The foundation works according five principles. It is important that these appear in the practice of the project.
- Share knowledge and skills
- Use local resources
- Create local systems
- Make it environmentally prospering
- Dare to play, dare to discover
To be able to amplify the impact and professionalize the continuity, Bambú Social foundation has partnered up with the Dutch based foundation Incombinación. Incombinación provides learning and intercultural opportunities, empowers solidarity and conscious living, and promotes participation in the development of society. The two foundations together are heading for an improvement of the social housing condition, starting in, but not limited to Nicaragua.
In 2014 in a team of students and young professionals set up a ‘Sustainable Construction’ course, together with the local university and the municipality, organized several workshops and presentations with the local community and constructed a model house of bamboo. The objective of this visit was to make a first step into creating a construction method with bamboo that can be practiced in a completely local manner. Also a low-tech, natural water purification and storage system was integrated in order to provide clean drinking water for the inhabitants of the house. The constructed model house, built in 2014, is the base for the design of an affordable social home and the manual ‘Un manual de construcción sostenible’, which explains the entire process with step by step drawings. The model house has been donated to the local university and currently functions as a library.
The project has stopped developing when the first team left. In 2015 a new team will contribute to continue to work done in 2014. The coming of new teams is necessary to get the project cycling in this continuing improving loop (virtuous circle). A fresh look on the project will provide even faster improvements. Therefore an assignment for the second team has been defined in the next part.