Staff meeting and Workshop Start

The participants to integrate the #5 course Design and Build with Rammed Earth started to arrive during Saturday. At dinner time the group was already filling an entire room of the only restaurant in the village.

Sunday morning it was time to start! Each partner presented himself and the work developed by his own organization, as well as the past/future courses inside of the LearnBIØN project.

HE2B represented by François Gillet managed to take out everyone from the chairs and explained dynamically the human dimensions of the project. AES represented by Anna Sundman and Aaron Nyren focused in the implementation of the Cordwood building. Stefan Polak presented AK0 intervention in Casaprota. Tania Teixeira from OC presented the several activities of the NGO and was complemented by Joana Trindade that focused in the CEB course Process. Jonathan Cory-Wright showed the evolution of the Cane course, from cane – to column – to arch – to structure. Alessio Battistella spoke about the processes and techniques for building in an emergency context and announced the course that will be implemented in Milan during the month of June.

The representatives of the Ayuntamiento were present and the morning end up with a presentation of the Association Activa Valverde, an NGO that aims to fight abandon and desertification in the small village of Valverde de Burgullios, that in the years 50’s had around 1200 people, from which, 100 children. Right now the population is around 200 people, children are 7 and the school is up to close. They say, when a school closes, the town starts dying. We believe that this effect is a sign that the town is already “sick” for long. We hope there is still the time to reverse the process, and they are full of ideas and initiatives to try it out.