Initiatives
School Construction & Accountability Status
01 January, 2009
The first phase of construction – the building of the school’s foundation – was completed in late 2007, using private funds from the founder and individual donors. The construction is overseen by a local foreman (also serves as a Catholic priest), who carefully monitors expenses and ensures the proper care of and accountability for Aumazo funds. Local laborers were hired from the Bankondji community, and local raw materials are being used in the making of bricks and other building supplies. The school’s design is “green,” including its own water filtration system, sewage management, and solar-powered electricity.
About The Construction
The first school building is currently under construction in Bankondji, a small village of about two thousand inhabitants located in West-Francophone Cameroon. With the purchase of the hydraulic block machine, we are anticipating its grand opening with exciting new facilities that will provide an environment conducive to learning for our students. Girls will learn and strive in an environment that recognizes their needs and untapped potential, an environment where families and community involvement is central to the process. Project Aumazo is a lifetime opportunity for rural girls to depart from neglect, isolation and marginalization.
The New Hydraulic Machine
“AUMAZO’S ULTIMATE GOAL IS TO BUILD A BOARDING SCHOOL THAT WILL BECOME SELF-SUSTAINING.”Given the difficulties of establishing steady goals in a volatile and changing financial environment, and to address our funding challenges, we invested in a hydraulic block machine that produces interlocking dry stacked soil-cement and environmentally friendly blocks.
This machine will help us produce our own bricks to complete the construction of the boarding school and also
provide a revenue stream that will allow us to sustain the operating costs of the school for years to come.
Currently, workers are manufacturing blocks on site. These blocks will allow us to raise the walls of the boarding school and open doors to the first 50 students by fall 2013. Thereafter, we will be able to establish our block yard business and start selling blocks to builders around the country. The machine is ideal for working on remote sites where the use of electricity is not an option.
The “block making machines hydraulically compress soil that contains a small amount of clay and silt mixed with cement into soil cement blocks. When cured, these can be dry-stacked with no mortar.” As a result, HYDRAFORM machines are ideal for sites where transport costs for cement and sand are high.
The machine is mounted on wheels and can be moved from one site to the other. It has a diesel engine and requires 8L for a daily production of 1,500 blocks. The environmentally friendly nature of our blocks, their interlocking proprieties and the cost-effective use of our interlocking blocks set us apart from the competitor cinder blocks.
According to Hydraform the manufacturer of our hydraulic block machine, many benefit can accrue to all clients. As a replacement for conventional brick and mortar these dry stacking blocks
ensure:
Minimal material costs – Little mortar is needed, because 75% of a Hydraform wall is dry-stacked. In addition, Hydraform walls contain up to 50% less cement than conventional cement brick walls.- Reduced transport costs – Blocks can be made on the building site, which considerably reduces transport costs.
- Construction speed – A block layer can lay up to 800 blocks per day; the equivalent of laying 2 400 standard stock bricks per day.
- Versatility – All window, door, slab and roofing systems that are used with conventional systems can also be used with hydraulic blocks.
- Great ease of use – The hydraulic block system, because it uses dry-stacked Soil Cement Blocks, can be easily and simply taught to unskilled laborers.
- Genuine eco-friendliness – An average hydraulic wall has a carbon footprint that is as low as 40kg CO2 per square meter.
AUMAZO, INC. will measure the success of the block business and it potential in generating revenue to cover the operating costs of the school as soon as we open the doors of the school. This new instrument will help us decide on the expansion of our program beyond the borders of Cameroon to other African countries.
