Village12

Volunteer Internship Program

admin — Sun, 13 May 2012 17:03:13 +0000

June 12 – August 21, 2012 (10 weeks)

Hosted by:
Suncamp Hostel Accommodations, www.suncampdr.org

Munoz, Dominican Republic

About Munoz, Dominican Republic, our partner community
Munoz is a small town outside the city of Puerto Plata. The town is home to about
1800 unemployed, stateless Haitian people who are living in very poor conditions.
Community members have been working with Village12 Volunteers to work on
projects like planting an extensive garden, helping start small
businesses and building toilets.

In this internship program, you will receive a:

2-week Village12 Volunteer Training Course (Download the training course)

- Learn about dozens of innovative self-sufficiency projects and how Village12 works
- Perform a complete assessment on a community using the Village12 model
- Learn Spanish (proficiency preferred, although language classes are available)
- Develop a long-term project in the community (prior projects include medical triage, rainwater catchment, etc)

8-week Volunteer Work Opportunity Expectations

- Contribute at least half a day of work on the garden at Suncamp
- Work to develop your project or help develop small businesses and other projects in the community.
- Attend and participate in all volunteer meetings

Cost

First two weeks $150 for room, after Volunteers receive certification,
accommodations are free.
Community kitchen and meal plan available.

Gump, a volunteer from Philidelphia, is teaching a group of kids yoga.

Out of a Hole and Getting into Water

admin — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:42:24 +0000

Watch the video on Youtube

Download the water filter business plan here.

Donate to the Village12 Water Business plan

Learn more about Filterpure filters at www.filterpurefilters.org.

Download the various reports from DIGENOR and Instituiciones pecurarias Dominicanas (SA), two DR government water testing outfits, from the documents listed below.

Theses from Emory, Lehigh and University of Virginia.

Septic tank and Healthcare plan

admin — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 22:44:14 +0000

In one week, 17 donors raised $1410 (55000 DR Pesos, an additional 10000 Pesos), the required amount needed to build the septic tank! Go here to see the budget and the t-shirt (front | back) we made to raise money for the septic tank.

Septic tank

Site map

The next project in line is to build enough toilets for everyone in the batey. Each 6-toilet shelter (design below) will cost $1400 and we need at least 5 toilet shelters.

: 6-toilet shelter

Here is a map of the middle batey. Listed at the top right of the picture are the additional projects we will do after we get the toilets in shape.

Middle Batey, Munoz Healthcare site map

Help us get out of a hole

admin — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 21:24:08 +0000

If you donate at least $25 below, we will send you a t-shirt as a token of our appreciation.

T-shirt front

T-shirt back

Girly t-shirt

Buy a T-shirt

Note: After you make a donation, please send an email to brian.newhouse@village12.org with your requested size and mailing address. Thank you!

The Story

After two weeks of digging, our construction team has dug a massive pit (11′ x 11′ x 11′) to build a septic tank.

In A Hole

Except now we don’t have enough funds to actually build the septic tank. The team will need $1271 to buy materials and pay a team of 9 workers to build the tank. We estimate it will take 1 month to complete. All workers will receive proper training and safety equipment in the process of aquiring these skills. Listed below is a site map, tank design plans and a budget.

Garden Site Map

Septic tank design plan

Septic tank budget

Week of 13 February Report

admin — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 14:26:10 +0000

This week, volunteers spread two truckloads of gravel, triaged over 100 people to learn about local people’s medical needs, planted another 100 sq feet of land and dug about half of an 11′ x 11′ x 11′ hole for the septic tank.

Download the Village12 Budget

(as of 18 February 2012)

Donate at least $50 to receive a 1st edition Village12 T-shirt!

Septic Tank and 6 Toilets

admin — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:52:12 +0000

Total estimated cost of project – $7,511

Funds needed to complete the project – $5,076

Download budget

Duration of project – estimated 12 weeks (already 4 weeks into the project)

3-6 Month Plan

admin — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 13:56:01 +0000

Here is a brief explanation of a 3-6 month plan. If you would like to make a donation to this plan, go to www.fundly.com/village12.

Additional information

Watch the first video

Download the Detailed budget (.xls)

Download the Agro-sanitation-healthcare project presentation (.ppt)

Toilet trials

admin — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 21:01:27 +0000

We need to build 75 toilets using local materials, and maximize the number of toilets per square foot. We first tried a square design with a diagonal piece for bracing.

Box design with a diagonal brace

Then that fell down.

small teepee

That was a little cramped inside…

a bit small

So then we jacked it up about 16 feet in the air and attached the top pieces together with a bolt.

bigger pyramid design

Now the structure seems to hold well, but there still isn’t enough space to fit in enough toilets. Now, we are back to square 1 and are leaning more on copying a design created by SOIL, a composting toilet/system in Haiti. Read more about them at www. oursoil.org. More on the toilet once we build our prototype… !!!

Bernard's design

This last design is actually the structure of a earthquake resistant house designed by Architect Bernard Fredette. Go here to see the design plans online.

Weekly Expenses, Jan 16 – Feb 3, 2012

admin — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:39:27 +0000

Community Clean-up in Muñoz batey

admin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:47:19 +0000

Here is a video from the last week of work. These guys cleared out about 40m3 of trash.

photo credit Mike Huddleston