Brick Making Begins in Burere

On Monday, we visited the Burere site to train the community on the making of the ISSB brick that will become the walls of the future school building.  Our partner, Village Life Outreach Project, has previously used the ISSB (short for Interlocking Stabilized Soil Block) in the construction of the Roche Health Center.  Village Life has allowed us to borrow the press, which they purchased for building projects in the Shirati area, for use in the Burere project.  We owe them a thank you for not only allowing us to use the press, but for helping arrange the training for the Burere Village members.  The Burere project is a part of a larger Village Life initiative to spread ISSB technology through the Shirati area.

  

The series of pictures below were taken during the training and have been arranged to show the steps as they were shown to us.  The training was led by Daniel who is also our translator.  When the press was originally purchased, he traveled to Nairobi to be trained by Makiga (the press manufacturer).  After the day of training, a crew of Burere Village members took over the ISSB making process and has continued to manufacture bricks for the past few days.

Clear and level a space for the press to operate

Bolt the press to the platform and oil the moving parts

Sieve the soil for the bricks

Mix the soil with cement (at about 11 parts soil and 1 part cement)

Add water and mix thoroughly

Place the mixed soil and cement into the mold and level it off

Close the press over the soil

Pull to compress the brick

Eject the brick by pulling the handle back

I will be visiting the site tomorrow to check in on the brick making process.  The training went very well and I expect to see some solid progress in Burere tomorrow.