By Tony Kaye | Member, AVN Management Committee
The third season of construction in our Pilot Village Deployment Program (PVDP) around Dendjola is just coming to an end, with excellent results:
- 9 buildings completed, composed in total of 19 vaults (thus, an average of 2 vaults per building),
- a total length of vaults, if put end-to-end, of 111 meters
- 5 new apprentices in training.
The driving forces behind this progress have been the local 'champion' Siaka Djiré, who has also played a major role in spreading the word about the AVN program to neighboring villages, and the NV master-mason Ibrahim Mien, who has himself supervised all 9 building sites and acted as the main channel of communication with the clients. Another important factor in the growth of the program has been the catalytic effect of building village mosques using the NV technique: everyone helps in providing manual labor for these community buildings, and they act as powerful demonstration sites for the quality and durability of the NV technique, prompting villagers to ask for houses to be built in the same way.
The three photos show examples of the constructions from this 2010/11 season.
Financial support for part of this season's program has come from the Dutch Triodos Foundation, and from the BICIM Bank in Mali (part of the BNP Paribas Group), but AVN is still looking for funding for the fourth year of the Dendjola PVDP, and for extension of the Program in Mali to neighboring regions. Any help you can provide will be much appreciated...
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