Empower Nepal to Rebuild Safer Houses and Schools

The Build Change Nepal team is proud to be growing at a fantastic rate. We have increased our team from eight to 25 in the last few months, including 15 Nepali technical staff (civil engineers, structural engineers, architects, and other construction professionals).

We have produced three technical resources for local partners and the Nepali Government. These include:

1. A demolition and reuse flyer for community members. Already two organizations have distributed over 31,000 flyers in their districts of implementation;
2. A guide for the incremental expansion of a core housing unit for inclusion in the Nepali government house design catalog. This guide fills the gap for homeowners who will be re-building but don’t have the funds to build a complete house safely;
3. A guide for the use of hollow concrete blocks as an alternative technology for inclusion in the Nepali government’s alternative building technology catalog.

Finally, we are very proud to have successfully recruited female technical professionals, with a ratio of 60% women on our Nepal program’s technical team, including our Lead Structural Engineer, engineers, architects, construction trainers and a woman mason!

With your generous support we can continue to empower families and communities to build back better, safer, and faster.

Links:

• Click over to our website to see more details!

Hello friends and supporters!

As we near the six month mark of the April 28th earthquake, Build Change is moving ahead full steam. Below you will find updates on the activities and materials developed to date, funded in part by your kind support. While we are on the right path. Help us to continue our work empowering families and partners to build back better, safer, and efficiently through your generous and continued support. 

Educational Materials Released

With Mercy Corps, Build Change developed a flyer on Demolition, Material Salvaging, and Material Reuse Guidelines (available in both English and Nepali) that explains how to demolish houses safely and clarifies which materials can be reused and which should not.

Build Change remains active in the Shelter Cluster, where we are helping develop a flyer outlining 10 key suggestions on how to build a safer house for use by families in the process of rebuilding.

Local Studies

Two Build Change interns conducted a study on the local labor marketing and private sector involvement with housing reconstruction in Nepal. Elizabeth Hausler Strand, in her capacity as a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council for Risk and Resilience, will release this research in October.

We also completed a Housing Subsector Report, in partnership with Mercy Corps, to provide more information useful for long-term planning in reconstruction, conducted in the villages of Dhungkharka, Chyasingkharka, Mahankal Chaur, and Chalal Ganeshthan in the Kavrepalanchok district and Ramche and Maneshwor in the Sindhupalchok district. All 6 villages were among those that sustained substantial damage.

Formal Agreements with the Government of Nepal

Build Change and the Council fro Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT) have signed a Memorandum of Agreement to collaborate on vocational training and technical education related to safe construction.

Links:

• Visit our website for more updates from Nepal!