A lot has happened in the last few months – from disasters to great successes. In this blogpost we will report about many small projects.
At the beginning of June, we received the terrible news that a fire had broken out in the slum in Kibera due to a power failure. During the night 6 fire trucks came to the slum to quell the fire. Many families lost their homes, an area of 300m² with 160 houses was destroyed.
After collecting donations, we were able to provide food to the affected families first as emergency aid and in the meantime distribute donations two more times. Thanks to your help, we have been able to collect a total of over 20,000€ so far and will use the money to build 8 new housing units for affected families. At this point we would like to thank you for your support, we will keep you informed about the progress. By the way, you can still donate here, every Euro helps!
Another project we have finished is the TwistBlocks Calculator. It allows you to calculate how much a house, school, landscape project, or sanitary facilities will cost with our TwistBlocks. Feel free to visit TwistBlocks.com and try it out for yourself.
We have also refurbished the manufactory office for our employees. Now Milka, our Head of Workshop, can receive potential customers and perform her administrative tasks undisturbed in a separate room.
With our partner NGO Konkuey Design Initiative (KDI), we have been able to carry out many projects so far. For the second water tank project, KDI purchased 300 of our TwistBlocks and completed the construction project on their own within 10 days. The water tank can hold 10,000 liters and serves 300 people living in the area. The water is tied to the municipal mains and is therefore ideal for drinking, washing and domestic use. Further projects with KDI, such as an office building for the Gifted Hans School in Kibera, are already being planned or even implemented.
In addition, the Masonry Calendar 2021, a standard work for civil engineers and architects, has been published. In this year’s issue, we had the honor of writing an article about our construction system: “An idea born of necessity – hollow concrete blocks for masonry construction in informal settlements and their constructional implementation” was written together with our team of experts.
Likewise, our TwistBlock stone had to be recertified. Every two years the stone is tested by the Kenyan Bureau of Standards (KEBS), comparable to the TÜV in Germany, and a new certificate is issued. For this purpose, 12 stones were tested in the laboratory and we were asked questions about the material and mixture. In this way, every two years the quality is checked to see if it can still be guaranteed. The next date will be in 2023!
We are proud to have won the German Innovation Award 2021 together with PERI for the category Building & Elements with our Manufacture and the TwistBlock construction system. The focus of the award is on products and solutions that offer special added value and stand out from previous solutions. The jury was particularly enthusiastic about the fact that the production of the TwistBlocks creates local jobs in Kibera, a construction industry is directly on site and the added value remains with the slum dwellers.
Another highlight in July was our participation in the One Young World Summit. Our team member Claire had the opportunity to present our sustainable vision on site in Munich and to act as One Young World Ambassador from now on. One Young World promotes and connects the most influential young leaders in the world. The goal is to create a better world with many responsible and more effective leaders.
We have a few more projects lined up for the coming weeks, such as Bethany Joy School, more info to follow. To stay up to date, feel free to follow us on Instagram @startsomewhere.eu and Facebook @let.us.start.somewhere.
Thank you for your support, we really appreciate it!
