It was a successful and significant trip to Ghana in autumn 2022:

Rabea and Christoph personally meet the team of their partner organisation “Bamboo for Integrated Development Ghana” (BIDG).

Our cooperation with the “International Bamboo and Rattan Organization” (INBAR Ghana) is strengthened by a visit to the new headquarters in Accra and further meetings with the regional director Michael Kwaku.

We meet the contractor Livingstone and visit one of his bamboo projects in the Volta region. We look forward to future cooperation!

When visiting the project site in Somanya in the Eastern Region, the vision becomes tangible: The bamboo treatment plant will be built and put into operation here in spring of next year!

Design Build Summer School at RheinMain University of Applied Sciences in Wiesbaden.

“As part of the elective course “Climate-friendly building | DESIGN BUILD”, 44 students from the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering took part in a design-build week centered around sustainable building materials such as clay and bamboo.”

https://www.hs-rm.de/de/hochschule/aktuelles/details/artikel/summer-school-klimagerechtes-bauen-mit-lehm-und-bambus

Final submission and presentations of the students, this time in presence at the RhineMain University of Applied Sciences. The students present convincing plans and designs for the construction project “Accommodation for the Bamboo Training Center in Ghana”. We are very impressed.

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The first three bamboo project hoodies are printed! With these fairly and sustainably produced sweaters, we can make a uniform and chic appearance in the future.

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Rabea participates in an event of the INBAR E-Learning program:

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We visit the Woraso community to learn more about the local situation and to stimulate participatory communication. Local people are given the opportunity to share their opinions and ideas about the project and actively participate in decision-making. We also interview some local people about their experiences with bamboo.

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Bamboo is also offered on the local timber market. The bamboo canes available there are untreated, on average four meters long, and the diameters vary greatly. Many culms are harvested too young, are bent, damaged and sometimes already infested with borers. The day of harvest is too long ago to be able to still treat the bamboo canes with boric salts. Even though the quality is rather unsatisfactory, we buy some canes for our experimental purposes. We also procure the basic tools and materials needed for building with bamboo.

When cleaning, measuring, sawing, drilling, etc., many peculiarities of bamboo become apparent. We realize there is a lot to consider when handling it correctly. Even though we have already gathered a lot of knowledge from experts, textbooks and courses, the “hands-on experience” presents us with some challenges. Even though bamboo offers an alternative to wood, the building materials are very different in terms of properties and handling.

First preparations of the plot in Woraso: clearing and surveying. In this phase, Myles, who has come all the way from the capital, provides us with advice and support. He works for an architecture firm in Accra and already has some experience with bamboo construction projects.

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Rabea takes part in the two-day workshop “Building in the Global South”, which is organized by we-building e.V. and offered free of charge. The workshop comes in handy during the current “hot” planning and preparation phase of our building project in Ghana. The topics like time and cost planning or challenges during construction are very relevant for us. Rabea was able to take away a lot of new knowledge, helpful experiences and tools from those two days. The close practical relevance based on some example projects in Ghana is particularly gratifying. The follow-up consultation of we-building e.V. made it possible to go into more detail about some concrete challenges in our project and to exchange respective experiences. https://we-building.org/de/projekte-globalen-sued/

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Two more milestones in January:

We finally submit the project proposal for the construction of the bamboo treatment facilities to Engagement Global.

Federico sends us his final elaboration and presentation for the workshop area of the Bamboo Training Center.