Taubman College In the cover story of the February issue of Planning Magazine, Taubman College’s Brian Symser details his involvement with the Sustainable School Project. Smyser is a dual master’s degree candidate in Sustainable Systems and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan and a Peace Corps volunteer participating in their Master’s International program.
During his dual masters program, he was placed near Bembe by the Peace Corps to work on environmental development projects in the region. In the town of Bembe, located in a rural corner of poverty-stricken Malawi, Africa, Symser along with the Bembe community have worked toward building a fully functioning Malawian secondary school. This would require the current Bembe Community Day Secondary School to offer all four grade levels and additional facilities, including two more classrooms, a library, and a science laboratory. The Sustainable School Project aims to make those additions in a sustainable way while expanding worldviews and offering long-term opportunities in learning, employment and environmental stewardship for the children and adults of Bembe and the surrounding villages. The project has been approved by the Peace Corps and is supported by the Malawian Ministry of Education.
Smyser “was delighted to find this active and determined community working on a project that perfectly fit his academic background and technical acumen.” Through the Sustainable School Project, Smyser hopes to meet the needs for accessible high-quality education and increased environmental awareness in a rural spot in one of Africa’s poorest nations.
Read Smyser’s first-person account of his research and experience in below, from Planning Magazine.
More than a School: A young planner’s Peace Corps project could help sustain a Malawi village
By Brian Smyser
For eight years, a village in a rural corner of poverty-stricken Malawi, Africa, has struggled to find a way to educate its children. Now there’s hope. These days, often more than 100 villagers descend each week on a dusty construction site in the town of Bembe to build a much-needed secondary school. Men, ranging from teenagers to grandfathers, and women, often carrying their babies on their backs, haul heavy buckets of sand and other building materials in the expectation that their children may one day attend the school that they are building. Recent government approvals of their ongoing efforts make that dream seem very close.
Bembe, almost 20 miles from the nearest paved road, is a traditional rural African village of about 1,400 people. It is without the modern conveniences of electricity and running water, and its residents rely heavily on subsistence agriculture.
The only two secondary schools available to Bembe youth are a nearly three-hour walk away — a trip many students make barefoot. The new coed Bembe Community Day Secondary School — initiated, paid for, and built entirely by the community — will be modest, with two classrooms, five pit latrine toilets, an office, and a teacher’s house.
The community had hoped that the school would open late last year, but delays caused by the onset of the rainy season have pushed back the projected opening until early this year. Although they will have only about one book for every six students, some 50 youngsters could start school as soon as April or in the fall, at the start of the next school year. To start, the school only will offer classes in Form 1, the equivalent to ninth grade in the U.S.
However, to be a fully functioning Malawian secondary school, Bembe Community Day Secondary School must offer all four grade levels (Forms 1 through 4) and additional facilities, including two more classrooms, a library, and a science laboratory. The community is determined to make those additions, and to do so in a sustainable way, through the proposed Sustainable School Project. There are additional benefits, including expanded worldviews and long-term opportunities in learning, employment, and environmental stewardship for the children and adults of Bembe and the surrounding villages.
In the middle of my dual master’s program in Sustainable Systems and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan, I was placed near Bembe by the Peace Corps to work on environmental development projects in the region and was delighted to find this active and determined community working on a project that perfectly fit my academic background and technical acumen.
The people of Bembe inspired me to develop the Sustainable School Project, which I hope will help to meet the needs for accessible high-quality education and increased environmental awareness in a rural spot in one of Africa’s poorest nations — an area that is beset by rapidly diminishing natural resources, low literacy, and a need for occupational training.
The project has been approved by the Peace Corps and is supported by the Malawian Ministry of Education. Now, raising the funds to implement the project is one of the few remaining barriers. But if the project comes to fruition, it should fulfill some of the area’s development needs, while also becoming a replicable model for environmental stewardship and sustainability in rural Africa.
Green building in the Great Rift Valley
The original two-room school block being built by the people of Bembe uses traditional rural Malawian building practices. The Sustainable School Project — ultimately to include the necessary two new classrooms, and rooms for a library and a science lab — will apply many of the principles of the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED rating system, adapting them to the local climate, materials, and labor resources.
Rather than traditional fired-clay bricks, the project will use interlocking stabilized soil blocks, which make for stronger walls and can be produced on-site using local materials, thereby minimizing any environmental impacts related to their transport. The blocks require no mortar and no kiln firing, which helps to reduce the consumption of scarce wood fuel. They are also more cost-effective per area of wall than traditional bricks and exhibit high thermal mass, which will help keep the rooms more comfortable in Malawi’s subtropical climate.
Appropriate orientation is an important aspect of the design, as is following the familiar rectilinear form of other local structures — in order to encourage replication. The long, low building will feature prominent windows on its north facade to evenly distribute solar heat gains. The design also includes rainwater capture (potentially for potable water), passive ventilation, and strategies to maximize light in the absence of electricity. Stormwater control also is crucial, since deforestation and poor soil management have created impermeable soil conditions that contribute to severe erosion during the annual rainy season.
If the project is successful, it may be possible to pursue additional projects that will add solar and wind power. Not only would this increase the school’s educational capacity but it would also bring electric infrastructure to the community while teaching children and adults about the importance of renewable energy in development and climate stewardship.
Sustaining the community
If it goes forward, the Sustainable School Project will do more than offer the youth of Bembe and its surrounding villages a comprehensive education.
Better education means a chance at a better life for Bembe students. Proposed income-generating projects also could help fund the ongoing expenses of the school and its activities. And laborers working on the school will be gaining potentially marketable skills in sustainable construction technologies.
The school will also mean improved education for girls and women, and building human capacity through new skills and technologies. The building itself would be available for community activities after school hours.
Once complete, the facility will serve as an interactive workshop for sustainability and community environmental education programs. Finally, Bembe would also greatly benefit from the hoped-for future addition of renewable energy to the project.
The Sustainable School Project is expected to be completed by June 2012, and will be overseen by the Village Headman of Bembe (a Malawian government community development official), the District Education Manager for the Rumphi District (in which Bembe is located), and me. Mzuzu University, in the city of the same name, has helped review the project plans. Other technical advice will come from the School of Natural Resources and the Environment and Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan.
The projected costs for the Sustainable School Project are modest by U.S. standards: About $33,400 (U.S.) will pay for the construction of the facility and the students’ educational materials, not including the costs of the local volunteer labor and supplies already committed and raised through the sale of crops grown by the community. But the dividends that the project could pay to the people of Bembe and surrounding villages are impossible to measure.
Brian Smyser is a dual master’s degree candidate at the University of Michigan and a Peace Corps volunteer participating in their Master’s International program. Contact him at smyser@umich.edu. Details about the project and how to support it can be found at www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate. Enter project number 614-225 in the search box.
