INTERNATIONAL NATURAL BUILDING CONVERGENCE
September 3rd-October 15th, 2002

An exciting event is in the works. In collaboration with a network of North American natural builders, Kleiwerks is organizing an International Natural Building Convergence. Grassroots activists and local leaders will be coming together from Argentina, Thailand, Kenya Brazil and Ghana for six weeks to focus on practical ecological solutions to basic housing needs. This is an opportunity for pioneers of the sustainable living movement to build relationships, share knowledge and establish support networks.   

The Convergence will begin with the ‘10 Day Training in the Art of Natural Building’ in Asheville, North Carolina and conclude with the ‘Natural Building Colloquium’ in Oregon. Participants will visit sites that are on the cutting edge of the natural building and sustainable living movement. Affordable, durable and locally available natural materials such as mud, straw, bamboo and stone will be used in hands-on projects. Innovative and traditional techniques include adobe, strawclay, cob, earthen finishes and passive solar design.

The Convergence will empower participants to share and adapt these skills within their local communities. Upon returning to their respective countries participants will host trainings, reaching hundreds of people thanks to their involvement with existing grassroots networks. This group of visionaries and teachers have specifically been invited because they have already shown a remarkable ability to create positive change. Please see attached bios.

The time is ripe for more sustainable living. We wish to honor, support and connect the people who are helping this to become a reality. Each of them lives with very little money and they are rarely financially compensated for their commitment to improving the well-being of their communities as well as the Earth’s.  For this reason we are inspired to raise the scholarships to cover their airfare and all other expenses during the duration of the Convergence.

Please join us in supporting this important project by sending your contribution to ‘Janell Kapoor,’ I.N.B.C. Scholarship Fund, 80 ½ Cumberland Avenue, Asheville, NC 28801

Time is of the essence. We thank you in advance.

Janell Kapoor, janell@kleiwerks.com
Max Edleson, max@intermax.net
Co-organizers of the Convergence

For more information about the Convergence sponsors, participants, itinerary and budget please read on.

Sponsors
The hosting organizations include Kleiwerks Natural Building, Southeast Ecological Design, Cob Cottage Company, North American School of Natural Building, Earthaven Ecovillage, Sequatchie Valley Institute, Lama Foundation, The EcoVersity, City Repair Project, Builders Without Borders, Mountain Gardens, Aprovecho and Lost Valley Permaculture Institute.

Itinerary
September 3-5Arrival and Introductions in Asheville, North Carolina
September 6-15Kleiwerks 10 Day Training in the Art of Natural Building
September 16-24Tour of Sustainable Living and Natural Building Sites in the Asheville Area: Earthaven Ecovillage, Sequatchie Valley Institute, Mountain Gardens
September 24  October 1Tour of Sustainable Living and Natural Building Sites in Northern New Mexico: Lama Foundation, La Madera, Taos Pueblos, Earthships, The Ecoversity
October 1-6Tour of Sustainable Living and Natural Building Sites in Oregon: Cob Cottage Company, Lost Valley Permaculture Institute, Aprovecho, Rob Bolman, City Repair Project
October 6-11Natural Building Colloquium in Medford, Oregon
October 12-14Closing Evaluation
October 15Return Home

Budget (per person)
Funds needed to support this project:
International Flights                  $1200
Domestic Flights                        $400
Kleiwerks 10 Day Training               $600
Natural Building Colloquium             $100
Meals and Lodging ($15/day; 25 days)    $375
Van Rental and Gasoline                 $100
Translation and Logistical Support      $525

                                       ----
Total                                  $3300


Working List of Prospective Participants

ARGENTINA is in the throes of one of the most spectacular modern financial and political meltdowns. For this reason, permaculture, natural building techniques, and living from the land not only offer themselves as interesting options but increasingly are becoming an essential part of everyday life.

CARLOS STRAUB is a permaculturist and inventor extraordinaire. He has been a leading member of CIESA, a center for research and education of sustainable agriculture in El Bolson, for the last seven years. He gives many organic gardening workshops in Patagonia and throughout Argentina. He is a certified permaculture designer and is being called upon increasingly to give workshops on the subject. Carlos is rebuilding an old grain mill that will allow the people in his valley to cooperatively buy grain in bulk and mill it into flour at a much more affordable price. He also leads the seed saving initiative in his region, running a small home-business and sharing his knowledge through talks and personal interactions. He has extensive mechanic skills and has built many greenhouses, composting toilets and other structures.

JORGE BELANCO is a builder and mason.  His octagonal house is a marvel of permaculture design.  A greenhouse wraps around three sides.  He built and installed a small turbine in the canal that runs through its property to generate electricity, built a solar cooker, and several solar dryers. He recently built a small workshop in the wattle and daub style and a trout hatchery for his trout pond using a modified straw-clay technique. Two of his trademarks, which he has built and installed in many households in El Bolson, are the thermally efficient Russian heating stove and a similarly very efficient and affordable adobe oven built around a 55-gallon oil drum. Jorge is considered a permaculture maestro and is often collaborating on permaculture projects, teaching courses and always sharing his knowledge. He was an avid member of the local humanist party and has now become a charismatic leader in the evolving barter system which has become his valley's dominant social and economic structure. 

CHILE is a country of extraordinary natural diversity whose riches- its forests, arable land, mountains and seas- are being mined at completely unsustainable rates. A healthier relationship with the earth, which Chile's indigenous people have practiced for millennia, is sorely needed and being sought for by activists and progressive leaders.

BLANCA ROSA brought together several families, 25 years ago, to form a community on a barren piece of land on the outskirts of Santiago. As a Waldorf teacher, she set up a small community school and led a revegetation effort, planting native trees, fruit trees, and gardens to grow the community's own food. More and more families came to join the community. The once barren land is now one of Santiago's most attractive neighborhood.  Blanca has spent the last decade working as a permaculture designer and consultant.  In the last two years, she has dedicated most of her time to the establishment of a permaculture institute in the Ecuadorian jungle. The center’s main goal is to help the local community to stop selling their trees for income. They are developing and demonstrating ways to grow food in the jungle as well as build shelters in a natural and sustainable way.

PAULINA AVILA is a musician, artist, and activist. She has worked extensively in her community of Con Con, Chile to establish community gardens. Over the last two years, she has worked with Blanca Rosa at her center in Ecuador. She teaches organic and has experimented in building with bamboo. She continues her efforts to explore and establish cottage industries for the Tikawasy community that would make them more independent from their lumber-related incomes. At the center, she also has a drum and didgeridoo-making workshop to raise funds for the organization.  
 
THAILAND is experiencing many of the classic symptoms of modernization and globalization: large foreign debts, rampant prostitution, villagers leaving their origins to try their luck in the city and rapid environmental degradation. In response, communities and grassroots networks are increasingly organizing themselves to find human-scale solutions to these modern ills and returning to a more environmentally, as well as culturally, sustainable way of living.

JO JANDAI, inspired by his visit to the Taos Pueblos while bicycling through New Mexico, returned to his village in one of Thailand’s poorest regions to introduce friendlier, more affordable building techniques. In the past year, Jo has become Thailand’s leading advocate and educator of adobe construction. He has been busily running workshops throughout Thailand, training community groups to build with appropriate alternatives to costly concrete construction. Jo has dedicated his life to sharing such simple, small-scale solutions in order to demonstrate the possibility of independence from the ever-growing pressures of modernization and globalization. He reaches thousands, including a growing number of Westerners, through a widespread grassroots network he helped to get started. Jo has also helped to establish successful cooperative models amongst organic rice farmers. For many years he has run an educational permaculture farm where he teaches, as well as grows and harvests his entire food supply.

KENYA’s families are increasingly at risk of poverty, malnutrition and famine. More than a third of the people live in “absolute poverty,” surviving on less than one dollar per day. In the midst of these enormous obstacles, there have been some outstanding success stories which have helped thousands.

JOSHUA AMWAI MACHINGA is the project coordinator of Common Ground Program. Through gleaning produce, he has helped provide food for 10,000 people. Gleaning is an ancient practice that involves volunteers gathering and distributing crops that would otherwise be left in the fields to rot. This is one of numerous projects he has help to initiate. Joshua has years of experience with non-governmental organizations in the areas of food security, rural development and appropriate technology. He holds a diploma in Poverty, Relief and Development and an advanced certificate in BioIntensive Agriculture. He has taught Sustainable Architecture and Conflict Resolution at Wilson Community College in the US. He is one of the co-initiators of the straw bale house construction at the United Nations Headquarters in Nairobi and has worked as a consultant with the ODA/World Bank.