Sustainable Rebuilding Earthquake Response Trip!

Erin Voss Start Date: Oct 19, 2016 - End Date: Jan 1, 2017
  • Cultural Exchange
  • Educational/Research Trip
  • Volunteer Trip
  • Bahia de Caraquez, Manabí Province, Ecuador

My Travel Story

by: Erin Voss Start Date: Oct 19, 2016 - End Date: Jan 1, 2017
  • Cultural Exchange
  • Educational/Research Trip
  • Volunteer Trip
In April 2016, a 7.8 earthquake ravaged the coastal town of Bahía de Caraquez, Ecuador. This January I will be will be traveling there for just over a week with 15 other students from Cal on an earthquake response team where we will be helping the local community rebuild seismically-sound residential and commercial structures using bamboo. We will be participating in the entire process, from bamboo harvesting and treatment to the actual assembly of the buildings. Since I am studying sustainable design, this is the perfect opportunity to gain hands on experience with this sustainable construction material and learn about its application in disaster relief projects.

This will be my first time volunteering with a sustainability focused disaster-response project. I’m very excited for the physical labour aspect because I want to learn first hand about bamboo construction. In the future, I know I want to work in the field, hopefully internationally, on adaption and mitigation techniques in response to issues like climate change. This experience gives me the chance to learn practical building skills with a sustainable medium, practice communication with locals, and truly see where my passions lie. I want to eventually combine my love of landscape design with environmental conservation, but also incorporate aspects of community.

To some, this is a solution to construction and development that addresses the biophysical realities of resource limitation and seismically-sound shelters for impoverished communities. To me, this is an art form, structurally stable, yet aesthetically unique and malleable, a way to bring the rhetoric of sustainability and the process of design together. I want to go and be inspired, learn a new building technique, and create connections with the community members.

The trip is quite costly, so I am humbly asking for your donation to help fund my trip to Ecuador. Part of the trip cost goes towards funding the new company Bahía Beach Construction, which was just started by a coalition of Ecuadorian architects, carpenters, and community leaders in order to establish a bamboo-processing center, hold training programs, and employ locals.
  • Bahia de Caraquez, Manabí Province, Ecuador

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