Of the world's 6 billion people, 1.2 billion – 1 person in five – live on less than $1 a day. Between 750 million and one billion of these absolute poor live in slums. 300 million of these live in the slums of Africa. Without adequate housing, social stability and a sense of security, any hope of community mobilization or poverty eradication is compromised.
There are many advantages to building with local earthen materials. Earth blocks are one of the most environmentally friendly building materials available. By comparison, cement is the most commonly used building material, yet at great expense to the environment. Cement requires tremendous energy resources to produce and often those resources create significant levels of pollution. Earth blocks also require less skilled labor for construction and their production consumes the least amount of energy.
Works of Wonder International seeks to increase access to adequate housing by raising awareness of low-cost building methods, and by helping local builders acquire the necessary technologies and skills.
KickStart (formerly known as ApproTec) develops and markets new technologies in Africa. These low-cost technologies are purchased by W.O.W. and then made available to local entrepreneurs in exchange for community service.
KickStart has developed a high-pressure stablized soil block press, which makes strong building blocks from soil and cement. Four workers using this heavy duty manual press can produce 500 rock hard building blocks a day, compacting a soil/cement mixture under high mechanical pressure. The press is adjustable for use with almost any soil type and just 1 bag of cement makes over 100 bricks.
Blocks can be sold profitably to build walls at half the cost of the concrete block or stone walls.
[donation:Earth-Friendly Building]
- Create Jobs AND save the Earth!
- Enrique Gonzalez Romero : Nicaragua
- Carmita De Lourdes Loja Pugo : Ecuador
Hi John and Alice, check out our yltp site. Youth movement growing. So amazing. Wud like to get into works of wonder stuff, co ordinating for MISSION GREEN EARTH. Organising large stand up events in townships. Wud like to register WORKS OF WONDER LOCALLY and use the JUST GIVE approach and logo. We need a way that we are not governed by endless amounts of red tape and protocol, with guys who with all good intention, do not understand the needs on the ground. I would like to set up a committee of powerful local people – multi cultural…..minds that are forward thinking in terms of the development process.At the moment, we are led by Indian minds, we need so badly the diversity. We have some brilliant minds locally that could help to advance our work. Was wondering if works of wonder could be an angle, specifically to raise funds for YLTP / BWS with an eye on a healthy understanding of the development process. After the recent xenophobic attacks, and the overwhelming response from civil society to wanna give, we would like to set up works of wonder locally to specifically focus on the development angle.
do ya think.
Love jgd candi xxx
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