Up! Up! And away…

March 9th at 9pm I will fly out and the mission will begin. As a case study for finishing my diploma at FAUP (Porto Architectural School), I've decided to volunteer and join A4A (Architects for Aid) in one of their humanitarian architecture projects. The projected on which I've been assigned is the construction of the LCCU (Lesotho Children Counseling Unit) centre in Lesotho. The building has been halted and an assessment, survey and new proposal and program will be drawn up in order that the building might finish to be built. Once this is completed a second trip will be organized and I'll be overseeing the building on site. The objective of this blog is to keep record of the work that is being done, both for the benefit of the members of A4A in London, FAUP to whom I'll also be reporting, my own record as well as friends and family that might want to know what I'm up to. Please comment on any post that you have an opinion, as this will undoubtedly help me in the completion of my thesis. Disclaimer: The information displayed on this site has not been previously edited or checked by any A4A staff and I'm the sole responsible for it's contents. A4A or any of the other involved organizations are not to be hold responsible on any account for what is published on this blog.

Thursday, 15 March 2007


Report 3

The F.A. (football association) is now full with the National Team! They had a preparation game for the game next week against Niger! Today’s game finished with a win 4-0!

But the day was all but fun and games. We started off with a site meeting with TED (who’ll be supplying the Bio-gas system) and managed to agree with the placing of it on site and a common strategy to tackle the landscaping of that part of the site.

We then set off to visit the SOS Children’s Village Lesotho. These villages originated in Austria when a once orphan Austrian decided to set up the first one. Now there exist 131 worldwide! It’s a very well built project and it almost seems not to belong to this place. But those who manage to come here are lucky. They live in houses of 10 with 2 women to take care of them until they are 16 years old then they move to another building to get used to living alone, and from here they move to the youth home where they stay until the age of 23. By this time, they live the house and are expected to have along with primary education, life skills that should allow them to continue their lives with some success.

The rest of the day was spent taking dimensions and trying to locate on the site the building and trees but with a 30 meter tape and 130 meter site it was not always an easy task! During this time 3 different boys came to ask for work, workforce is available and willing. They are probably not trained but it will definitely help to have a lot of them…
One of them returned later to ask for advice about being a film maker… what can you say?

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