How it started
In 2012 CERES Global and Satpura Vikas Mandal, a local NGO, began discussing the possibility of building new teachers’ quarters for the Jamnya School, one of their poorest boarding schools of around 400 students in a remote tribal village in northern Maharashtra, India.
The Jamnya Primary & Secondary Schools consists of 400 students and 14 teachers, the majority of student’s board at school, using classrooms as sleeping dormitories. Teacher’s accommodation consists of small, dilapidated bamboo thatched structures. Sewage and waste water from the school and teaches quarters drain into a creek on the western periphery of the villages. The majority of homes and the school use indoor, open fires to cook and heat water.
The Jamnya School believed that in order to retain passionate and highly educated teachers it is critical to provide good quality accommodation that matches the aspirations of this progressive school.
In particular, a lack of adequate and permanent accommodation in the village discourages female teachers from living in the area as it is unsafe to live alone and there is insufficient space to accommodate families.
From here, CERES Global conceived the Sustainable Housing Project. In addressing the problems outlined by the community and an evident need to develop alternative construction methods to the highly carbon intensive model of concrete and steel dominating the scene in India, the building will be a model dwelling for replication which has been designed and constructed to:
- Provide safe, durable and comfortable housing for two teacher and their families, including a safe water supply and private sanitation facilities for each dwelling
- Incorporate efficient, hygienic and low costs household water management and effluent treatment systems
- Incorporate sustainable design principles - construct the dwelling with earth brick, low cement content, eco materials.
Where Are We Now
4 years on from our first conversation we have engaged the local community, architects, engineers, numerous volunteers and Swinburne university trade students to design and start building the house.
To date, the design is complete and we have pressed more than 5000 eco bricks, played a lot of cricket, eaten a lot of dahl, undertaken significant community consultation and training, and began the construction of the walls on the house which are now shoulder height.
Into the Future
In March 2016 we are heading back to Jamnya to press a further 4000 bricks and undertake training and knowledge sharing workshops to raise the confidence and capacity of the local community to carry on using the earth construction materials into the future.
The bricks will then cure for 6 months. In September we will return to complete the construction of the building.
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How You Can Help
Help us make this a reality by donating to our cause so we can send 1 architect and 2 skilled members of our site team at CERES to travel to India to facilitate the construction of the bricks and undertake the capacity building workshops within the community.
