Help build affordable houses for Zambian villagers

Since my report of three months back, we have been looking into ways of continuing and scaling up our pilot program in Zambia; this would involve setting up one or more partnerships or franchises with local organizations, and recruiting a project manager to coordinate the program. Progress is being made, and our medium-term plan is to establish a program to start at the end of this year.

Andrew Jowett, Director of the British NGO Build--It International, has recently returned from a  visit to Zambia, and took time to go to Mutakwa, in the Chibombo District, and look at the first two VN houses built there a couple of years back. He kindly sent us some photos (attached) of these houses, and told us he was most impressed by them - he feels they are very well suited to the villagers' budgets and needs. As a protection from the rains, the owner of one of the houses has had a cement-based render applied to the roof, and her house is clearly well looked after.

You can follow the evolution of our pilot programs in Zambia and other countries outside the Sahel on our new website, which is bursting with superb photos and videos. Check it out at :

>> new.lavoutenubienne.org

(Note that the English version of the site is completed, but the French, Spanish, and Arabic versions are still under development).

One final bit of good news this week : I have just learnt that our  'Earth Roofs in the Sahel' program has been selected as one of 18 semi-finalists (out of 122 entries) for this year's Buckminster Fuller Challenge - so, please keep your fingers crossed for us over the next few weeks, as the Jury deliberates. To have got this far is a great tribute to our work... and , if we win, apart from the prestige associated with this, there is a prize of $100.000, funds which we could put towards recruitment and training of apprentice masons for our program in Zambia.

Links:

• AVN's new website
• AVN entry for Buckminster Fuller Challenge 2012