I would be very grateful for donations to raise US$50,000. I want to build a ecological and sustainable home. But also as I build it to train young unskilled local people how to use this technique to build homes for themselves and families. The home I have planned uses a technique called “Super Adobe or Earth Bag Construction”, this method has very low material costs, uses 90% recycled and natural materials, in fact most of the structural walls are made from the local soil found on site. I will explain more of the method below.
The reason I need donations is because I work as a middle school teacher and my income does not allow me to save the funds needed. The fund will mainly be used to pay the construction workers, even though I will be teaching them a new building method, I believe they should still be paid for their work, also I want to attached young workers, who will benefit from learning these new construction methods. They will after the construction of the house, have the skills and knowledge to replace, in most cases the wooden poor constructed family homes, with strong hurricane and earthquake proof, ecological and sustainable homes for their families. All aspects of the build will be a training for the workers, not just how to build this method, but also installing solar panels, electrical, plumbing and gray water recycling, so that they will know how to incorporate this into their own lives. My hope is that the workers will use these skills to not only improve their lives but also in turn train more people on these methods. Once the house is constructed I plan to live in the house, but will continue to offer free consultations to local people on how they can build houses like this for themselves, and in time funds permitting run onsite free workshops about ecological and sustainable homes. I could ask the workers to work for free as they are learning a important skill, or even charge them as few other companies do in the USA for learning these skills, but I believe I will attract better workers who need these skills, but with out a livable wage would not be able to learn these skills.
Any one who can help with a donation in my opinion is a wonderful human, who is not just helping me, but also helping low income, unskilled people to learn a important skill, that will enable them to improve their families and their communities lives. Any donations of any size will help and I would be so very grateful and humbled by.
Why do the low income people of Baja California Sur, need to learn these skills? Baja California Sur is a hot, dry semi desert area of Mexico. Many low income families, who work in service industries, and construction labor, do not have enough income to be able to gain finance to construct family homes. Many live in small wooden homes, the size of a large garden shed, with no electricity or running water. They have to buy water from water trucks. The Earth Bag construction home is very strong, they have been proven to be earthquake and hurricane proof, Hurricanes are common in Baja California Sur and often completely destroy lower income communities, washing away their few possessions. If these local people have the skills to build Earth bag homes, which have a very low material cost, they would have a home that will not be destroyed ever couple of years by a hurricane, but would have a home that will last for hundreds of years. Teaching them how to make and maintain gray water filtration systems, will enable them to save the water they buy from water trucks and reuse a lot of the water they currently loose.
Earth Bag construction.
Earth Bag Construction uses recycled sacks that previously held seed of grain used in many of the local farms, theses bags are made from polyurethane. These bags are filled with the damp local soil which has a 5% clay content, and laid on a circle of up-to 6 meter diameter, and pounded or tramped so that the soil is compacted, each layer or course of bags in laid as you would traditional brick or blocks. In between each course bared wire is run to add tensile strength. Once the height reaches 2 meters the circle courses gradually become smaller forming a sloping roof. Windows and doors are added during the construction process. All electric wiring and plumbing is installed as you would in a normal house construction. Once the building is completed I will teach the workers how to install solar electricity and plumbing. The pluming will drain the black toilet water to a septic tank which when full can be used a plant fertilizer, the gray water from wash basins, kitchen sinks and showers will drain to a gray water tank. Before reaching the gray water tank the gray water will flow through sand and organic filters which I till teach the workers how to construct out of local free materials, and how to make a surface skimmer to skim the surface of the gray water to remove any oils or residue detergents. The filtered gray water can be used to flush toilets, and water plants, but would not be suitable for drinking, but this will still massively reduce the amount of water consumption. All of these skills that the workers will learn can then be used to improve the local community.
Please help with what ever you can afford. I am eternally grateful, and Thank you in advance.
paypal.me/ecohomandrewmkw