Good Earth Global designed and rebuilt a two-room primary school in Phulping, Sindhupalchok, Nepal. The Earthbag school was funded by the 108 Lives Project/Three Jewels Outreach Center, a New York City non-profit.
For this project we reused the original foundation, windows, doors, metal roofing and steel posts. Wrapping the Earthbag courses around the posts, "The design is very strong because the steel frame braces the Earthbag walls, and the Earthbag walls and buttresses reinforce the steel posts", according to Dr. Owen Geiger upon his evaluation of the progress made.
Following the Gorkha Earthquake, thousands of schools were left in a similar state as Shree Seti Devi, with walls crumbled but the foundation still in tact.
Making use of the original school's foundation, windows and roofing allowed us to achieve considerable cost savings.
Tirtha's husband died of cancer two years ago. She has 6 kids - 5 girls and 1 boy. The oldest son is 15 years old and youngest girl is 2 years old. The house she used to live was damaged by the earthquake. She does not own any land so she has to work as a farmer for other people. This is the only source of her income. There are times when she does not have work and she does not have enough food for her family. In this case her neighbors give her rice and lentils.
We are happy that now Tirtha and her kids have new beautiful and safe house to live in.
This project is sponsored by Help Kids in Nepal (HKIN)