The construction of the ROLE Foundation’s “Vocational Skill Learning Center” for the poor and disadvantaged is underway.
Role has a 25 year lease over 15,500 square meters of land at Sawangan, Nusa Dua, Bali.
Mike O’Leary, the founder of Role, along with local Architects Brahma Mahardika and Widhi, and the team from P.T. Sutra Persada Utama.
We has a tricky job………how to design and build an Environmentally Friendly Skills Learning Center from scratch with limited cash, but heaps of good will and plenty of muscle.
Bram says, “In Eco Building, as for materials, we have three options….1…..Materials harvested from the site. Namely limestone as we carve out the water management pits and channels, and soils, as we build our carriage ways and parking space, and sticks and un sawn light timber, from cattle feeds small trees. …..2….Pre-used and recycled timbers and other materials. ….3….. New renewable materials such as bamboo and certified plantation timbers, etc.”
“As for labor, we will use a small consistent local work force, plus Role staff when they have time, plus local and visiting volunteers.”
The living fence around the property is 60% complete; we just need a bit more rain for the living part of the fence to kick in. Papa, the Balinese land owner assures us it will start living sooner or later. The carriage ways and parking have been cleared by the Role Eco-Product staff and the founder. Check out the blisters. We now need to take off and stockpile the hundreds, if not thousands of cubic meters of soil, and replace it with limestone dug from the water pits and channels over time. Also stockpile usable wood.
Mike and his team are now designing all infrastructures for the project, and sorting out exactly where the 20 learning stations will sit, what they will consist of, and what their needs are.
The children’s discovery track will meander its way around the center of the project and will be a design feature in itself.
In the meantime, the Women’s Vocational Skills Program is being run out of our leased premises in town Nusa Dua, which is doubling as our learning faculty and is an obviously well like program. The Abalone farming is slowly but surely coming on line down at Geger beach in cooperation with the Geger Beach Seaweed Farmers Association.
If you have or know of someone who has expertise, and may wish to help with knowledge, teaching skills and/or hands on experience in the following areas, please refer us to them or them to us……. Agriculture……….Organic farming, permaculture, forest gardening, reforestation, worm and snail farming, mushroom farming. Construction…..Eco building materials and techniques………Aquaculture and Ocean farming……….Health and Wellness.