So here are some of the projects I am working on:
Building 20 Libraries across Honiara.
One of the infrastructure projects from 2014 was building 20 libraries across Honiara the capital city. I am delivering this project for the Ministry of Education.
The library project will allow students to access books, so important to students learning and literacy rates in the country. I feel very excited at the possibility that the libraries will also be used by the communities and contribute to adult education as well. Its a NZ funded project and will bring so much to education in the Solomons.
Twenty libraries, not an easy to task to co-ordinate. Thankfully I am on the client side this time ;) , although I would love to get stuck into a project like this as the contractor as well.
The project has just started and I spend a considerable amount of time during my week working it. I spend a lot of time running around the city obtaining building permits, meetings with schools, agreement of location, pre-work on the site and contractor meetings.
Meeting the school principles and spending time in schools discussing the project has really given me an insight into the education system in the Solomons. The challenges the principles face as they try to expand with little available space, deal with class sizes of up to 60 and recover from natural disasters.
Its not easy, but I have met some really great characters throughout this project. Big smiley principles and head masters who are so grateful to be receiving the library, I nearly have to beg them to give me some constructive suggestions on how to manage safety in the school. Just like working in NZ, safety is No. 1 and working with significantly reduced safety standards and added as many as 500 students to the mix- scares the shit out of me to put in lightly. What I have learnt in Christchurch on the rebuild makes this project a welcome challenge, because I learnt enough there to feel ready to look after this one from the client side.
Very excited to hand over the first library to the school and also happy to know that the next Downer Volunteer will be taking on this project and keeping me updated on how it goes!
Working on the 2014 Flash Flood Repair projects:
Following on from the last Downer Volunteers who worked in the same role, I am working on the actual repair of flood affected schools in Honiara. The first of us (Simon) was here when the floods hit Honiara and was involved in the emergency response, the second volunteer (Keziah) did a lot of scoping out of damage of the school, and I believe Kelvin left at the point where packages of work were being awarded to contractors to complete the repair works. And now I am here (for the fun part) and the seeing the fruits of their labour, and being on site for managing the contractors on site and ensuring quality buildings.
Its a great opportunity to get to see Honiara and Guadalcanal! One of the main projects which has been a difficult one in terms of quality and has been about 30km outside of Honiara, past the Palm Olive plantations. While working out in this more remote location, I have got to see and hear first hand the main location of 'The ethnic tensions' in the early 2000's. But that's starting to get into stuff that I'm not going to write about in this blog. I will say though that it makes things very challenging for the country.
The school building we are working on has a very interesting set of challenges, the main one being a contractor who just starts to build. It was an interesting one and if you don't laugh you will cry moment when I realized they were just building, and the drawing were more valuable as fuel for the kettle fire for them. The first time I went out to see the contractors I grabbed the drawings before going to site, which was a 40km from the city ride and a 4km voyage which could break a less woman's neck from all the bumps and dives the truck took on the way to the school. I hopped out said hello to the lads and then stood back to make sense of where we were at. Like a bobble head I looked at the building and down to the drawings around 6 times before crinkling my forehead and putting them down to find out how they saw the building going! I wish I could say they knew best in this case, because I have on other sites found the builders to be very skilled and knowledge on local material and building methods, but when the bolt connecting the roof to the frame came out of its concrete casing using my finger tips. It was time to start the building again!
Not easy to get a bunch of Solomon builders to come into the light, and I am glad I had our director on site to deal with some of the cultural sensitivities that might have gone over my head. Our team have spent a lot of time on this site to get it to a place where the building wont fall down in a year, and its a resources that we cannot really afford but these are the challenges that face infrastructure in Solomon's. And you might as well work with the contractor to get it right because terminating contracts are in nobodies interest. So on we struggled.. and I spent time on site instructing the crew to rip down frames, prop up the roof, re-do the connections and cast the concrete again. Pretty much start from scratch using the materials they had already cut. I am hoping to show the finished project before we leave. It will be a great day to finish that school.
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