 http://www.lavoutenubienne.org Ten years ago in Burkina Faso, a landlocked African county, a small change started in the way people built their homes. Today that provides employment to many and is a growing way of life. It involves the construction of a simple vaulted earth roof, which was the traditional way of building for centuries, till it was replaced by other, less viable materials like tin roofs. The Earth Roofs for the Sahel, is a programme that is part of the Association la Voute Nubienne, (AVN) an NGO registered in France and Burkina Faso, in 2000. It promotes the construction of timberless valuted earth brick houses, using a well known technique known as la Voute Nubienne (VN). The VN technique is actually an adaptation of an age old technique of building houses from the Nubian region of Egypt. The country has two seasons, a rainy one for around 4 months, and the rest of the year is the hot season with winds from the Sahara. Traditional building used earth walls, thatched roofs and some timber, but with population growth the use of timber for construction is illegal or too expensive. People often resort to sheet metal or timber beams. These materials drain family resources, sheet metal gets corroded, and they are often imported from outside at high expense. Sheet metal also has poor heat and sound insulation. The first prototype of a VN construction in Boromo, Burkina Faso, was built as a challenge by Thomas Granier and Séri Youlou in 1998. Next year, a VN house was built, and the Association la Voute Nubienne was founded in 2000 to promote the VN technique as a solution for affordable, sustainable housing in the Sahel.The vault roof is built without a timber support. The roof is waterproofed using locally produced plastic sheeting over a smooth coating of mud. This way of building is not only ecologically and economically sound, but also socially viable, and all these three parameters are essential in a country that occupies the sixth to last place on the Human Development Index. Local masons are trained, and they in turn employ apprentices once they become master masons. After some experience, master masons become independent entrepreneurs. The AVN helps them through the process, and helps the entrepreneurs develop a client pool through communication and networking. Till today approximately 235 houses and 20 public buildings (including schools, dispensaries, churches and mosques) have been built. Over 115 masons have been trained and there are currently 170 apprentices.Houses using the VN technique are more comfortable, healthy and durable. They are also safer, less prone to collapse and better in extremes of climate. They can be easily built with local materials and labour, most houses are built by bartering crops and/or labour. The families cover the housing and material cost, with AVN only covering a margin of labour and training costs. Now AVN has to cover less and less, which is a healthy sign of an active, self-sustaining system. The project is generating income and employment for many, and there have been over 7000 beneficiaries till date. The number of apprentices is increasing, which means more masons to carry out further training in the future. The vaulted roof can be converted to a flat terrace roof and the technique allows for later extension of a building, even adding a second storey onto an existing single storey building.The simplicity of this technique, (you can read more about it here) and its involvement of the local community are key to its success. It does not require fancy equipment, skill, or technical know-how. While giving people a better way to live, it also provides a means of livelihood, essential in such places. It has led to a major reduction in the use of imported materials, as it uses local materials, earth and water, and deforestation has also reduced. The poorest of families in remote rural areas are also building with this technique. Money saved by building this way is used for health or education. This technique thrives because it stays as close to the people it was meant for, as possible. It is an innovation not only in design, but also in system. It traditionally comes from their own culture, it draws on local materials and skill, and creates independent entrepreneurs, reducing dependence on the mother NGO, and outside resources. Do have a look at the video below.
By Armeen Kapadia
 http://www.architectureforhumanity.org/ Architecture for Humanity is an initiative started in 1999, and today is a network of more than 40,000 professionals who give their time and knowledge to help those who would otherwise would not be able to afford their services. One of the ironies of our time is the fact that often, the people who are most in need of design and development services, are the ones who can least afford it. In the last ten years Architecture for Humanity has helped rebuild local communities after natural disasters, alleviate poverty and provide access to to clean water. They also work for communities struggling with urbanization, build for the differently abled, rebuild communities post-conflict, and reduce the footprint of buildings.
One of the key areas they work in is sustainable design. They believe (very sensibly) that "Buildings not only have a physical footprint - they have an ethical footprint." Projects they work on range form community centers for tsunami affected people in Sri Lanka, to preservation of defaced structures in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The projects on their site and both numerous and varied, and there is a detailed documentation of each one. Their sensitivity to culture, people and the environment, results in buildings and spaces that blend with and support the local resources, as well as revitalize the local culture and sense of community. As they say, "Design is important to every aspect of our lives. It informs the places in which we live, work, learn, heal and gather. We engage all stakeholders in the design process. We believe our clients are designers in their own right."
Cameron Sinclair is the CEO, (Chief Eternal Optimist as they call it) of Architecture for Humanity, of which he is the co-founder with Kate Stohr. He was trained as an architect in University College, London, where he developed an interest in social, cultural and humanitarian design. Ten years back he and his wife Kate had an idea while watching news of the refugees in Kosovo. Cameron said, "I bet there is more than just us who cares about these communities, who want to help and make a difference." They launched a design competition for Kosovo, and were flooded with a new ideas for refugee housing. And so Architecture for Humanity was born. You can read more on him here. They have co-authored a book 'Design Like You Give A Dam'. (I couldn't have said it better myself!)Cameron believes that when your clients are living on less than 50 cents a day, being 'green' is not a choice. Sustainability is also about affordability, and innovation with the minimum resources.You can request design services or offer design services. Also have a look at Open Architecture Network, another initiative by them, an online, opens-source community to share knowledge and improve living conditions. These people realize that architecture is so much more than just 'buildings'. It is the spaces we live in, and in a way our homes, workplaces and gathering places are extensions of ourselves. They shape us as much as we shape them. I quote their site "One billion people live in abject poverty. Four billion live in fragile but growing economies. One in seven people live in slum settlements. By 2020 it will be one in three. We don't need to choose between architecture or revolution. What we need is an architectural revolution."One of the several current projects is happening in Haiti, post-earthquake. Cameron's entire posts on the home page are worth reading. A quote here, "For those not used to working in disasters the first week is chaotic, filled with stories of heroism and despair. The first responders are not the NGO's or medical personal but the families of those who are injured or lost their lives. It is an overwhelming situation to be in. It is also not the time for architects to show up thinking they can rebuild. People are trying to find their loved ones not think about what their lives will look like in 5, 10 or 15 years."
Do read their site in detail, its range and depth of work is commendable, and have a look at the video below. (lots more videos on YouTube). Its time to design like you give a dam. By Armeen Kapadia
Education needs experiments. In India, especially, we need something entirely different. Digital StudyHall (DSH) is on an experimental trail. They describe their approach as an education equivalent of Netflix + YouTube + Kazaa.
Live classes by the best grassroots teachers are recorded on video and then stored on computer discs, which are distributed to rural schools. Education experts are working in tandem with computer scientists to explore pedagogic approaches in the rural context.
Firstly, DSH is focusing on creating a video database of everything. (usually in the local language) Going a step ahead, they have structured the sequencing of these videos to fit into the current state board curriculums so that any school can use it. Some of the best teachers have recorded their discourses. What they have done here is go beyond the flash-ware and slide-ware kind of modules. This approach believes that teachers are still a prime agent in the learning environment. Although the output is aligned to the syllabus, the teachers have re-interpreted the syllabus in terms of interactivity.
Secondly, DSH adopts a decentralized network. Although content is produced and disseminated for local use, it is shared with the other towns and cities. The videos are recorded in the contextual learning environment instead of recording it in schools in cities. The relevance of content is key in creating this database.
Thirdly, the school needs a tv, dvd player and an inverter. They know that children can't learn by just watching videos. They have adopted mediation-based pedagogy. It means that there is a mediator, usually a teacher, between the students and the TV. The mediator pauses the video and engages children in activities, games, even a q&a session.
Lastly, the web2.0 application that they have developed doesn't require physcial infrastructure. The computer discs are transported by the postal system.
Digital StudyHall works best in the Indian context. It is striving to break new ground in schools across India.
By Sanjay Basavaraju
 Linda from malariamustgo.com Malaria is one of the major killers worldwide, with around 40% of the world’s population affected, and every 30 seconds a child dies of malaria. With a few simple measures, the disease can be prevented. Two students of the Royal College of Art’s Industrial Engineering programme, Katie Taylor and Andrew Stordy, have with come up two affordable products that help prevent malaria.
The two products are one that attracts and one that repels mosquitoes, Linda and the Koroboi Lamp respectively. Linda uses the most simple of everyday things, your smelly socks, that you have been wearing all day, and charcoal to attract and capture mosquitoes. At the base of the lamp charcoal is burnt to create carbon dioxide that then rises up to the top part where the sock is inserted. The combination of these two odors, carbon dioxide and the bacteria that live on human feet attract mosquitoes. The netting is impregnated with an insecticide, which kills the mosquitoes as soon as they land. There were many challenges while designing this product, which you can read about here. Linda can be used outside the house to attract the mosquitoes away from people. If lit before going to sleep, it can give a good night’s rest till the early hours of the morning.
The Koroboi Lamp was developed in Burundi with a local tinsmith. They can be filled with eucalyptus oil, or any other mosquito-repelling oil that acts as a mosquito repellent as it is vaporized. The Malaria Must Go project is a result of grass root level research, which included a trip to Tanzania, and user-centered design, with a focus on people’s attitudes and opinions. Malaria is linked to the cycle of poverty, so it was important that the product be locally made, and give employment to local people. Linda is being manufactured in a factory close to the users, and local artisans make the Koroboi Lamp.
The work has earned Stordy both an IDEA Gold award and a 2008 Dyson fellowship, among others. A strong sense of social responsibility, if inculcated at the student level, can have wide repercussions. Understanding of the local scenario is of prime importance, as good design exists in a context, and not in isolation. As Stordy says on his site, “The solutions we developed were generated by completely immersing ourselves in the problem at hand.”
Linda and the Koroboi Lamp, have a bright future, as they are designs that fulfill a very human need.
By Armeen Kapadia
 Charkha in context Gandhi believed that Charkha as a tool can make people self-sufficient. He may not have thought that, one day, the very same tool can actually generate power. Yes, e-charkha is a unique device to spin yarn and also generate electricity.
Using this device for one hour can provide upto 4 hours of light output through a highly efficient LED lamp. A radio can also be played with the stored electricity. The e-charkha is a brainchild of 48-year-old R S Hiremath of Bangalore. It does not resemble traditional charkhas, but it is a hand-operated spinning wheel. it was formally launched by President Pratibha Patil in 2007, the innovation has won several awards including a national award for best innovation in the Khadi field.
In a rural context, where power cuts are common, this device is appropriate. The charkha generates 6-9 watts of power. The charkha stores power using a maintenance free lead acid battery. The charkha is priced at Rs. 5,000 per piece for a minimum order of 500. India's Khadi & Village Industries Commission (KVIC) plans to induct two lakh pieces of e-charkha at Khadi weaving centers across the country. "Its popularity is increasing with time. It is not only more productive but also helps the user light his home," said a KVIC official in a Mid-Day article.
Gandhi once said, "In my dream, in my sleep, while eating, I think of the spinning wheel. The spinning wheel is my sword. To me it is the symbol of India's liberty. I would make the wheel the centre around which all other activities will revolve." Some technologists believe that e-charkha isn't anything like Gandhi's Charkha and they argue that innovation has replaced tradition. That might be the case, but
e-charkha finds its place in today's context. The charkha was developed in cooperation with a Bangalore based firm — Flexitron, which is now involved in its commercial production as well.
The e-charkha is one of those very few designs born out of the Indian design ecosystem. Watch this clip from IBN Live.
By Sanjay Basavaraju
 PlayPump in action Children have abundant energy. And it seems like someone is literally tapping into it. The PlayPump system is a genius idea. While children use the merry-go-around, clean water is pumped from underground to a water-tank. Even better, the surface of the water-tank is leased as billboards for advertisements and social messages.
Just to be very sure of the problem it is solving, here are some of the facts:
1. More than one billion people do not have access to clean water
2. On an average, 6,000 people die everyday because of water-related diseases
3. Around 40 billion hours of time is spent fetching water, mostly by women and children.
PlayPump as a system is lifting people out of poverty. PlayPump with its system:
1. Provides access to safe, clean drinking water
2. Improves sanitation and hygiene
3. Reduces barriers to education
4. Promotes play
5. Increases opportunities for women and girls
6. Spurs economic development
7. Helps reduce the impact of HIV/AIDS
The New York Times Editorial puts the effect of PlayPumps succinctly, "South Africa has already installed 500 PlayPumps, which are more efficient, easier to use, and cheaper to run than wells with hand pumps."
If you want to know more about how it works, click here.
By Sanjay Basavaraju
 Q Drum in action In developing countries, women walk miles in heat to fetch water. Studies suggest that in remote villages of these countries, women spend more than half their lifetime fetching water. Q Drum is trying to change that equation. Its design is a perfect example of form aiding function.
What Q Drum achieves is staggering. It is a known fact that clean water is one of the essential resources for everyday survival in developing countries. Q Drum is popular with children because they find the very nature of its design engaging. The activity of using Q Drum allows children to be active helpers in domestic duty, which could free women from fetching water. Since children are going to use it, the ease of use was a primary concern. A child can pull 50 liters of water over flat terrain. The Q Drum is simple, cost effective and durable. The idea is to keep the weight on the ground. In achieving that, the surface of the container will be in contact with the ground so it was essential to have no moving parts or handles that could break. Considering the space these drums occupy, they are stackable.
In the early 90's Pieter Hendrikse worked in rural areas and villages around Pietersburg, South Africa, and he noticed how women and children struggled to get water from few taps to their homes, in some cases kilometers away. Usually women carried the containers on their heads like in the rest of rural Africa, which invariably caused many neck and spine injuries. In an attempt to find an easier way to transport water, a doughnut hole through a cylindrical container was prototyped.
While I am at this, I find another solution for a same problem. It is called Hippo. It is again based on the concept of rolling rather than carrying. These cans hold 90 liters of water. Although the weight of a filled can is 90 kg, it is transformed to an effective weight of 10 kg, which means that almost anyone can easily manage a full roller.
Conceiving the idea is relatively easy, but to resolve manufacturing details is key to the success of such innovations. It is a challenge to bring down manufacturing costs. At times, it can be frustrating where the manufacturing technology can't aid the design. The development of a concept and its testing, needs time, effort and money.
Collecting water reduces productivity, limits educational opportunities and traps households in poverty. The strategy of these products is to focus specifically on reducing the social, economic and health consequences of carrying heavy loads of water over long distances.
By Sanjay Basavaraju
 portablelight.org Some two billion people worldwide live without electricity. A Boston-based architect, Sheila Kennedy, wondered how LED technology could be used to help communities living without light. She led a team of designers and engineers in creating a new lighting material, Portable Light that enables people to harvest light. Portable Light is a combination of three existing technologies, namely flexible solar panels, LED lights and a lithium cell phone battery. It came from Kennedy & Violich Architecture, also known as MATx, a Cambridge, Mass., firm co-founded by Kennedy and her husband Franco Violich.
Portable Light is designed mainly for the ‘off the grid’ people in tropical zones. In 2005, Kennedy, an anthropologist, and a group of architecture students from the University of Michigan took Portable Light to the Sierra Madre mountains of Mexico, to introduce it to a group of Huichol Indians. After days of trekking in the mountains they came across a group of people dressed very differently and who didn’t mix much with other villagers. They were the Huichol Indians. They understand the potential of the sun, so they have some understanding of solar energy. They easily adapted to the new Portable Lights, which can light up an entire room for cooking, schoolwork, or art and craft. They wear the light in the form of bags on their back in the day; at night the bag unfolds into a large surface.
Kennedy talks of the surgeons during the 19th century, who used to operate with the light of a candle; they had just mastered how to reflect that light with mirrors for optimum use. Each Portable Light consists of a 17-by-17-inch fabric panel, it can be adapted to create different kinds of light, more focused, or spread over a large area. To know more on how it works you can read about Portable Light on Miller-Mccune.com and on Portable Light.
Portable Light has been adapted culturally as well; the Huichol Indians are weaving their own traditional patterns, bags, and mats using this amazing fabric. With new innovations several squares of Portable Light can hook together, share power and light up a larger area.
The Huichol Indians feel they don’t need electricity from the power grid, as they don’t have malls or any such development. If they get power lines, that might lead a factory to spring up, which will forever change their way of life. The Portable Light might change their way of life, but in a much more positive way.
The team at MATx have come up with many amazing products. Another project is weaving Portable Light into a solar-powered blanket. This caught the imagination of Krista Dong, a doctor working with TB patients in South Africa. A blanket that could absorb the heat of the sun all day, and use that energy to keep the patients warm at night was just the thing that was needed.
“Working in the so-called Third World, not only are we bringing people the benefits of a little power, we’re also getting great ideas about how we can translate these technologies to our own countries,” Kennedy says. “The idea that we’re going to have a top-down centralized system of lighting in our housing and architecture is a historically outdated idea.”
At first 50 Portable Lights were distributed by a raffle system among 11,000 Indians, and Kennedy and her team hope to distribute many more, not just there but across the world.
By Armeen Kapadia
 Super MoneyMaker in action The poor are not victims. It is on this, and other similar beliefs, that KickStart was founded. KickStart is a company that promotes sustainable economic growth as a way to lift millions of people in the developing world out of poverty. They develop and promote technologies that can be used to run small-scale enterprise.
It’s founders Martin Fisher and Nick Moon, met in Kenya, where they were frustrated by the lack of long-term impact on poverty, even the work of development agencies soon fell apart after the workers pulled out of the area. They felt there was a huge need to make the people self-reliant. In sub-Saharan Africa, 80% of the population is rural farmers.
Some of the products from KickStart include the Super MoneyMaker, a water pump that can push water uphill, and simply pump it from its source. It is useful in sloping land, where the water source may be at the bottom. It is low-cost, light weight, and durable. Till date 97,000 pumps have been sold, and have changed many lives for the better. They also have the MoneyMaker Hip Pump, which is a lighter, cheaper one. There is a Stabilized Soil Block Press, which can be used to create 500 building bricks a day. You can see other products in development, and the Cooking Oil Press as well.
More interesting than their products are the Lessons Learnt. These are basic facts, but are crucial points to consider if developing countries are to really improve the lives of their citizens. The poor are not victims; the number one need of the poor is a way to make money, individuals, and not communities make the difference, the majority of the poor are rural, sell, don’t give, and the importance of the middle class are some very interesting points of view.
Do see their 5-step process, a great guide for any entrepreneur, designer, or people working in development. First, identify the opportunities in the area. This involves spotting the problem areas, and identifying the best means to deal with the problem, which involves the people. The next step is to design products, and the mistake often made here when designing for the world’s poor is a focus on developing things that "we" think "they" need. The next step is to build a supply chain that will ensure the products reach the people, and the people are also profitably involved along the supply chain. Develop the market: in developing countries, the market may consist of villagers in remote locations, totally cut off from one another and the world. The very name of their product ‘MoneyMaker’ speaks directly to the customer, and their needs. And finally, measure and move along, look at the long-term solutions, see how the company is growing, and focus on the permanent solution.
By Armeen Kapadia
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