationally by President Franklin Roosevelt. That, too, was repealed after the war, and localities could choose whether to observe the time change, until it was nationalized with the 1966 Uniform Time Act. 

While the change was initiated to save energy, there’s no consensus about whether it achieves that goal. Some studies say the small savings from DST add up to a lot, some say the switch actually increases energy demand, and others show no effect on energy use.

One thing that does seem clear is that people don’t like changing between the two times. 

Since 2015, more than 450 bills and resolutions have been introduced in almost every state, says Jim Reed, who covers the topic for the National Conference of State Legislatures. And in the past four years, 18 states have enacted legislation or resolutions that would switch them to DST full time, pending a federal law change. 

“It’s really the act of time changing that’s the problem,” says Mr. Reed. “Now that the U.S. Senate has acted, I think the debate is going to become more robust to the benefits one way or another on standard versus daylight.”

Editor’s note: This article has been corrected to reflect that the Senate passed the Sunshine Protection Act by “unanimous consent,” meaning no senator objects (and no roll call vote is taken).

courtesy of Erik-Jan Owerkerk and Pritzker Architectural Prize

Gando Primary School

As in many professions, architects are hunting for new ways of thinking to help solve the climate crisis. Material solutions in building design, such as recycled steel or reflective paint, are fine but finite in their influence. Their efforts received a boost this week after the annual Pritzker Prize, otherwise known as the Nobel Prize for architecture, was awarded to someone who brings “brilliant, inspiring and game-changing ways” toward sustainability in structures.

He is Francis Kéré, the first African to win the prize and whose origin from a small village in the heart of the Sahel in Burkina Faso accounts for his refreshing approach in a profession still famous for grand cultural icons than for environmental leadership.

“He knows, from within, that architecture is not about the object but the objective; not the product, but the process,” reads the Pritzker jury’s citation.

His early fame came in helping design a school in his village after an education in Germany. He let the whole village participate in the design, drawn on sand for all to see. Then he enlisted them to construct the Gando Primary School, using local wood to compact the stone floors and local clay to make bricks mixed with cement. The people learned skills that they could later use to find work, showing that good architecture can transmit ideas widely.

The result was a welcoming structure with a “floating” roof that allows passive ventilation in a hot climate and wall openings that bring filtered light for students to learn even without electricity. The school’s design is also a work of art built on vernacular motifs. “Everyone has the right to beauty; it should be a human right!” Mr. Kéré told Radio France Internationale.

Mr. Kéré showed the villagers that ideas to deal with climate or other challenges are always at hand. “It is not because you are poor that you should not try to create quality,” he said in a statement after receiving the prize.

By starting his profession in one of the world’s poorest places, he challenged the notion that climate solutions start with big institutions. “We cannot say that we do not have a voice; everyone can contribute to tackling the major issues of our time,” he told Dutch magazine De Groene Amsterdammer. “By acting locally, you can generate a global impact. For example, you can choose to build a school building with clay and inspire people all over the world, instead of waiting for the government.”

The Pritzker jury found his body of work, which now extends with designs from Africa to China, is rooted in the “unique” aspects of each community. His buildings “have presence without pretense and an impact shaped by grace,” it stated. For his profession, those types of qualities can be a guide in responding better to the world’s biggest challenges.