Building Futures

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Conelo Project, Bill and Athena Steen, HC 1, Box 324, Elgin, AZ 85611, (520) 455-5548. fax: (520) 455-9360.

Bill and Athena Steen, who run workshops in Arizona on construction techniques for building with straw bale houses, have been working in conjunction with the organization Save the Children on the Conelo Project in the area around Ciudad Obregon in Northern Mexico. Bill Steen says the goal of the Conelo Project is to build straw bale structures to replace the area's common shelters made of corrugated black asphalt panels, cardboard, and scrap materials. Straw is in abundance, as the area is a wheat belt. Project participants go on "work tours" to Ciudad Obregon. They learn straw bale construction techniques, pay their own expenses, and pay for the tour of nearby sites. Bill Steen explains, "Our intent in creating these work tours was to give participants the opportunity to visit places which would be of interest to tourists, but also the chance to spend time working with low-income families creating shelter and housing from surplus straw of the local region. In essence, the work tour is an education in straw bale building with an emphasis on appropriate technology, a cultural exchange, a work party to construct a small house, and a tour of Southern Sonora, Mexico." Proceeds from the tour will go to further straw-related construction in Mexico through research of regionally appropriate building techniques, the development of educational materials, and the construction of additional buildings. Straw bale work-tours in Mexico run from Nov 25-Dec 4, 1995 and Jan 19-Feb 1, 1996.

Trees for the Future, 11306 Estona
Dr., PO Box 1786, Silver Spring, MD
20915, (800) 643-0001

At the junction of Cameroon, Chad, and Nigeria in Central Africa, Lake Chad is evaporating. Volunteers for Trees for the Future are in the process of planting trees in the basin surrounded by highlands and mountains in an effort to slow the evaporation. This project, in conjunction with projects to divert water, has several goals: to suppress soil erosion, revegetate the area, reduce vulnerability to drought, and increase agricultural production and fuel-wood supplies

Trees for the Future works in rural villages throughout the developing countries of Asia, Africa, and the Americas. For example, in the Philippines, volunteers are planting trees to help against the typhoons, floods, lava, landslides, and locust infestations that have ravaged the central plains in the past. The organization runs seed production farms in six countries of Asia, Africa, and Central America. Volunteers distribute seeds, provide planting and technical assistance, run demonstration centers and seminars. Trees for the Future has neither religious or government affiliation and is supported by foundation and individual grants and donations from members. They have 6,484 members, some of them quite prominent (their Spring 1995 newsletter announced that Jane Pauley had just given $10,000 and NEC matched $2,500).

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print