auroville earth institute news building a school in 20 days at ...

Closing ceremony on the 2 nd October 2008
AUROVILLE EARTH INSTITUTE NEWS
BUILDING A SCHOOL IN 20 DAYS AT JANTANAGAR / NEPAL
Satprem Maïni, director of the Auroville Earth Institute has been
invited to Nepal by BASE (Backward Society Education)
www.base.org.np to build a two classroom school at Jantanagar,
Bardiya district. The main features of the 97 m 2 school are
earthquake resistant, climate responsive and community
participation.
The concept design of the school was done by Mr. Sonam
Wangchuck wangchuk@secmol.org, who works for MS Nepal
www.ms.dk/nepal and is an adviser to BASE. Sonam is the specialist
and brain behind the climate responsive features of the building. The
detailed design was done by Mr. Nirmal K. Tharu who works for
BASE as a social worker, site manager and supervisor. Sonam and
Nirmal were trained in Auroville in April 2008 for CSEB production
and use, as well as ferrocement channel making. Sonam wished this
school to be built in 20 days and Satprem’s experience with very
efficient and fast construction process was needed for that.
” and they were extremely impressed with this technology.
School completed, north side
Precasting of the school was done in about 5 weeks, a few months earlier under the supervision of Nirmal and Sonam. Foundations were done early September in about 2 days by Sonam and Nirmal with the
community participation. The construction of the superstructure started on the 15 th September. Satprem arrived on the third day of the construction, the 18 th September, to coordinate the work and help for a speedy
realization. After 16 working days the raw construction was over on the 2 nd October with the roof plaster, one classroom painted and some finishes. A closing ceremony of the construction site was done on the 2 nd
October by various officials and engineers from the Ministry / Department of Education. Some finishes remained to be done, such as painting 1 classroom, and doing the flooring. This works would take about 2 days
but it was not possible to do it now because of the festival of Dushain (equivalent to Christmas time), just starting at that time.
As a summary, 18 days were needed for the construction of this school (foundation, superstructure and some finishes) to which should be added 2 days for the last finishes.
On the 29 th September, a press conference with about 17 journalists was given by Sonam and Satprem at Nepalgung. On the 3 rd and 4 th October Sonam, Nirmal and Satprem conducted a workshop in the freshly
painted classroom of the school to 10 engineers from the department of Education on earthquake resistant and climatic responsive features. A construction dairy has been uploaded in this website:
http://www.ms.dk/sw98936.asp
BASE coordinated the construction of this school in the framework of their project “Education for Freedom” (visit http://www.ms.dk/sw14581.asp) and mobilised the community participation. The school was funded by
MS Nepal and it cost about 850,000 Nepalese Rs. (~8,500 Euros). The construction of this school was also done as a prototype, trying to convince the Ministry of Education to adopt the Auroville Earth Institute
technology and the climate responsive features of Sonam to build 50,000 classrooms in the framework of their 5 years programme “Education for All”.
The construction of this school would not have been built without the endeavour of BASE and the active voluntarily participation of the Kamaya Community of Jantanagar. 17 paid masons, under training for this
technology, and about 30 volunteers from the village worked on this construction site. It was a great time to work with these people who had joy, laughter and fun while building their school. It was amazing to see
kids helping the construction of their own school and grand ma and grand pa working also for and with their grand children for building the school of futures generations to come.

Day 1, building the basement
Day 6 under heavy rain
Day 11, casting in situ the side overhangs
Day 3, building the sill
Day 8, lifting the ferrocement overhangs
Day 12, lifting the ferrocement channels
Day 6, after a very heavy rain and flood in the area
Day 8, building the arches
Day 13, filling the earth berm for the climate response

Completed school after 16 working days
Workshop on the 4 rd October, presentation by Satprem
Workshop on the 3 rd October, presentation by Sonam
Workshop on the 3 rd October, presentation by Nirmal
Hands on workshop on the 4 th October