#tribe lab

Even though, there are many obstacles involving community participation, both within the  community itself and the outside party providing most of the resources and education needed for the projects; the value of community participation cannot be overseen. Community participation when carried out it an efficient way where there is a two-way flow of communication between community members and  the authorities will always produce better results in projects; especially in low-income housing projects where it is so important to take  the community members into consideration.

Opposition in Community Participation: Such as mentioned yesterday, many participants in a project oppose community participation for their own reasons.

Most authorities are reluctant to give power to people, as they fear that the people may become too demanding. They see community organisation and participation as a Pandora's box. The authorities will try to restrict community participation to simple decisions such as the location of a bus stop or a street light and the opening hours of the clinic (Paul, op. cit, p. 25).

Politicians believe that they should represent communities as they have been elected by popular vote and that there is no need for a community organisation and leadership outside parliament or the municipal council. Politicians may also fear that grassroots leaders become their rivals in the next local or national elections. It is important not to antagonise politicians and to respect their position as overall political decision-­makers. However, they have to be made aware that planning and decision­making in the context of a housing project require the direct involvement of the community (Boaden, 1980, pp. 39­41).

Technocrats believe that only they can take decisions on technical issues, as it requires many years of study to be able to prepare plans for infrastructure, housing etc. They consider it almost a personal insult to go to an illiterate, ignorant community and ask for its opinion and advice.

Those responsible for project finances fear that community participation will cost time and, therefore, money. Because one is dealing with people, a time schedule for community participation is difficult to establish beforehand and the outcome may eventually not be too different from what could have been expected. 

Sadly, in the case of working with indigenous communities there also exist other problems as racism and oppression. Because, as it is in every country with an indigenous population, indigenous people are the minority it is not rare to see cases of neglect, and disapproval not only from the government, but also from private parties. How much scope for participation should be given? This can certainly be tricky to handle for many project leaders. Obviously there is many ways in which the community can contribute in decision-making. However, before the project is presented to the community it has to be approved and funds have to be raised. Unfortunately, for the community, when the project is approved many irreversible decisions have to be taken in order for the project to take place. The problem here lies when the community fails to see the priorities that the town as a whole need and focus only on their community priorities and needs. 

From Tribe LAB’s approach and point of view, it is important to work with what the indigenous community already has as best as possible, providing better resources and enhancing their way of living without changing the way that they are accustomed to work and live. A very common case of misunderstanding can occur when an indigenous resident will only be interested in those plans which directly affect his house, his neighbourhood and the infrastructure and services he is using. However, before detailed plans can be prepared, major decisions on general principles have to be taken. Many residents often discover that the general decisions which did not interest them have limited the choices which they can make in detailed planning. This can be disappointing from the point of view of the community organiser who has to fight an uphill battle. However, it is important to emphasise that giving the community a say in decisions implies that the community can also decline the responsibility to decide, because it feels that it is not in its interest to participate or perhaps because it does not feel competent to take a decision about a particular issue.

Do the community opinions and decisions reach the authorities and does this usually happen in the correct form? In our past as well as recent engagement with communities we have faced many obstacles when dealing with authorities in charge. 

The opinions, needs and obstacles facing community can be one in comparison with the interest of the authoritative bodies in charge of the community. 

When we talk about communication in relation to the community, it also means that there has to be an interactive process between community members and the authorities in which information, knowledge and, skills relevant for development are exchanged either personally or through media such as radio, print, telephone, and cybernetics. The aim of effective communication is to put the members of the community with the necessary information for decision-making, and bring awareness to improve their livelihood.

The Importance of Information and Communication: Communication is a key component in the effectiveness of any community based project. Mobilising community members, and decision-making is of course very important; but the project can only be carried out with success when there is effective communication within the people and the authorities. The contents and the form ­of communication have to be adjusted to the conditions of every population; and when it comes to working with indigenous communities one has to be very careful. Indigenous people are deeply rooted to their culture; misunderstandings and mistakes can easily happen. When working on communication in a low-income housing projects it is important to ask the following questions:    ­- Does the information reach the entire community and in the correct form?

­    - Does the community understand the information?

­    - Can the community take a decision on the basis of this information?

­    - Does the decision reflect the opinion of at least the majority of the population?

Oftentimes decision of the community are manipulated by leaders or organisations in charge. 

We realised that it is beneficial to involve all interested bodies in discussion and openly touch on each problem or obstacle which the community is or may be facing during the implementation of the project.

Most popular issues when dealing with disaster relief or public projects are matters related to the terrain. When communities are in need and vulnerable often happens that leaders or politically oriented community based bodies will take an opportunity to place some promises with intentions of self gratification.

Such solutions are almost never serving the mostly interested party in a sustainable way.

Acting as negotiators, a non governmental organisation such as Tribe LAB needs to create a situation where the interest of the community gets protected agains any further, often even more consequent obstacles emerge.

This is where for us, being truthful to our mission becomes a game changer.

Hosting open discussions, where promises and opportunities can equalise when facing functionality and best interest of the ones in need.

Tribe LAB does not position itself neither in political, religious or other single party interests. We do however work in contexts very strongly embraced in political and religious grounds. What is our approach?

Creating a space for open debate, where each party can bring their opinions, feelings and suggestions. From there we negotiate and explore each and every opportunity for developing sustainable solutions for the vulnerable minority.

What next? It is important to follow each meeting scripting minutes and stating clear terms of conditions of further engagement, truthful to the organisations mission. As long s the final decisions serve the group in focus, flexibility in advised.

Community participation is also a means to educate citizens and increase their competence, therefore facilitating a project’s execution. 

Tribe LAB strongly believes in the exchange of knowledge between the indigenous community and our project leaders and volunteers. Community participation allows both the community members and the project leaders to learn from each other.

For the past eight months Tribe LAB has been involved in a low income housing project at the community of San Pablo La Laguna, Sololá. Recently we also started working on temporary disaster relief housing project with the community of La Barrona, located at the coast of Guatemala. With both projects we have faced series of obstacles which we surely learned a lot from. As consequence we deiced to share with you series of blog entries introducing some of the emerging problems and opportunities we have perceived for our future engagement.

Oftentimes whenever a low-income housing project fails to produce the desired result, the failure is attributed to a lack of community participation. It is expected that when governments do not have the funds to launch a low-income project, community participation will compensate for this lack of resources. As a non profit aiming to bridge the differences between our world and the indigenous communities, we highly value the indigenous participation and exchange of knowledge that can take place within each project. What is Community Participation? First, we will start by defining “community”. Community is defined as a group of people with face-to-face contact where there is a sense of belonging and a share of common interests and values. If we’re talking about urban low-income housing, the people who are living in a certain delimited area, and identify with that area as well as share an interest in the development of that area, form a community.

Participation assumes an activity in which the community takes part and the involvement of at least one other party, usually a government agency or a non­ governmental organisation (NGO). Community participation refers to involvement by communities as a whole as well as by its individual members who want to voice their opinions and concerns about decisions that affect them, taking responsibility for changes to their community.

The need for Community Participation: The importance and need for community participation cannot be accentuated enough, especially when it comes to low-income housing projects in indigenous communities. Indigenous people are characterised for having a high value of their culture and customs, providing a rich source of knowledge for our project leaders, and therefore making the organising process a lot easier. Lands, territories and resources are of spiritual, social, cultural, economic and political significance to indigenous peoples and are inextricably linked to their identity and continued survival; and they have a right to a say when non profits like Tribe LAB approach them with projects to enhance their community and living conditions. In many developing countries, like Guatemala, dominant paradigms view the modes of production of indigenous peoples as backward and not in line with the state development goals. For Tribe LAB is very important that the indigenous people know that we see them as equal, and that we need their knowledge and support as a community in order to carry out efficient projects.

In series of blog entries, introduced by Pamela Molina we share our experience and observations regarding the community participation, its obstacles as well as importance of communication.

Check back with us tomorrow to read more on this subject.

On using bamboo as alternative to steel. 

How Tribe LAB’s team of partners and builders worked on bamboo solutions for the past decade to propose a sustainable alternative to steel reinforced concrete. 

According to ArchDaily: Developing countries have the highest demand for steel-reinforced concrete.

In Guatemala the production of concrete is one of the most dominating manufacturing industries. However, the country suffers from a lack of means to produce enough steel to face the demands of the industry.

Rather than put themselves at the mercy of a global market dominated by developed countries, Tribe LAB’s builders, together with one of our construction partners and local architect- Charlie Rendall, have worked with an alternative to this manufacturing rarity: bamboo.

Abundant, sustainable, and extremely resilient, bamboo has potential in the future to become an ideal replacement in places where steel cannot easily be produced.

In trials of tensile strength, bamboo outperforms most other materials, reinforcement steel included.  It achieves this strength through its hollow, tubular structure, evolved over millennia to resist wind forces in its natural habitat.  This lightweight structure also makes it easy to harvest and transport.  Due to its incredibly rapid growth cycle and the variety of areas in which it is able to grow, bamboo is also extremely cheap.  Such rapid plant growth requires the grass to absorb large quantities of CO2, meaning that its cultivation as a building material would help reduce the rate of climate change. These factors alone are an incentive for investment in developing bamboo as reinforcement.

Despite these benefits, there are several limitations. Contraction and expansion is one such limitation, caused by both temperature changes and water absorption.  The grass is also susceptible to structural weakness caused by fungus and simple biodegradation.  Ironically, many of the countries that would benefit from bamboo reinforcement also lack the resources to develop it as a viable alternative to the steel on which they currently rely.

With past projects, Charlie Rendall has proven that we can overcome all the above-mentioned limitations of bamboo. Treated bamboo is no longer vulnerable to weather conditions or biodegradation.

Today, Tribe LAB looks into new ways of using bamboo in construction. Inspired by ancient Mayan techniques of handmade construction, we aspire to integrate this amazing material into our new school project in San Juan La Laguna.

Through conducting research to determine the full gamut of applications that bamboo has as a construction material, we seek new solutions to design light structures and spaces of the ‘in between’. The strength of the material allows us to play with its capacity to hold structures but also create ‘light architectures’ that can be used as an indoor, integrated playground.

Being a teacher in San Juan.

Challenges of teaching in rural Guatemala.

Teaching in a rural indigenous public school in Guatemala is not easy. Salaries are subsidised by the government and often not paid at all. At most a teacher in a local school makes about 266 USD monthly. 

There is little to no educational and supplementary material to work with.  The teacher is expected to implement an entire curriculum in about four hours of actual course time per day, and is given no practical methods to reinforce the material. 

The majority of the public schools are in very bad condition. The basic programmes often lack sufficient funding to be implemented properly. Hunger and poverty are often the number one enemies of a devoted teacher. Many children also come to school with empty stomachs and as a result cannot focus or participate accordingly in class. In more developed countries, teachers would be appalled by the stark reality of everyday school life in Guatemala. 

The teachers at the San Juanerita primary school are a dedicated group of educators who do their best to provide a quality education despite the challenging circumstances that face the school and the community.   Since the Tribe LAB team has started working with the school, we have come to know many of the teachers personally, and learn of their frustrations with the education system in Guatemala. 

They have also shared their ideas and solutions to the problems at hand.  The new education model that the school will incorporate has been developed completely from those ideas. 

The teachers also continue to find ways to educate their students in creative and heartening ways.  The fourth grade class has been taught about the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, while the children in the sixth grade class have spent time developing their own creation stories based on Christian and Mayan spirituality, as well as recreating visual histories of the Guatemalan civil war with artwork. 

The community and the primary school of San Juanerita already have the resolve, capacity, and organization to succeed on their terms.  They just need the resources to be given that chance. Currently the most pressing need is a new school building to allow for more creative and committed education programmes that focus on the challenges of malnutrition and obstacles to quality education.

Our project facilitates the use of appropriate technologies, materials and labour adequate to local values, to the cultural specificity and responsive to the natural environment;

Our Redevelopment Project in San Pablo La Laguna shares knowledge promotes discussion, reflection and awareness and collaborates in the advancement of the ‘social production of habitat’.

 With our work in Guatemala, we focus on creating an experimental environment for indigenous people, architects, engineers, chemical engineers, natural builders, students and volunteers where knowledge about Mayan traditional building methods can be explored and freely shared. 

Through creation of building labs we run experiments, which aim to improve current construction issues within local rural building methods. Some of the issues occur due to a loss of knowledge of using nature for the best building performance, some because of commercialisation of natural construction resources, which became either unaffordable or no longer available for the local community of San Pablo La Laguna. 

We don’t only aim to build with vernacular techniques. Our aim is to improve on the current state of construction in respect of bringing back the knowledge of building natural foundations and retaining walls, use of structural framing in adobe construction for earthquake proofness, reinforcing adobe block mixture to make it resistant to weather conditions, able to withstand long rainy seasons and not dust. 

We also dream to challenge the availability of local recourses and knowledge of making natural, grass roofs. Today- there is only one house in San Pablo, counting over 90 years, which still has a grass roof and an original roof structure Such technique of building natural roofs has not been proctored by the community of San Pablo for over fifty years. 

Our San Pablo La Laguna Housing Redevelopment project mission is to preserve ways ofbuilding of Tz’utujil Mayan people through providing socially, ecologically and economically conscious architectural design.

 With the Housing Redevelopment Project we aim to build 20 houses for over 180 occupants, utilizing local techniques.

Our team consists of a Polish Architect, an indigenous founder from San Pablo La Laguna, 20 local Tz’utujil natural builders and an Education Partner, Return to the Forest, all sharing one vision of community empowerment through building and education.

 We plan to implement our project using participatory methods in all aspects of the project development: design, material sourcing, manufacturing and construction.

By incorporating volunteer programmes we will open our project to student participation from various university programmes, including design students as well as other travellers and building enthusiasts who are willing to learn through hands- on experience in the field.

Such a programme will enable cultural exchange and help with managing labour costs.