Earth Pod

Housing crisis is a global issue today, especially, in developing countries where only a few have access to descent accommodation, energy and clean water. In crisis time the phenomenon becomes even more crucial, especially in refugee camps, where life is very precarious and many dreams destroyed. These factors are responsible for slowing down economy, limiting access to education and fostering promiscuity and epidemics.

Our goal is to alleviate the problem by getting communities involve in providing affordable and sustainable dwellings for themselves, using local building materials and ancestral techniques added to new construction technologies and green energies that can be mastered and further developed within the community.

The solution aims at training poor communities around the globe into reviving ancestral skills while learning new technologies, thus encouraging creativity and entrepreneurship. The creation of new opportunities will galvanise the local economy and moreover, prepare and inspire future generations. 

Minawoa is a town in the Far North region of Cameroon. Since 2012 it has been a refugee camp for victims of Boko Haram movement, and according UNHCR, in 2019 the camp received about 7,522 refugees, by December 31st 2019, the population was over 61,897 mostly from Nigeria. The community is made out of 62% of teenagers, where 54% are females. 

Each month the camps continues to receive about 627 people. it is subdivided into 82 blocs. In average 4 people live in a tent, hygiene rules are almost inexistant in such promiscuous conditions, thus allowing the outbreak of epidemics like Cholera and dysentery; and with the current world crisis of COVID-19 such a population has almost no chance to survive in case of infection. Besides, sanitation, food, and water supply; access to good education is also an ordeal in the community, a report from the UNHCR, reveals that only 5% of the youth have access to secondary school and less than 0.2% to university. Unemployment and juvenile delinquency is at a high rate, most of the youngsters are given up to prostitution, begging and thievery. If nothing is done urgently, this may result in an economic and sanitary disaster.        

Our solution is inspired from a traditional clay jar "Canary" used in that region as a natural refrigerator to keep fresh, water and other substances. The jar is made out of terracotta; the spherical shape and the materiality bestow it a high thermal performance. 

The Earth–Pod is an affordable off-grid house, naturally ventilated and insulated, capable of collecting and storing its own energy and water supply. The inside measure exactly 12.57 sq.m. and can accommodate up to 4 adults within such a limited amount of space. The construction of a pod necessitate an area of only 30 sq.m. and pods can be arrayed in any shape to form a cluster, which can be a subdivision within the community. An arrangement like this has the advantage of increasing productivity in terms of energy and water storage and also reinforce social bound between people while observing social distancing measures.

The technology used is well-known to the people. Inspired from their ancestral craft it aims at promoting local labor and construction techniques. However, to make it more efficient solar panels and small electrical pumps are the innovations that will inspired the community and empowered them with necessary skills to develop a local economy.

The Earth–Pod is designed to serve disadvantage community around the globe. It could be displaced populations due to natural calamities or war, it may also be poor communities in parts of the world. 

Getting in touch with people coming from those areas of society, gives you the sense of being highly favoured by life. What is painful, is the fact that they live as if life was all about satisfying basics needs like animals, they have no ambition, dream and hope for the future, it is all about surviving for the next meal. We believe receiving their dignity and humanity back is a very challenging process, whereby good living conductions is a first step, and having them engaged in the process will definitely stimulate entrepreneurship in them and the desire be productive to elevate their standard on living. 

This off-grid house is purposed to be an emergency shelter to meet the basic needs for of refugees so as to ensure some dignity and security. Since, Earth–Pods are built and maintained by refugees, they thus present entrepreneurial opportunities that will ultimately transform a stagnant community into a place of opportunity and growth; which may even lead to a permanent settlement. 

Our solution take into account the fact that displaced people have had to some extend previous skills or an education. These assets pitched together then upgraded may benefit them first if properly canalised. The aim is to have them engaged into improving their own conditions while reducing their dependency from humanitarian helps, which to some degrees are very deleterious to their self-determination. A human being, we believe must always be capable to recover his dignity and autonomy no matter what happen. Therefore, a beneficial humanitarian help should aim at facilitating disadvantage people into recovering an acceptable social standard of living. 

Many of the emergency shelters currently used have a life span of as little as six months before the impact of sun, rain and wind and then they must be replaced. However, refugees usually stay in camps for several years in precarious situations.

IKEA, has recently develop a prototype of shelter "Flatpack"; a rectangular foldable tent of 17.5 square meters, of a maximum capacity of 5 people. The Flatpack is made out reusable materials; lightweight steel and fabric, powered by solar panels. 

Although the solution is very revolutionary, the flatpack cost round $1000, which is unaffordable for the targeted people. Beside, their implication in the design process is quite insignificant and the probability for them to benefit from such technology to develop a local economy is very uncertain, because of the manufacturing process.

Our solution in contrast, in more to be cheaper around $800 and takes into account the refugees  i.e. their background knowledge. Their contributions are considered from inception to completion and the technology is utterly put at their disposal for further development. The aim is to trigger a local economy around the construction industry and associated technologies, so as to generate revenue and entrepreneurial opportunities. The innovation we putting forth in more to be technological, encompasses dignity and autonomy. we are envisioning an autonomous refugee camp, with people running their own businesses and employing people from within and without. It is about giving them hope for a better future and stop feeling themselves as parasite of the society.     

Although the solution involves solar panels as key element, the core technology here is the water–harvest system. Because, water is life and in refugee camps in general the difficulties people meet with is clean water supply. In our solution we integrated a canopy on top of shelters to collect rainwater and store in the basement of each individual house, and as soon as the individual reservoir is full the excess flows out to the a public cistern located at centre of the cluster. The water stored there will later serve the collectivity especially during the dry season. The aim is to allow a permanent access to potable water.

Each house is endowed of a small electrical pump, powered by solar panels. The pump allows the flowing of water through the piping system. This is the added value our solution puts forwards. For the manufacturing of the pumps and their maintenance will generate a new sector of economy in a long run. Indeed, we intend to open onsite factories and training centres to teach young people how to manufacture and maintain those electrical apparatus. The aim is to make ubiquitous the technology so as to facilitate the integration of those people in society. This would just be a branch of what type of businesses can be developed inside the camp. Beside construction, many other sorts of activities formal or informal will burgeon around thanks to this technology, and encourage creativity and a spirit of self-determination amongst the refugees in the camp.    

Our solution actually couples two technologies; rainwater–harvest (RWH) and solar energy. Individually considered each of these are widely known, and one of the most striking example is Za’atari and Azraq refugee camps in the Jordanian desert, UNHCR recently established two solar plants, providing some 120,000 refugees with clean energy free of charge. The effects have been life-changing, people learn, eat, feel safe, communicate, work, in their day-to-day life, it has provided opportunities to study or start a small business. The impact of electricity on the lives of Syrian refugees demonstrates how solar innovations can be used in other refugee camps around the world. 

Concerning RWH, 22 experts have recently carried a research for its implementation in Jordanian's refugees camps to deal with the water scarcity. The study investigated both engineering and socioeconomic aspects based on hydro–climatic and socioeconomic data, after a comparison with other water supply systems in terms of quantity, quality and cost, RWH appears to be the most sustainable. Therefore, RWH is technically and economically feasible and can be efficient to alleviate water scarcity and improve the level of sanitation.

Refugees people are often represented as helpless and destitute individuals, but this statement is far from the truth, for these are people, like you and I, whose lives have been disrupted in a dramatic way by circumstances out of their control. Despite the changed lifestyle and daily challenges, refugees all around the world are some of the most innovative, resilient and optimistic humans you can ever imagine.

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A Chinese proverb says: "Give a poor man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and you give him an occupation that will feed him for a lifetime." Although, displaced people are in urgent need of food, water and clothing, in a long-run these become ineffective. However, most of the time people are only concern about feeding or sheltering them for a day, this is why we have NGO around the globe raising fund to solve same issues in places for years without any remarkable improvement, because people receiving those humanitarian helps are not being helped by these. Indeed, it does more harm than good, since it dehumanises and reduce them to beasts. 

When the Boko Haram movement just started in early 2014, the Cameroon Government launched a national relief campaign for the victims, people were so eager to contribute in food, money, clothing, etc. And the national media reported on the success of the initiative. Nevertheless, this was deceptive, for the helps did not aim at giving a certain autonomy, and before the year was out, the campaign ceased; although, the refugees' number kept increasing, and it is now ten times more than what it was. Nowadays, their conditions have deteriorated and become more deplorable. The refugees are abandoned to their fate, and the entire region of MINAWAO, according to a recent report of UNHCR is declared a state of severe famine and epidemics.  

A good help should have a long lasting effect, and the people being help should be involved in the process, their contributions are crucial and determine the impact the overall process. We believe that, the most effective way to help refugees and displaced people is by letting them know that their are part of the solution, and stop victimise themselves, for what has happened to them can happen to any of us. They should be able to help us back if ever the wind changes direction, that is why we would have them get started new life and be ambitious and considered their situations as an opportunity to improve.

For now the solution aims at improving the life of displaced population in the camp of Minawoa, a town in the Far North region of Cameroon. The actual population in the camp by December 31st 2019, is estimated to over 61,897. Initially 2,000 Earth–Pods to fit 8,000 people are to be built, these will serve as archetypes to provide housing for the rest of refugees, which are to receive helps and necessary training to build their own individual shelters and later put their skill at contribution to build public facilities. According to our estimation if resources are available, within a year of intense labor over 10,000 Earth–Pods for 40,000 people can be implemented. 

From then on, we expect the solution to be improved by local and foreign technological achievements, then exported to other refugees camp around the continent. Depending on regions, this may imply a mass production and advanced manufacturing processes and synthetic materials having the same performance of initial ones. The aim is to locally pre-fabricate the pods to rapidly meet with the demand.

Over a period of 5 years the solution must have been diversified and reconfigured to a point of serving millions of people across the globe and inspire mass housing and urban settlement. We expect our solution to initiate a new generation of permanent settlement, which even after some of the refugees would have left they will continue serve some other purpose and people, or even become part of the urban fabric in developed country especially.

Our implication in this project was sparked by the refugees' conditions in Minawoa, therefore, our aim within the next year is to provide a durable shelter for all people living there. Indeed, we intend to stimulate innovation in them so as to see emerging a new generation of entrepreneur amongst them, although, this may not be done within a year we at least expecting to see an interest for learning this solution, and the number of voluntary workers we will have by then will give us a good appreciation of the impact of our action. Initially, apparatus for solar energy and electrical pumps will be exported, but we intend to have them coming from abroad only for the first 2,000 Earth–Pods, then later on at some point during the year we expect to open schools, workshops and factories to start a local production that will supply the rest of constructions for the camp.

Within five years time, we are expecting to see many refugees camp gain their autonomy, and even become permanent settlements or part of the existing urban fabric. Thus allowing the improvement of our solution and its adaptation into other types of facilitates, in public and private sector. We would like to see many underdeveloped regions in Africa become economically independent thanks to our solution that relies on green energy and local construction materials to promote our history, art and culture; besides allowing a possibility to be improved for mass production and better performance within the building industry.

For the moment, the obstacles we are facing are financial, technical and sanitary.

Indeed, it will necessitate over $1.8 million to build the initial 2,000 Earth–Pods; this is just a rough estimation and does not take into account transportation fee and equipments. 

Besides, the means of access to the site are very limited, the roads are impractical during rainy seasons and this might delay the process if not properly manage. 

Health issues also constitute a constant threat, especially for foreign specialists, who will have to settle there for short or long period of time for training purposes. Epidemics like Cholera, dysentery are rife in the region and many have died, and the current world pandemics of COVID-19 is not making things easier, since hygiene conditions in the region are very favourable to the spread of the disease.

If those aforementioned obstacles are not addressed immediately, within the next five years, our project would have turn into a disaster, with many people resigning or simply losing their lives due to health issues, traffic incidents or depression. We might even find ourselves in lawsuit with huge debts and unpaid salaries. 

The first obstacle to overcome is finance, our goal is to launch national and International fund raising campaigns, look for sponsors and prizes. We intend to launch a massive campaign on social media and use crowdfunding platforms like gofundme, while looking for potential partners like UNHCR to back up our actions.

For road traffic in the region, we will manage to have all the materials delivered on site before the routes become impractical, as we wait for the gouvernent to encourage our initiative by fixing these roads so as to make them practicable all through the year. 

For sanitation issues, we intend to sanitise the all region. Our primary support will come from the ministry of public health, in addition we are looking support from the Cameroon red Cross and Doctors Without Borders, to open hospitals and pharmacies.

For the moment, our team is made out of 3 permanent staff:

1. Mr. Florian Mouafo Zambou , Architect and Programmer, Founder

2. Dr. Larissa Nawo, Energy economist,  Co- Founder

3. Mr. Fabrice Wamba Fofe, Civil Engineer

 Florian Mouafo,  the founder is a young architect and programmer, graduated from the Montfort University in Leicester, UK. Florian, have had 5 years of work experience in the field of architecture, where he has contributed to deliver durable accommodations to disadvantage people in Cameroon with very limited resources; He has conducted many investigations with local building materials and the benefit thereof, in terms of sustainability and affordability and now he intend to extend his action at a national and international scale.

Larissa Nawo, the co-founder is a renewable energy economist with 5 years  of work experience. She is a visiting fellow at Cornell University, working on impact of violent conflicts on child health in  Far North region of Cameroon;  a major place of displaced populations like  Minewao camp.  These last years she have extensively traveled around Africa, which making her well aware of unemployment challenges, access to clean energy,  sustainable housing especially in refugees camps. Currently she is lecturer in Public Economy at University of Dschang Cameroon,  where she  earned a PhD in Economics in 2018.

 Fabrice Wamba Fofe  is a civil engineer graduated from China in 2015. After 5 years experiences working with companies like Chinese construction Shanxi group and ZTE company in several projects,  he have accumulated many skills. Thus, our  team  is well-positioned to deliver the Earth Pod solution. Despite,  the vast challenges  we are confronted  to in Africa, we will turn in the advantage of our eco-system in order to reduce expenses and provide adequate constructions.

Currently  we do not have any organization partner. However, we hope that been selected for this challenge with help us to be introduce to core organizations especially in the sector of  solar and wind energy and potential investors. 

From the moment of arrival, refugees compete with the local citizens for scarce resources such as land, water, housing, food and medical services. Over time, their presence leads to more substantial demands on natural resources, education and health facilities, energy, transportation, social services, accommodation and employment. Our business model is inspired form circular business models which provides adequate off-grid housing using solar energy and integrating refugees young, men and women in the subtainable house building process. Our solution will help to improve the learning by doing skills of young men and adults living in refuges’ camps both for the modern building techniques based on earth bricks and training on solar energy installation and maintenance and even trainings in  new technologies. The picture below present an overview of your social business model canvas.

We are exploring a range of resources which will help us to collect money to fund our work. The combination of strategies , that we are considering include:

- Crowdfunding's  from national and international levels

- Multi-Development Banks grants 

-Donations 

-Government Grants  and NGO grants

-Raising investment capital from Sovereign  wealth funds and others institutional investors and private global financial sector

Currently the main obstacles we are facing are financial, technical and sanitary. While sanitary challenge is essential related to the current COVID global pandemic which holds a number of uncertainties, however we believe that Solve can help us to overcome technical and financial barriers among. 

Regarding technical assistance

- Improvement of the business model

-Marketing and communications

- Enable a partnership solutions technology in are of solar, water and wind energy 

- Introduction financial intuition interested in social causes

• Mentorship and advise product development and strategic planning
• Assisting on level up our  circular business social model
• Support marketing and communications that clearly distribute data
• Build connections to investors and donators to increase the fundraising strategy.

• Moreover Solve can help us to partner with other Solve Team with activities close to "Earth Pod" like "Elpis Solar" lead by Samuel Kellerhals and which  provide Off-Grid Solar Solutions for Refugees.
• MIT faculties members expert in  clean energy, subtainable constructions
•  Expect in communication and social marketing
• Set up partnership with Multi-Development banks

Earth Pod  is a solution  which aim to address on the core challenge that refugges have to face when they arrived: accommodation. We propose a solutions which  integrate the previous knowledges of refugees.

Women are  essential part of the Earth Pod solutions. We will training young women specially on the installation and maintenance of solar panels  systems.

Earth pod is a circular economy solution.

We will training young people living in refugees camps on building construction using modern ancestral techniques associate with mew technologies energies like solar panels.  The aim is to  improve the skills of refugees  so they can generate more better jobs and small business for themselves in that sector. 

Earth Pod  is dedicated also to peri-urban and rural population which represent a high potential market to  with many development issues to address in order to generate more subtainable communities.