Engagement – Participation – Sustainability – Tour ’09 (the program)

A - What is the main goal?
B - How will we go about it?
C - What will happen in the two workshop days?
D - Questions and what are the needs?


A - What is the main goal?

The idea is to develop, compile, plan, finance and realize a community centre, on the basis of coachings and workshops, together with the community concerned. Local resources and skills should be the main motor used, developed and strengthened.
This means a course of action, which depends less on investment and travel expenses from European partners rather than more responsibility and inclusion for and of the target community, in which the local project management and competencies are residing, with the main focus on capacity building, the process of developing skills, which will be implemented by the community.
The goal is to implement a Community Centre within the framework of the Child Aid Project Tubatse in the province Limpopo/South Africa.
The building will comprise an area of 250 - 300 m2 and should fulfil the following functions:
• Assembly hall for 100 persons – with a required floor space of 120 m2.
• 2 training classrooms – each needs 50 m2. The first room acts as the “communications centre” with computers, TV, radio, books, magazines and internet access. The second room will be used as the productions centre, where sewing as well as meetings and trainings for 20 people will take place.
• An office – this room with ca. 40 m2 is at the disposal of the Child Aid team and will be used for administrative purposes.
• Kitchen and toilet: these rooms with ca. 40 m2 will need the necessary infrastructure.
• Outdoor shade: a space for social events, workshops and an eating area.
The whole project structure will be realized with local building materials, taking into account costs, efficiency and transport. The involvement of the community makes the manufacturing of local building components (i.e. clay bricks) possible and shows the will for involving the people. Child Aid staff and local volunteers will actively implement the project.
Currently there exists a well and a small building on the property. The latter is used as storage room and housing space for the project workers. Planned parallel to the building is a 0,5 ha big vegetable garden.
The topic of sustainable energy will be covered through solar energy, as there are app. 250 days sunshine a year in South Africa. Additionally, the alignment of the building copes with the approach: the active solar energy (which counts twice as much compared to Austria) will be used and alternative concepts (i.e. solar cookers, water heating systems and natural active cooling system) are supposed to make the whole project self-sufficient.
The idea of the Coaching Model for a project of the International Development Cooperation is based on the local resources, skills and available manpower.The main focus lies on the right motivation, a good idea and the realization of an exciting project in Tubatse.
On the basis of two accomplished projects and a third in process, I have experienced what it means to work with ca. 25 students from Europe for 6 to 7 weeks building a complete Skills Centre (ca. 350 m2), the Lesedi Nhahle Crèche and a kindergarten trainings centre (420 m2).

This project is not focussed on the work performance of voluntary students from Europe but rather the aspect of capacity building within the local community.The topic Coaching will work within 3 phases and the different tools applied on-site refer to the Transdisciplinary Design Framework.

a. identification and structuring: compiling programme, mapping resources, workshop of acknowledgement, 1:1 simulation, name finding
b. analysis: planning workshop, skills programme, resources, 1:1 model, memo of understandings
c. from results to implementation: beginning of construction, workteam workshops, skillswork, planning discussions, ownership workshops.

There will be planning phases in between the different design or work states, for which I will develop a handbook of implementation on open-source basis, so that future projects have a manual orientation.

The goal is to develop an ecologically self-sufficient structure based on local resources, whereas the project will be supported by all partners of my network: S.L.U.M_network5, the Global Village Network6 and the Peace and Collaboration Development Network.

B - How will we go about it?
Workshops, planning phase, building phase, experiment, implement, document, hand over, open source, manual.

C - What will happen in the two workshop days?
The basic idea is to focus in the entire process on the concept of ‘need-based-design’, standing for the application of ‘appropriate technologies’ for real sustainability.
Day one: assessment of skills, resources, materials, etc;
Day two: the project outline, with final sketches and a model, and a name!!
We will divide the community in 6 groups, female – male and then in three age groups, and each group will individually develop ‘solutions’ and the relevant information for each step.
The actual ‘mapping’ will happen when each group will draw a ’map’ indicating the availability and distances from/to the actual building site of each and every aspect, without forgetting the essentials of:

Culture,
Ecology,
Technology,
Politics,
Economics,
Community,
Spiritual means

and the result of all this will be developed into the project of the Community Centre that we want to realise together!

C.1 – WORKSHOP-DAY ONE:

C.1.1. - SKILLS:
What skills do we find around the premises?
Who can do what?
How do we find them?
Who is in contact with?
What facilities can we find?

- brick-layers, brick-makers, tire repairs, car wash, exhaust pipe welders, car mechanics, machine makers, electricians, plumbers, doctors, teachers, architects, designers, web-designers, bloggers, farmers, artists, potters, video, grass matt makers, grass furniture makers, etc.

C.1.2. - MATERIALS:
What can we use for building?
What natural materials are found?
What artificial materials are found?
What waste can be re-used/re-cycled?
In what condition are the things we find?

- clay, sand, stone, grass, branches, trees, wood, timber, glass, bottles, paper, cardboard, metal, plastic, water, sheeting, cloth, fabrics, net, shading, etc.

C.1.3. – RESOURCES and WASTE:
Waste is a resource and free.
Food, and everything natural is good for compost,
Glass bottles and plastic bottles, paper, cardboard, tin cans,
Plastic, other non reusable materials.

Where do we find what?
Energy supplies?
Where are the skills?
Where are the materials?
How do we link to the world?
How do we move skills and materials?
Where are the shops to buy what we don’t have?
How do we raise the money?

C.2. – WORKSHOP-DAY TWO:

C.2.1. - SITE:
What are the qualities of the site?
What is not so good on the site?
Where is the place with best shadow?
Where do you want to sit on the site?
What facilities do we want to find in the community centre?
What orientation does it need?
Do we have water or a well?
What are the ground qualities?
What can we do with the free space in-between?

C.2.2. – Project: All this will be developed in 6 groups and then each group will present their ideas, and we will then build a scale model of the centre in order to visualise our ideas in one single project outline, for which we will find a name that will symbolise the concept and the idea of what has been developed.

C.2.3. – Next steps: Finally we will define the responsibilities as well as a clear working plan, so that when we meet again in 3-4 months we can proceed in starting the second phase and eventually realise the building!

D - Questions and what are the needs?


“Engagement in a common idea,
participation of all involved,
to realise a really sustainable project.”