Support Bamboo 4 Africa: Empower Communities with Sustainable Building Skills – Pre-purchase the Bamboo 4 Africa Training Video-Documentary!

The Bamboo 4 Africa initiative is being created by a group of passionate people who want to bring accessible bamboo training skills to Kenya with Jaye Irving of Barefoot Design (Australia). We plan to produce a training program series and documentary to share these valuable skills with a wider audience…

Jaye Irving of Barefoot Design (Australia) will kick off the Bamboo 4 Africa training program in Meru, Kenya, and we need your support to make this happen!

About the Project:

– Phase 1: On-the-ground training, covering essential bamboo harvesting, management, and treatment techniques – full harvest and treatment program to process materials for phase 3 build (postponed – awaiting funding).

– Phase 2: Focuses on Bamboo harvest skills and setting up a hyperbolic treatment tower for VSD; Carpentry for small building construction.

– Phase 3: Features the Bamboo & Earth International Design Collaboration, integrating traditional mud building knowledge from Northern Ghana.

What We Are Offering: – Bamboo4Africa Training Program & Documentary:

We’ll produce a comprehensive training series and documentary to share valuable bamboo construction skills globally; Promoting attractive, affordable, and sustainable bamboo buildings, emphasizing innovative bamboo treatment to enhance longevity. Also with a feature on empowering local women to build their homes incorporating bamboo instead of wood and addressing domestic uses for bamboo for cooking fuel to reduce deforestation by encouraging households to have 5 bamboo plants.

Your Support Matters:

Early backers will receive a discounted Educative Documentary Film “Bamboo 4 Africa,” filmed throughout all three training phases.

Additional rewards and early access to subsequent phases are also available.

Special Offers for Supporters:

– Pre-purchase the *Bamboo 4 Africa Documentary Film* during the Crowdfunding Stage at a special price of USD$50.

– GET Access to Live Online Training Sessions via Facebook/Youtube.

Join Us in Making a Difference:

By supporting this campaign, you are contributing to a sustainable future where communities can build resilient, eco-friendly infrastructure. Let’s empower people to utilize bamboo for environmental stewardship at a community-driven level.

How You Can Help:

– Pre-purchase the Bamboo 4 Africa Training Video and or join the Live Training Group which will help us raise the funds for flying Jaye to Kenya and pay him for sharing his expertise with us!!!

– Share this campaign with your network to spread the word.

– Promote our initiative on social media and other platforms.

For more details, visit Bamboo 4 Africa: https://Bamboo4Africa.org

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Our Story:

After four months of dedicated weekly online meetings, we are now ready to launch a comprehensive training program in Meru, Kenya at Anabas Resort that extends beyond the basic training offered by my company in Bali. We have called the training program “Bamboo 4 Africa” (www.Bamboo4Africa.org), and it will provide vital practical skills and knowledge on bamboo harvesting, management,  treatment and carpentry, integrated with indigenous earth-building practices for constructing houses with bamboo.

Our knowledge will be further developed during the training alongside One Buuri’s Sixtus Nsoh from Ghana and members of our bamboo community from India. Our host’s daughter, Kagweni Channan, a journalist and documentary maker, will be our film-maker, who will direct the skills-sharing side of the documentary-film and video training. The result will be an educative video documentary of the training program, which will be available for retail purchase in July 2025.

As a Collective, our goal is to preserve the cultural skills and knowledge of bamboo inherent in ASEAN cultures and to dispel the stigma of bamboo being perceived solely as a “poor person’s building material—or just for the very rich.” By creating examples of attractive, affordable, and sustainable bamboo buildings, we emphasize innovation in bamboo treatment to enhance its longevity without the need for expensive industrial setups.

With more than 70% of the world’s population living on less than USD$10 a day, finding low-cost building solutions that enable rural populations to maintain and uplift “village culture,” alleviate urban pressure, and conserve natural resources is crucial. This initiative aims to share the practical skills of bamboo building alongside affordable methods to enhance its utilization, as well as management and harvesting techniques to optimize bamboo resources, in a format that enables uptake by not only people in Africa but anywhere in the world (via digital download format).

The Training Documentary will cover Phases 2 of the Bamboo 4 Africa Training. Phase 2 will focus on developing building skills for small construction projects.

While also fostering a sister-village network and fair trade relations through connecting communities, Bamboo 4 Africa Training- will be delivered in three parts.

• Phase 1: Industrial Training – postponed at present until we have the funding to conduct a full scale harvest/workplace training – which will become the building materials for Phase 3 of the program.
• Phase 2: Module 1: Bamboo Clump Maintenance and Harvest & Treatment Training followed by Module 2: Bamboo Carpentry & Construction Skills, and;
• Phase 3: Bamboo Design Collab Bamboo and Bamboo & Mud Cottage Build in collaboration with a local project TBA.
• • Share our dream of empowering people to build resilient, eco-friendly buildings and infrastructure for environmental stewardship at a community-driven level.
  • As a bonus, supporters will have access to our Live Online Training Sessions via Facebook/Youtube.

Funds raised will be used to fund the training – purchasing flights and paying salary for Jaye Irving our head trainer as well as for tools and to assist in transport costs for participants from Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, Ethiopia and Rwanda.

Kagweni who is our media project partner on the ground in Kenya is able to absorb the initial costs of filming and is eager to learn the training herself as daughter of the Resort Owner who is hosting the training and where the a Bamboo treatment centre and workshop is being built for the program to take place. Kagz’ father Mich approached me here in Bali about building a small treatment facility in their hometown of Meru in Kenya. We have an agreement that once our total funding goal is reached (US$125,000/AU$187,000) covering the budget outlined in our Project Funding Proposal (request access to full proposal), income from sales will be divided between: The Filming and Production Team headed by Kagz (30%); Jaye and the Training Team (30%), Future Workshops Fund (30%) and myself (10%). 

OTHER ADD-ON/Tiers you can Purchase to help reach our funding goals

Training Overview

Phase 2 – January 21 – February 15 2025

Modules:

Module 1: Bamboo harvesting, clump management, biochar production, and setting up treatment systems (VSD).

Module 2: Bamboo carpentry and joinery for small structures using pre-treated and dried bamboo.

Participant Groups:

Farmers: Training on bamboo clump management and harvesting.

Community Resource Managers: Focus on collaborative harvesting and treatment systems.

Carpenters and Craftsmen: Skills for building structures and processing materials.

Purpose: Empower farmers with value-adding processes and ensure quality bamboo treatment

Register Now to Enrol and/or receive updates:

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PHASE 3

During Phase 3, we will collaborate with Alemna and Sixtus from One Buuri in Ghana, who will bring a team of skilled artisans to learn bamboo building techniques to our On-Ground Project. Together, we will integrate indigenous earth-building knowledge from Ghana with bamboo building during our International Collaboration Program. We are also partnering with the Bamboo Resource Centre Kenya to share the entire program’s knowledge, which will be integrated into their local institute’s comprehensive 200-hour training program. For more details, See Full Training Program Details and format.

Additionally, We would like to fund African youth and women to participate in the Bamboo 4 Africa Training Program. Our goal is to build momentum and develop a network of sister villages where future training sessions can be held. We aim to train trainers through an Eco-Cultural Leadership Program who can then train others and integrate the Bamboo 4 Africa Training Programs. This aligns with my company’s (Bamboo Creative Bali) and Bamboo Resource Centre Kenya’s Greater Vision to establish Climate Adaptation Family Living Systems (CAFLS) Village Projects across Africa, with nine village hubs already established in Kenya. For more details, please visit www.bamboocreative.org/Bamboo4Africa.

Please Share far and wide 🙂

Big bamboo hugs,

Natalie Davenport

PT Bamboo Creative Bali