In 2007 Neighbors Corp took on a new project in Chiapas, Mexico, working with indigenous communities seeking to develop a capacity to build more affordable and sustainable structures to serve their needs. We seek to facilitate the efforts of these cohesive, consensus ruled, autonomous communities by providing an initial hand operated earth block press and the training necessary to build beautiful, long lasting, comfortable and affordable structures using compressed stabilized earth blocks and other sustainable building techniques such as thin shelled concrete roofing.
The building projects in Chiapas have found us working with a collective in Abasolo and also with several communities in the highlands region which are building community structures that can enhance the lives of all members of the population. Through community participation and a training process the residents have formed work groups and are learning to use local materials for the production and construction of buildings using Compressed Stabilized Earth Blocks (CSEBs) and Thin-Shelled Concrete Roofs, as well as other sustainable development and community capacity building construction methods. While the necessary labor comes from the community and the building materials are from local sources, we hope to fund the training in soil selection, block production and stabilization and construction processes so that this capacity can be sustained in these communities independent of outside resources in the future. We have already provided the initial machinery (hand operated earth block production press). Training will be done by experts with 18 years of experience in building CSEB homes in the USA and in poor communities in Mexico and throughout the world.
Each community’s needs are unique and so the initial projects in each community are unique. In the highlands the first buildings will be a communal meeting hall and a dormitory. Later other buildings to serve community needs can be built throughout their communities – schools, clinics and more. In Abasolo, a community center will be built first. It will include a workshop area to teach and make jewelry and artesanía to help supplement the incomes of the families in this farming community. Later there are plans to build a structure for the new indigenous university.
If you wonder how it came to be that we are working with neighbors so far south of us, the answer is simple. Their communities embody a beautiful and inspirational example of the values of good neighboring. Their very languages, Tzotsil, Tseltal, and others exemplify a different way of seeing and being in the natural world and their relationships to it and to each other. The language is geo-centric – not ego-centric. Saying, for instance: “The child is towards the mountain” rather than “The child is over there to the left (of me).” When greeting someone, the question is not: “How are you?”, instead, the translation from Tzotsil would be: “How are you in your heart?” And the response would be: “I am content in my heart because we are all content.” The plural permeates everything . The participatory processes of including everyone in the discussion and reaching decisions by consensus, though time consuming by US standards, assures that everyone has bought into the decision and that it serves the whole community well and will therefore likely be accomplished.
The Catholic Church, the Zapatistas, and popular movements in defense of the rights of the poor and marginalized have embraced these principles in their struggle to make that better world we all dream of and work to create. This, together with an insistence on autonomy and self determination are powerful lessons that have inspired not only this project but each individual touched by it.
We hope that you are as excited about supporting sustainable, eco-friendly construction and the promotion of self reliant communities as we are. Your support is essential to the successful completion of this project. Your donations, no matter how small, help make our work possible.
