Substandard Housing Evaluation Summary
Egyptian Sustainable Community Model
Grey Water UNM
Sustainable Links
ALKER Adobe Mixture & Specifications
Sustainable Consumption & Eco FootprintSteve Burrough's Earth Builder
Renewable Energy Access Newsletters
Coalition for Clean Affordable Energy
Phoenix Commotion Reducing the landfill
Passive Design, Dr. Sherif Algohary, 2006
Southwest Desert Sustainability Project, a Nonprofit New
Mexico Educational Organization developing sustainable skills training
(vocational trade skills) for at risk populations, encouraging low income
Sustainable Community Development, Self Help Housing and rehab with solar gain
retrofit and the building of Multi Family Dwellings. Programs:
Role of Organization:
Provide coordination with education, training and manufacturing of
equipment and the building of low income homes and communities;
Provide sustainable living; develop co-housing projects; provide
self-help building programs to homeless and at-risk populations History Southwest Desert Sustainability Project was established
as a 501 c 3 in 2000 as a New Mexico Educational Nonprofit Organization spending
the first startup years in research and development of affordable building
materials and equally affordable modalities in renewable energy. In 2004 the
organization was awarded a contract from Department of Energy through Rebuild
New Mexico and New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources to evaluate
substandard, energy inefficient housing, training youth to both do the
evaluations and gain insight into sustainable practices; youth were trained in
video-graphy and video editing. Students served:
Drop
out rates among the Latino population in particular are about 50% here in New
Mexico and throughout the United States. We address those youth, for whatever
reason have become disenfranchised. We address the homeless populations who
have remained monolingual, isolated and poor, absorbing some of the worst living
conditions in the United States. We address the cost of this at risk community.
We address the need in training and housing for single mothers with children,
probation services, abuse shelters and the like who need to generate a track for
income production among its served populations
Educational programs we
address are “hands-on” and integrate learning processes that can create housing
and advance the participant into a self-sufficient career. This is both formal
through High School/ Community College Curriculum and informal as self build
programs. Our programs are designed to create change makers, entrepreneurs,
mentors and team members who have the ability to change their community. In that
only a small percentage of border students pursue a college education, it
behooves the vocational educational track to create programs that cater to the
needs of the students, they’re skills and drives and most importantly, their
community. We all resolve that education must be intellectually relevant,
stimulate and address the applicable needs of the student and his/her
community.
We focus on homeless
agencies and missions to end the cycle of poverty by becoming co-independent in
self help programs as we address. We join with others from around the world
that share in these ambitions and suggest annual educational events and
“sharing” that brings these resources together. Partnering is the lifeblood of community action and
problem solving. Whether we share the burden of poverty, agricultural
pesticides, more recently food self sufficiency, industrial pollution,
substandard housing and homelessness or lack of skills training and education,
little will occur unless partnering is the cause and the effect. This means
partnering with agencies, nonprofits, commercial providers and educator/research
projects that address the process systemically or holistically.
What do students learn?
Sustainability and affordability go hand-in-hand. Sustainable economics put
people first. When economies support people, the community is equally supported.
Sustainable development economically respects the indigenous nature of the area:
its people, its resources and livability (habitat); when applied, sustainability
conspires against poverty and adjusts the population to self-sufficiency. A
sustainable skills school provides at risk populations the art and science of
living and managing resources now and the future. Using some of the most ancient
training and combining it with some of the most current, along with teachers,
mentors and scientists who share the global concern for poverty conditions and
environmental degradation, we pursue educational programs and research for some
of the unresolved issues promulgated by too much commerce, too fast, and too
long with little regard for the people and their habitat. Border education that creates revenues and economies (industry) while developing the
impetus for safe, healthy and livable communities
How are academics infused into the program’s objectives?
Þ Provide self-sufficient educational organization that pays for itself through building and manufacturing
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· Team of builders for self helps building, low-income housing projects and other work-study projects.
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· Work-study program in curriculum format for print and media reproduction and instruction
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The building of a model 50 acre sustainable community and bi-national, international border institute