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| The room that we bought |
On my first internship in the Mathare slum, here in Nairobi, Kenya, I made a fundraising action, aiming to buy a room for the school, so they could invest the money that they used to pay for the rent of the space, now employing two new teachers, and saving the remaining money to have an annual celebration with the kids or make savings to improve the general conditions of the institution.
I receive a lot of e-mails with opinions, questions and suggestions, and among all of them, there was a very good idea: rebuild the room, using Eco-blocks: Bottles completely filled with inorganic trash... that much that at the end are capable of supporting an adult person standing on them without changing the shape.
Once the mission was accepted, we started the research to find all the Coca-Cola and Sprite 2 liters bottles that were needed... The first action was asking on restaurants to keep the empty ones that the customers left, but that strategy wasn't efficient enough for the needs and time of the project: 1200 bottles was the target to fill in a month and a half!!
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| Vertical arragenment of the bottles Imagen taken from http://ciprogress.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/eco-ladrillos-01.jpg |
Looking for a bigger donor, we went to the Coca-Cola Company in Kenya, asking for a donation, but they kept delaying the answer and the time was running against us, so we visited the Ministry of Environment, as a first step on the research of recycling places to buy the empty bottles. But then they sent us to a different organization, where they told us to make an appointment to start figuring out where to find the bottles...
Time was biting us harder and harder, so we had to accept that even finding all the bottles that we needed, we wouldn't be able to find all the trash to fill them or even the time to complete strong and useful bricks: The goal had to be shortened, the 160 Eco-bricks that we had, would have to be well used in something else.
Sometime later, and because life has crazy and beautiful ways, I met a group of recyclers also from Mathare. These people were very interested in learning ways to use trash, to upgrade their business, that currently is just based in picking the recyclable trash among aaaaaall the other that the collector truck throws on their place.
Everything seemed to be ready to start the work, the only lack was the permit from the community to build a bench in a public space: They even wanted to charge us for making it!!
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| The very first line of bottles |
But we still believed in how good could that be for them, so after finding an approval in a common space, the morning of the 16th of november we started the work.
Everybody was skeptical! Even the mason to whom I had told about the project for months! But anyways we started working: A layer of cement, a layer o bottles, cement-bottles-cement-bottles.
The recycling group also came, and started to make a lot of questions to make sure that they were understanding the idea in such a good way, that they could make it again by their own, and some of the curious people from the community were participating of the discussion as well.
Everybody was so happy and motivated that my heart was full!! That day, something inside all the ones that were there changed.
When are you going to build another one? Could you go to the rural to teach the kids to make it? This structure is so strong! I want to build one in front of my house! That technology is very nice! We throw everything to the floor without thinking that this kind of things can be done!!
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| Third of five lines of bottles: At that point everybody was working on it as well as giving opinions because they felt the technique and the construction as theirs. |
After finishing the structure, the mason recommended us to water it twice a day, and the kids that live nearby the place were the responsible to make it. The day after, when the head teacher of the school went to make sure that the instruction was accomplished, the people from the community (the same ones that wanted to charge us for building it) told him happily that they were taking care of it!
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| This ladies (from the community) asked me to take this picture on their brand new meeting place! :) |
And about the recycling group, we met some days after with the aim to teach them about more possible constructions using the same technique, and they told me very convinced that they want to start their own enterprise to sell filled bottles and even build structures made out of it.
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| Some of the recyclers. This picture was taken specifically as a commitment to start their Company of Eco-Bricks |
At the end, I learned again to believe in myself as well as in the others, I was surprised about all the things that can be accomplished once we agree as a group, and we work hard with the resources we have at hand.
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| They are my students from Class 3: We took this group picture enjoying the bench! |
I feel infinite gratefulness with Maria Adelaida Jaramillo, who gave an incredible support with all her knowledge and experience to this project (here you can see something that she has done in my city: Medellín, Colombia http://www.elcolombiano.com/BancoConocimiento/V/vivienda_de_ecoladrillos_en_medellin/vivienda_de_ecoladrillos_en_medellin.asp), and also thank you very much to all the donors, because with that money we bought the materials and we also paid the labor.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,
WITHOUT FURTHER ADO,
IT'S MY PLEASURE TO INTRODUCE TO YOU
THE BENCH!
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