In September this year, we had a chance to collate the necessary data to provide a review the impacts of the last ten years' work by AVN and its network of masons; the results are very encouraging:

 Since the start of the program, 1309 vaults have been built by Nubian vault (NV) masons and entrepreneurs, for 533 clients, in 244 locations (villages, hamlets, towns) in 3 countries (Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal)
 If all the vaults built were to be placed end-to-end, this would reach a total length of 9.7 km (Note: a standard vault, our unit of measurement, has internal dimensions of 7M long X 3,25 M wide)
 In total, 214 NV masons have been trained, of whom half are at the foreman and/or entrepreneur level; and there are currently 296 apprentices in training
 10,000 people use, live in, or sleep in NV buildings; of the total built, 85% are for private houses, and 15% are community-use buildings.
 Approximately 18,000 trees, 25,000 tonnes of CO2-equivalent, and approximately 15,000 corrugated iron roofing sheets have been saved as a result of NV construction, as compared to the alternatives
 Approximately 750,000 Euros of local economic impacts have been generated by the program
 Since 2000 the program has experienced an average annual growth rate of 36%.

One of the most encouraging findings is that over one-third of the NV construction market is now completely autonomous and self-sustaining: 37% of NV clients are found directly by NV builders / entrepreneurs. Of the remainder, 40% come via a local intermediary or ’champion’, and only 23% via AVN itself. So, in the regions where AVN is active, we are well on the way to a growing and independent market in NV construction, permitting us - with your help -  to soon move on and target our resources in new regions.

The attached PDF file contains slides and images highlighting the above findings - feel free to download this and use to help explain to your friends and colleagues the impacts of our work.

PS Some other news - at the last meeting of the General Asembly of AVN, held in Septamber, I was elected President of the Association, with David Sillou, our IT specialist and strategy expert, as Vice-President.

Links:

• All the latest news from AVN

• AVN Results & Impacts (PDF)
  

Toronto-based independent film maker Brian Bragason visited AVN in Burkina Faso and in France earlier this year. He is making a documentary celebrating the work of Laurie Baker, Hassan Fathy, and La Voute Nubienne, all visionaries in building affordable and environmentally sustainable architecture for the poor in the developing world. This is what he has to say about his experiences with AVN ..

“…On a recent trip to Burkina Faso I had the good fortune to visit the village of Boromo. To the uninformed observer, Boromo, located halfway between Ouagadougou and Bobo Dialasso, is a road stop. The passing traveler who stops here is bombarded by women selling refreshments that range from the most welcome (water/pop) to the comically inappropriate (bags of onions). Most travelers stop briefly for a refreshment, or a bag of onions, and move on. And yet if they do so they will miss experiencing one of the most exciting developments in social/self-help housing in the world today. For Boromo is the Burkina Faso headquarters of La Voute Nubienne, a non-profit agency dedicated to the transformation of housing in Africa.

Over the course of the last few years I’ve traveled the world researching environmentally friendly building for the poor as part of a documentary project. There are over 2 billion people in the world today living on less than $2 a day and providing decent housing for them is a real challenge. This challenge has vexed some of the best intentioned experts on earth. I shall not name them for fear of incriminating the guilty. The beauty of an organization like La Voute Nubienne is it does not put it’s faith in experts. It does not rely on governments. The dedicated crew running AVN does not believe in top-down solutions. They believe in people. They believe by giving people the expertise to build vaulted roofs and homes using easily found onsite materials you improve lives. And frankly after looking at the results I say they’re right.

In the last ten years AVN has been responsible for building hundreds of homes for mostly low income families in West Africa. Their innovation lies not just in the construction of vaulted roofs but in their approach. AVN is not interested in charity, they are not interested in giving away homes. Their interest lies in empowering people to change the course of their lives, whether it be through training masons in vault building techniques, or communal building, or facilitating the building of inexpensive, environmentally friendly housing.

AVN was born of the friendship of two men, both villagers, and both masons, Thomas Granier from Ganges, France and Seri Youlou from Boromo. Their experience in building comes from building with their own hands. And through their experience, they’ve simplified and standardized building techniques to teach a kind of engineering with the hands. Virtually anyone that goes through AVN’s training program can build a house. Thomas and Seri are aided by a capable crew of European and West African associates all of whom work for an African wage, or on a volunteer basis. And perhaps this is the most valuable lesson of AVN, not just that is has provided homes for thousands of poor people, but that a few good people from different cultures with a good idea and a great deal of drive can make a world of difference.

We’ve see the financial decisions coming out of New York, Brussels, Paris, London, Tokyo in recent years make a real mess. Perhaps we should instead rely on the wisdom coming from Ganges and Boromo for a pleasant change.”

We send Brian our best wishes for the final editing and succesful distribution of his film.

Links:

• The latest news from AVN

The first phase (Sept 2008 - August 2011) of the unrolling of AVN’s Program in Mali Août 2011, has now ended. It is the first regional program of its kind to be implemented outside Burkina Faso, and has included:
 a pilot test of the AVN pump-priming strategy (the Dendjola Pilot Village Deployment Program), helping to define local expectations and potential
 the setting up of AVN-Mali and the recruitment and training of an initial local management team
 the training of the first generation of NV masons in Mali (35 so far)
 the construction of 110 NV buildings (= 325 vaults, totaling 2,500 linear meters)
 the setting up of the first AVN ’franchise’ operation in Mali, with the NGO Terre et humanisme in Tacharane.

The full Annual Report from AVN-Mali (2010-11) is attached to this report. It is in French, but contains many photos.

The photo says it all ...  the children of Siaka Djiré (’champion’ of the Dendjola Program) have built an amazing Nubian Vault chicken-house entirely of their own accord (see photo). They must have spend a lot of time observing the AVN masons at work in the village, and decided to go ahead with a project of their own. What greater proof could there be that the NV technique has been incorporated into the local culture? And maybe these kids will form the next generation of NV masons in a few years’ time?

The second phase of the AVN-Mali Program will start in September 2011, and will involve the opening of new franchises, the development of the regional market in NV housing, and the evaluation of the final two years of the Dendjola Program.

• AVN-Mali Annual Report, 2010-11 (in French) (PDF)
  

The 2010/11 construction season in the Sahel is now drawing to a close, as the rains will be starting next month. The results are very promising, and demonstrate how successfully the program is growing. The 400 or so NV masons and apprentices have built this season, since September 2010, the equivalent of 1800 linear meters of vaults in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Senegal, namely 124 buildings made up in total of 255 vaults, each of an average length of 7 meters and the standard internal width of 3,25 meters:

-  in Burkina Faso: 82 buildings (= 130 vaults)

- in Mali: 37 buildings ( = 102 vaults)

- in Senegal : 5 large buildings (= 23 vaults).

This season has also seen the first NV house built for a  client using micro-credit facilities organised by the NGO Entrepeneurs du monde in collaboration with AVN. This is a small house in the village of Koper, near Dano, Burkina Faso, for Mme Sophie Somda (see photos). We hope that this initiative will encourage other villagers to make use of affordable micro-credit loans to help obtain better housing for their families.

In Europe, the growing reputation of our NGO Association la voute nubienne (AVN) has recently been recognised by the award of the Social Enterprise Trophy (International category) to Thomas Granier, co-founder of AVN. This trophy, organised by the French newspaper La Tribune, with the support of the bank BNP-Paribas, is awarded to the most promising social enterprise organizations in France - AVN was selected by a jury of professionals from 120 other candidates for this award.

Despite this growing international recognition for our work, we still need all the help and support we can get to maintain the momentum of growth in the Program.... there are still millions of families in the Sahel living under terrible housing conditions. We have made a small dent in the problem, but we are still in the early stages of creating a sustainable market in decent, safe, housing for rural families.

AVN masons & Sophie Somda and family

Sophie Somda and her husband

Signing the micro-credit agreement

Links:

• AVN website

Until recently, the main thrust of AVN's work has been in Burkina Faso, and over the border in neighbouring regions of southern Mali. But three years ago, we started getting requests from several organisations for sending trained VN master masons from Burkina Faso to work on projects in Senegal.

Of these requests, the most important has been in the region of Matam in north-eastern Senegal: the construction of a technical training centre and annexes (La maison des énergies) in Thiangol, close to the Senegal river, launched in January 2009, with financial sponsorship from the Communauté de Communes Val de Drôme (CCVD), France. AVN has provided a core  team of masons from Burkina Faso, led by VN master mason Camille Sanon, to build the centre and train local apprentices. The main purpose of this centre is to provide training and support for villagers in conservation of the environment of the river basin, renewable energy sources, and local making of tools and other products. The centre includes workshops, meeting rooms, offices, and accommodation units, and the major construction work is now more or less completed (see photos below). Although this project falls outside the main focus of AVN's work, namely to support the construction of houses for villagers, it is serving two very important functions:

- introducing the VN technique to a new region of the Sahel, and demonstrating that the technique is viable and sustainable

- providing a training site for apprentices from local villages and from elsewhere in Senegal, who themselves will spread the technique, recruit apprentices of their own, and kick-start a market for rural housing.

As an example of this last point, in March 2010, in Dakar, Haidar el Ali, President of l’Océanium , and AVN signed a partnership agreement to open a pilot village program in the zone of Kolda, in upper Casamance. Hamidou Diallo, Océanium coordinator in this region, will be project manager for this programme over the next four years. At the moment, a number of apprentice masons from Kolda are undergoing on-site training at the CCVD/AVN project at Thiangol (see photo below). A further 12 apprentices from the the region of Thies, 50 km from Dakar, have also been working on the Thiangol project, and will be returning home soon to start a program in villages close to Thies.

Any support you can provide to help support the new apprentices in Senegal in becoming independent entrepreneurs providing sustainable and safe housing in their villages will be very welcome....

The main building

The conference hall

Meeting room interior

Accommodation units

External rendering

Roof view

Apprentices from Kolda training in Thiangol

Links:

• The latest news from AVN

This autumn, we have had the resources, for the first time, to undertake a full and accurate analysis of the results of our program since its start in 2000. Here are some of the key points:

- if all the vaults built since 2000 in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Senegal by masons trained by AVN were placed end-to-end, their total length would be 7.5 km , or 4.7 miles, equal to a total area of around 20,000 square meters (a standard NV vault has an internal width of 3.25 meters),

- in total, 176 masons have been trained, with a further 230 currently on apprenticeships,

- the program has directly benefited some 7,800 people (clients and their families, masons, apprentices, laborers...)

- 400,200 $ worth of local salaries have been generated by the program,

- 2,000 tonnes of CO2-equivalent have been saved, as compared to the usual alternative construction methods,

- a new program has been successfully opened in Zambia, southern Africa.

Growth of the program has been very significant during the 2009/10 building season, especially in Burkina Faso and Mali, with 11 new Pilot Village Deployment Programs (PVDP) opened, each one centred around a cluster of villages, with a local 'champion' (a community leader, for example) spear-heading the promotion of NV houses, and bringing in a team of NV masons to train local apprentices and build the first houses. Amongst the photographs with this report are examples of typical two-vault village houses built as part of these DPVP's.To cope with the increased level of activity, the team at AVN's HQ in Boromo, Burkina Faso has been expanded to 8 people now (see photo).

The three-vault church in Petit-Balé, near Boromo, has now had a magnificent bell-tower added to it (see photo)

The AVN show house at this years Salon International de l'Artisanat (SIAO), held in the Burkina Faso capital of Ougadougou in the first week of November attracted some 4,000 visitors (see photo) and two teams of NV masons on our stand signed up future clients for NV houses.

And... we recently received images of the first NV house to cross the Atlantic! In the Spring of 2009, Stevan de la Rosa, a young Mexican, spent several months learning the NV technique in Boromo in 2009. I include a photo of the first NV building he has constructed with a team from a rural educational project in San Isidro, in the centre of Mexico. The building has two rooms, one for storing seed, the other for tools. More NV buildings are planned ...

So, that's a quick summary of the latest news. Many thanks again to all of you who are supporting our work - but there's still a long way to go before we can make a really significant impact on improving housing conditions for all the poor rural families in sub-Saharan Africa.

Tony Kaye

NV House 2

NV House 3

NV House 4

NV House 5

Petit Balé church with bell tower

A NV shop

AVN Show House at the SIAO

The AVN team in Boromo

AVN's office in Boromo

The first NV building in Mexico

AVN’s Director of Development, Antoine Horellou, met World Music stars Baaba Maal (from Senegal) and Alpha Blondy (from Ivory Coast) at the 'Festival du Bout du Monde’ in Crozon, Brittany, France, on August 8th (see photos below)

This was our third contact with the famous Senegalese musician Baaba Maal, who had just returned from a successful tour of venues in the USA and the UK : Tony Kaye (AVN Management Committee) met Baaba Maal in London last December, and Thomas Granier (AVN Director of Operations) also met up with him earlier this year in Senegal. Baaba Maal would like to build a Cultural Centre using the VN technique in his home town of Podor. He has also offered to produce a song / video-clip for AVN, and to introduce AVN’s work to fellow Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour, and the famous Malian musicians Salif Keita and Rokia Traoré.

Alpha Blondy (below), known as Africa’s ’King of Reggae’ , and also Ivory Coast’s UN Peace Ambassador, has offered to promote AVN to his contacts, and through his website.

This is a great tribute to the work of AVN, to be receiving the support of these artists, whose music is listened to on transistor radios in nearly every village in West Africa, and whose political stance (in many of their songs) has made them very popular with the poorest sections of urban and rural society in the region.

Many thanks to Suzette Newman, of Palm Pictures in London, and Pascal Imbert, for helping arrange our meetings with Baaba Maal.

AVN flyer with a dedication from Baaba Maal

Alpha Blondy with AVN Annual Report

Links:

• Baaba Maal's website
• Alpha Blondy's website
• Palm Pictures website

A report by experts at the London office of Environmental Resources Management (ERM), based on data provided by AVN staff in Boromo, indicates that a typical NV house of 25m2 floor space makes a saving of 2.0 tonnes of CO2- equivalents (CO2e) compared to the available alternative construction methods. Since the start of the AVN ’Earth roofs in the Sahel’ programme, one can estimate total savings of over 2,000 tonnes of CO2e. So the AVN Program, building houses with a very low 'carbon footprint' is making a small, but significant positive impact on the environment - an impact which will strengthen as the Program expands...

You can read below the summary report by ERM on the carbon footprint of NV houses.

SUMMARY

" A streamlined high-level carbon footprint assessment has been undertaken for AVN comparing production of four different housing types of 25m2 in size and providing a comparison to the production of Nubian Vault (NV) houses. Environmental Resources Management (ERM), a leading global provider of sustainability consulting and assurance services, has provided AVN with a pro-bono assessment of the carbon impact of the NV construction technique. Using data on village houses of 25 m2 provided by AVN field staff in Boromo, Burkina Faso, the calculations suggest that each NV house built can result in savings of approximately 2 tonnes of CO2 equivalents (CO2e) as compared to the current alternatives.

The carbon footprint of an NV house of 25 m2 is orders of magnitude lower than the alternatives, primarily due to the use of natural resources from surrounding areas in its construction and its extended lifetime. The approximate footprint of each housing type is: - 40 kg CO2e for an NV house (50 year lifetime) - 4,600 kg CO2e for a concrete wall + metal roof house (25 year lifetime) - 2,000 kg CO2e for an earth wall + metal roof house (10 year lifetime) - 700 kg CO2e for a traditional earth + timber roof house (10 year lifetime).

By the end of the 2009/10 building season, NV masons will have built the equivalent of 1,000 25 m2 vaults, mainly in rural areas. This implies that the carbon savings of the VN construction method since the start of our programme can be estimated at a total savings of at least 2,000 tonnes of CO2e. In fact, the figure is probably higher, as a proportion of these vaults have been built in urban and peri-urban areas, replacing a higher percentage of ‘modern’ metal-roofed buildings with concrete and cement mortar (rather than mud brick) walls.

METHODOLOGY, ASSUMPTIONS, AND DATA LIMITATIONS

A streamlined carbon footprinting approach was employed in this study which is based upon methods outlined for undertaking life cycle assessment (LCA) studies in ISO 14040 and ISO 14044. A streamlined carbon footprint or LCA seeks to shortcut the full process by limiting the scope of the study (i.e. carbon in this case), the impacts assessed and/or by judicious use of generic data and assumptions, delivering results more quickly and using fewer resources.

The carbon footprint results and savings calculated by ERM are calculated using a high-level assessment and are useful as an indication of the carbon burden of each housing type over its lifetime. This calculation has been based on the following assumptions: · In rural areas, in the absence of NV construction, 60% of houses would normally have earth walls and sheet metal roofs, 15% would have concrete block walls, using cement mortar, and sheet metal roofs, and the remaining 25% are traditional earth wall and timber roof houses, · Metal roofs and timber roofs need replacing every 7 years, that the average lifetime of a traditional house and a house with earth walls and a sheet metal roof is 10 years, and that of a house with concrete block walls and a sheet metal roof is 25 years · The estimated lifetime of a properly maintained NV house is 50 years (the structure and solidity of the roof, combined with stronger foundations and much thicker walls, explain the longer expected lifetime as compared to the alternatives). · The carbon footprint results and savings are based entirely upon production and lifetime data provided by AVN. Variations in this data significantly effect the results. · All housing construction is assumed to be undertaken using entirely manual labour and is assigned a carbon footprint burden of zero. · All locally sourced natural materials such as earth, clay, sand, gravel, stone and water are assigned zero burden. · The maintenance on a house considers the burden of replacement materials such as sheet steel, timber and plastic lining and not that of the actual maintenance process. · Where relevant, such as for natural resources, steel or timber, recycling or reuse has been assumed for the material when disposed and the materials disposal is assigned a burden of zero. · Concrete is comprised mainly of cement, water, sand and gravel. All ingredients except cement are assumed to be sourced locally and have no burden. The concrete is based upon Portland cement and assumed to be imported. · Fasoplast is estimated as having similar production burdens to PVC and is required to be transported an estimated distance of 1000 km. · Biogenic carbon is excluded from the results. · Transport of waste material to recycling, landfill or general disposal at end-of-life isexcluded. · Lorry transport within Africa is assumed to be using a lorry size less than 16 tonnes. · Emission factors used to calculate the carbon footprint of each life cycle stage have been based upon the ICE database for construction materials & Defra transport emission factors, using characterisation factors according to the IPCC 2007 data for a 100 year time horizon. · Biogenic carbon is carbon stored or released by natural non-fossil based sources. This has been excluded from the study as sequestration and release of biogenic carbon is assumed to occur in a cycle less than the 100 year time horizon considered

REFERENCES

- Defra: 2009 Guidelines to Defra / DECC's GHG Conversion Factors for Company Reporting (http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/business/reporting/pdf/20090928-guidelines-ghgconversion-factors.pdf) - ICE database: `University of Bath: Inventory of Carbon and Energy (ICE) Version 1.6a, Prof Geoff Hammond and Craig Jones, 2008 (https://wiki.bath.ac.uk/display/ICE/Home+Page )

ABOUT ERM

Environmental Resources Management (ERM) is a leading global provider of sustainability consulting and assurance services. They deliver innovative solutions for business and government clients, helping them understand and manage their impacts on the world around them. ERM has 137 offices in 39 countries and employs approximately 3,300 staff. The ERM Foundation was established to harness the enthusiasm and expertise of ERM’s consultants to provide pro-bono and fundraising support for environmental and carbon reduction initiatives around the world."

Links:

• Environmental Resources Management (ERM) website
• The latest news from AVN

We arrived in Boromo and were picked up by Seri, the Co-Founder of the Association la Voute Nubienne (AVN), and were given our first taste what the project does when we arrived at our hotel. The hotel, owned by Seri, was created as practice buildings when Association la Voute Nubienne was working with its first group of master masons. We were later taken to see a school, church, and house, which were built in a nearby community.

The organization takes a very organic approach. They have several cultural coordinators whose job it is go into villages and work with the communities to sensitize citizens to the benefits of the Nubian style houses with earthen roofs, which include minimizing deforestation for wood roofs, saving money from importing tin roofs, and the temperature control Nubian roofs provide. After some time, if at least 5 families show interest in having a house constructed, a team of five masons will be assembled. The masons are ranked by skill level, four being a master mason. There are always two, level-one masons on the team and they are people from the village where the house is being constructed whom are interested in learning the trade. Over time they work their way up the ranking, themselves becoming master masons and potentially starting work in a new village.

Irene, the Assistant Director of AVN, told us that the end goal is for there to no longer be a need for AVN, because as more people realize the benefits of these houses and demand grows, the number of masons will be expanding as well. This model is not only meant to spread more sustainable houses, but also create jobs for those interested in learning masonry. The organization has taken a sustainable approach to introducing a new style of superior architecture to help protect the environment and improve lives of citizens of Burkina Faso.

Sarah and four other In-the-Field Travelers visited more than 30 GlobalGiving projects in Mali, Togo, Burkina Faso, and Ghana. Follow their adventures at http://itfwa.wordpress.com/.

I mentioned in my last Update in December that, through AVN-Belgium, we have launched a program in Zambia, in collaboration with the Belgian NGO, Abantu-Zambia. The program centres around the construction of VN houses in a cluster of sixteen villages in the Chibombo District, north of the capital, Lusaka.

This has now got off to a really good start. A local coordinator, Sister Grace (see photo) has volunteered to organise the program in the field; 65 potential clients for VN houses, and 18 potential VN masons, from nine villages, have been identified.

The first two villagers in the program, Christoper Phiri and Jaspan Moobela (see photo) arrived in Boromo, Burkina Faso, in mid-December, for a 5-month apprenticeship in vault construction. This is the first time they have been away from home, and it was no easy matter arranging passports, visas, and travel (bus to Lusaka, a plane to Addis Ababa, another plane to Ouagadougou, via Lomé, and a 3 hour bus journey to Boromo - altogether this took some 30 hours!).

They are learning fast, and will be returning to Zambia in May, accompanied by two Burkinabé master masons, to start a training and construction program in their villages.

By good fortune, Austin Hawkins, a young American on a J.Watson Fellowship studying earth architecture, has been spending a 10-week attachment to AVN in Boromo : Austin speaks excellent French, so he has been able to help interpret for Christopher and Jaspan, and he has also translated the VN masons' manuals into English for them. A real cultural mix, and for sure another positive aspect of the AVN adventure! You can see a video interview with Austin on our You Tube channel.

Village houses in Zambia are traditionally made of adobe walls with a conical grass thatch roof on timber beams (see photo); although these seem very picturesque, they have many drawbacks (the roofs are often infested with insects and termites, they have to be replaced every 2-3 years, they often catch fire, and it is the women in the family who are responsible for the drudgery of their maintenance). And, in any case, bush timber and grass is getting increasingly scarce, so many families have to resort to expensive, badly insulated, sheet metal and corrugated iron roofs, which only last a maximum of ten years anyway.

So, one can understand why so many villagers in the program area are keen to have VN houses with solid, safe, roofs which will keep their houses cool during the day, and cosy at night.

AVN-Belgium is raising funds to support this program: any contributions you might care to make will go towards this fund.

Thanking you once more for your support, Tony Kaye

Jaspan & Christopher arriving in Boromo

Zambian village house

Links:

• All the latest news from AVN
• AVN You Tube Channel

A lot has happened at AVN since my last Update – it’s difficult to know where to start....

For sure, the international recognition for our work is growing by leaps and bounds:

(1) We were one of eleven “...outstanding finalists” for this year’s World Habitat Awards.

(2) The bid which we submitted to the World Bank’s Development Marketplace Competition on ‘Adaptation to Climate Change ‘ (DM2009) was one of the 26 projects which received funding at the Marketplace event in Washington DC this November (note that there were over 1700 submissions to this competition, and AVN’s was one of the 100 short-listed and invited to Washington); the prize funds will be used to match a similar grant from the French Ensemble Foundation, to trial our new strategy for scaling up the apprenticeship and construction Program (DPPV: Deployment of the Program from a Pilot Village). (3) AVN’s structure is being reinforced with the addition of a new offshoot: AVN-Belgium, which is now formally established there as a ‘not for profit’ NGO.

(4) AVN-Belgium’s first program, in collaboration with our team in Burkina Faso and with Abantu-Zambia, is scheduled over three years, and involves training of apprentices from Zambia in the VN technique in Burkina Faso, and the deployment of a team of VN masons from Burkina Faso to Zambia for 5 months each year, during the Zambian dry season (which, fortuitously, coincides with the rainy season in Burkina Faso); during the first three years of this program, it is planned to build about 70 houses in the construction zone of 6 villages, and to train 16 VN masons and 32 apprentices.

The other bit of good news is that we have been formally recognised by Global Giving as being a ‘green’ program. Soon, we hope to be able to provide accurate data on the carbon savings associated with the VN technique (as opposed to the alternatives of traditional Sahelian timber-based roofing, and ‘modern’ methods using concrete blocks, sawn timber joists, and sheet metal roofing). The assessment of the relative carbon footprint of VN housing is being carried out by for us pro bono by by staff in the London office of Environmental Resources Management (ERM), leading global experts in the field of environmental impact assessment.

.

Links:

• All the latest news from AVN
• Abantu Zambia
• Environmental Resources Management

This week sees the start of the holy month of Ramadan, so it seemed appropriate to bring you some news about the work of AVN in Mali, a predominantly Muslim country.

Championed by the local Imam and the religious community, the first VN mosque in Mali was built during the 2008/09 season, by the villagers of Mamarila-Sanogola (Koutiala district) under the supervision of VN masons from Boromo, Burkina Faso. It is composed of three main vaults, each 6m x 3m25, oriented North - South, and two smaller vaults and the minaret at first floor level. An external staircase gives access to the minaret and roof terrace. The workmanship is to a high standard, both for the basic structure (completed in 25 days), and the internal and external renderings and finishes (completed in a further 10 days). Furthermore, this building only cost 200 000 FCA (430$) in cash (mainly for salaries paid to the VN masons from Boromo) because the villagers themselves volunteered much of their time, skills, and labour, for brick-making, digging foundations, building, and rendering.

But the story does not stop here: far from it. When villagers began to realise that VN construction methods - as demonstrated by this mosque - were less costly than any other available alternative, and resulted in comfortable and safe buildings, the news quickly spread, During the 08/09 building season, a second mosque was started, and three houses built, in two neighbouring villages (Dendjola and M’Pébougou) - in the process 10 local apprentices were trained under the supervision of the masons from Boromo. These apprentices, now capable of building VN vaults on their own, already have orders for 13 houses and a third mosque in the original three villages, and - in seven other villages in the district - orders for 5 more houses, another mosque, and a school. Each of these projects will involve training of further local apprentices in the VN technique - a veritable snowball effect (however inappropriate this metaphor may seem for Mali’s torrid climate...).

What is happening in this cluster of 10 villages is a very successful example of AVN's 'pilot zone development program', in which a local champion (in this case the Imam of the first village) asks for an input from AVN - in the form of trained VN masons and construction advice - and persuades key members of the local community to support him. AVN, at this point, draws up an agreement with the local community for a four-year program of apprentice training and construction, and the program then takes off under its own steam. If succssful, the end result will be a significant number of VN buildings - houses and community-use ones such as schools, mosques, dispensaries - as well as a pool of trained VN masons who can then use their newly acquired skills to earn a living for themselves and their families, and provide economically accessible housing for clients in their villages.

Any donations you can provide at this time will be used to help develop and expand this pilot zone program to other rural communities in Mali and Burkina Faso.

Interior of the mosque

Villagers outside the mosque site

Links:

• Latest news from AVN

Sheila Leonard is an intern at GlobalGiving. This summer she traveled throughout West Africa and visited a number of GlobalGiving projects. On May 27th she visited "Build Sustainable Housing for Families in Africa." When asked what she would tell her friends about this project, Sheila said: "Incredible: You need to see this!"

Arriving in Boromo, a village town an hour away from each of the main cities in Burkina, I was bombarded by offers to buy peanuts, tissue paper, and mangos. Pierre, my guide from France, helped translate my apologetic no’s to the millions of young children begging for my twenty cents. As we climbed in the car, flustered, I asked – am I supposed to buy things every time?? Should I have gotten something? – kindly Pierre responded, ahh, you cannot save every person this way.

Not only did it make me feel better, it reminded me of the power of development and projects with the Association la voute Nubienne’s sustainable housing project. Burkina Faso has two seasons - rainy and dry. May is the end of the dry season and the hottest time of the year (I mention this because that’s now, and I am here, and man is it hot!!). Before, families built homes from redwood right before the rainy season came and used the homes for shelter. By the time the next rainy season came, the house had deteriorated and the process had to begin anew. However, redwood has run out in many villages in Burkina Faso. It is now very expensive to access and families need another solution for housing. I appreciated this background because many times development workers bring in a solution WE think will work - but the "target group" has no understanding of its need or use for it – their traditional ways will suffice. Here though, it is clear a more long lasting solution, or any solution since the wood has run out, is needed.

The houses are called "vaults" and the team has a well thought out plan of construction and several designs available to potential home owners. All houses are built for good ventilation (it's hot) and usefulness, one bedroom, one kitchen, one living room, finito. We spent the day touring the local village to see houses they’ve created. Since I spent the last year engulfed in international development classes, I was eager to try and pinpoint an opportunity to see some o the many flaws we discuss in action. I can honestly say, I found none. The association has been working in the region for over ten years and through trial and error, has nearly perfected their work. As far as development goes they are hitting most of the successful ideas. The project is 1. Sustainable, 2. Employs members of the local community, 3. Teaches a skill (masonry), 4. Includes an incentive - people need to pay in to buy a house - and 5. Involves local people as much as possible. Many development projects suffer from poor maintenance - no one likes to fund upkeep! The association, however, focuses on creating easy maintenance and after hearing it mentioned over and over, I get the feeling they care about it a lot and have thought through the many possible solutions.

Pierre and his two workers drove me through the villages to see houses they’ve created. Because I don’t speak French, Pierre had to translate all communication for me…besides of course the Nasara!! (white person) screams from the children.

Although amazed by the in depth progress the Association has made, I wonder about how they reach the poorest Burkinabe, but then I remember - not everyone can do everything at once. I can’t save every child selling me food at the bus stop, nor can (or should) the association build a home for every family. Building well-made, sustainable, long-lasting, community centers is an excellent start to development and one I highly recommend supporting. This is a model project run by an incredibly well-organized that is making a dent in one area of development, the most we can ask of any project.

Since my last update, I can report that AVN has made significant progress; by the end of the current building season, cumulatively, since the start of the 'Earth roofs in the Sahel' Program: - 190 VN masons will have been trained (including 80 this season) - 900 vaults built (350 this season alone) - 4,500 man-months of salaries generated (1,500 this season) - 9,000 people in the Sahel will have benefitted directly from our Program.

We were able to validate these figures during the Fourth Congress of VN masons held in Boromo last December, attended by 80 VN masons from all over Burkina Faso who reported on their work in progress. The two-storey AVN show house at the Autumn 2008 Salon International de l'Artisanat in Ougadougou (SIAO) attracted several thousand visitors, and will undoubtedly result in further demand for the building of VN homes.

This season also sees further expansion of the AVN Program from Burkina Faso to neighbouring countries: - in Mali, over 15 VN masons have now been trained, and they are themselves recruiting and training further Malian apprentices; an AVN-Mali office has been established in Bamako to oversee further development of the Program, and to handle the increasing flow of requests for VN constructions (including ones from the historic and iconic city of Timbuktu!) - in Senegal, AVN has two different types of parnership agreement, one with a Senegalese construction firm in Dakar, the other with a French NGO financing the construction by VN masons of rural training centres in the Matam region. - We plan to extend the AVN Program to Niger next year: the first VN mason from Niger, Ibrahim Dan Inna, is being trained in Boromo. Ibrahim is deaf, and he is sponsored by the NGO EFIS; we hope to provide employment opportunities for others like him in the future.

International recognition is growing: the AVN Program is one of 12 projects shortlisted to go on to Stage II of the selection process for the 2009 World Habitat Awards. Two awards are given annually to projects from the global North as well as the South that provide practical and innovative solutions to current housing needs and problems. An award of £10,000 is presented to each of the two winners at the annual United Nations global celebration of World Habitat Day.

At a time when climate change issues have reached the top of the global agenda, we are very pleased to be included in Global Giving's "green leaf" selection of projects. The AVN Program is making a locally significant, contribution to reduction of carbon emissions: our ongoing research indicates that use of earth bricks and earth mortar (instead of cement, and metal roofing sheets) has economised the equivalent of over 100 tons of carbon dioxide emissions so far.

Your contributions can help scale up this exciting program through acceleration of our apprentice training schemes, the underwriting of new partnerships with NGO's, and the opening up of new action zones in the Sahel and other countries of Africa. In the last few weeks, we have received requests to train local builders in Malawi, Zambia, and South Africa - mainly for building VN orphanages and schools. Your contributions can help us implement these worthwhile projects, as well as to continue development of a real market in the construction of sustainable, ecologically sound, healthy, earth vaulted homes for rural families in the Sahel.

AVN Show House at SIAO (2)

AVN Show House at SIAO (3)

Links:

• AVN Website (English)
• AVN Newsletter Feb 2009
• Subscribe to AVN Newsletter

2008 marks the tenth anniversary of our first attempt to construct a prototype VN building in Burkina Faso. Ten years on, the AVN 'Earth roofs in the Sahel' Program continues to go from strength to strength.

A third Congress of VN masons was held in Boromo, Burkina Faso last month (June); this three-day meeting was a chance to share experiences amongst the community of VN builders, to summarise progress made since the start of the Program, and to update our cumulative results. In brief, to date: - 110 VN masons have been trained, most of whom are setting themselves up as independent entrepreneurs, - 170 apprentices are undergoing training, - 3000 man-months of salaries have been generated, - we estimate around 4,500 direct beneficiaries of the Program, - 550 vaults have been built, representing a 70% year on year increase in the number of constructions - the expansion of the Program to neighbouring countries (Mali, Togo, Senegal, Guinea, and Ivory Coast) continues.

The Program is also making its own small, but locally significant, contribution to reduction of carbon emissions: we estimate that use of earth bricks and earth mortar (instead of cement, and metal roofing sheets) has economised the equivalent of 72 tons of carbon dioxide emissions in the last ten years.

Our first major school-building project in Mali (region of Kati), in collaboration with the architect Emilio Caravatti and the NGO Africabougou, has now been completed, and you can see three photos of this beautiful building below. This will likely become a model for a major VN school-building program.

Your contributions can help scale up this exciting program through acceleration of our apprentice training schemes, the underwriting of new partnerships with NGO's working in the Sahel, and the opening up of new action zones in the six countries where we now operate. Our pledge is that, in the next two decades, a flourishing self-sustaining market in sustainable, ecologically sound, healthy, earth vaulted homes will have developed with your help. And that, as a result, fewer poor families in the Sahel will have to resort to the expense and discomfort of living in unhealthy tin-roofed shacks.

Please visit our website to find out more, to sign up to our Newsletter, and to see the latest photos and slide-shows of the houses, schools, churches, and health centers that your contributions can help to build.

School in Kati, Mali (2)

School in Kati, Mali (3)

Links:

• AVN Website (English)
• AVN June '08 Newsletter
• Subscribe to the AVN Newsletters

Our 'Earth roofs in the Sahel' program continues its near exponential annual growth. Since the start of the program eight years ago, over 330 vaults have been built in 70 villages and districts in the Sahel. These are mainly two-vault village houses, but also larger community-use buildings, including a church and a mosque. 60 VN builders have been trained, many setting themselves up as independent entrepreneurs, and 100 apprentices are now involved in this winter's building season.

A three-day congress of VN builders was held in Boromo, Burkina Faso, Oct 26-30, which brought together all the VN builders in the country, as well as many apprentices. Plans were laid for construction and training during the 2007/08 season (building is carried out during the winter dry season between November and May), and experience and contacts were exchanged. During this season, some 200 new vaults will be built, and at least a further 40 VN builders will complete training, bringing the total up to 100. The program's expansion outside Burkina Faso continues. In neighboring Mali, 10 new building sites have been opened, 25 apprentices are being trained, and we hope to have 10 new VN builders there by the end of the season. And new building projects are starting up in Ivory Coast, Guinée, and Senegal.

Formal partnership agreements have been established with several NGO's operating in the Sahel, such as Africabougou-Italy and Intervida-Spain, who have been working with us in the construction of community use buildings (schools, health centers, literacy centers) in Mali and Burkina Faso.

Our builders are now contributing to new technical developments, including the construction of two-storey houses, and a technique combining the use of reinforced concrete pillars and beams with earth brick VN vaults, to create large open spaces for buildings such as churches and schools.

We need your contributions now to help scale up this exciting program through acceleration of our apprentice raining schemes, the underwriting of new partnerships with NGO's working in the Sahel, and the opening up of new action zones in the four countries where we now operate. Our pledge is that, in the next two decades, a flourishing self-sustaining market in sustainable, ecologically sound, healthy, earth vaulted homes will have developed with your help. And that, as a result, fewer and fewer poor families in the Sahel will have to resort to the expense and discomfort of living in unhealthy tin-roofed shacks.

Please visit our website at www.lavoutenubienne.org to find out more, and to see the latest photos and slide-shows of the houses, schools, churches, and health centers that your contributions can help to build.

Links:

• AVN website