Building resilience with communities of Guerrero

After attending the emergency during the first three years, we continue with the next phase of the Comprehensive Habitat Reconstruction Project in which we focus on two key factors.

In the first place, through territorial analysis we seek to strengthen the organization, mutual help and self-management between different actors and between different communities such as La Cienega, Ojo de Agua and Xochistlahuaca. Second, we continue working on risk reduction and management through safe construction with the reinforced adobe system. This has generated our impact on public policies with the Ministry of Agrarian, Territorial and Urban Development, the instance of the Mexican State responsible for planning, coordinating, administering, generating and executing public policies to ensure adequate housing and rural development, among others purposes. 

Environmental Classroom at the Intercultural University of the State of Guerrero (UIEG)

Through an agreement with the Intercultural University of the State of Guerrero (UIEG for its acronym in spanish) we established a strategic alliance to build with students and academics the Environmental Classroom with the reinforced adobe system, which is ready to be completed.

Likewise, we continue with a training process based on workshops by construction stage with the students. Among these we can mention the pajarcilla workshop, which is a natural insulation made of clay and straw; the participatory design workshop for dry baths and the natural clay roof tile installation workshop. This has brought the strengthening and recovery of traditional knowledge among young people of the university that their commitment will be to bring this knowledge to more than 18 municipalities and 22 communities where they are from.

On the other hand, in 2013, in the community of El Obispo, we started a series of training workshops in constructive capacities to train community promoters. As a result of this process, the promoters who were trained participated in all the constructions we have carried out in different communities in the region for seven years, including the Environmental Classroom.

Center for Indigenous Education in Ojo de Agua community (Malinaltepec, Guerrero)

As a result of the efforts of teachers to achieve an adequate physical and social development space for learning, and through collaborative work at all stages of the Social Production of Habitat we inaugurate the Center for Indigenous Education (CEPI by acronym in spanish), in Ojo de Agua community.

Prior to the inauguration we conducted a workshop with teachers to evaluate the construction process and thus be able to make a wider diagnosis for future stages aimed at resilience, as well as, improve subsequent construction processes.

A new kitchen-dining room for The house of the amuzgos children in Xochistlahuaca

This year we started working in the Municipality of Xochistlahuaca after parents of the W'aa Yocanchu Ncue bilingual intercultural elementary school (The house of the amuzgos children in ñomndaa), contacted us to begin a constructive process in the dining room- Kitchen for the students.

We begin with workshops-diagnosis of participatory design with children; with mothers, who take care of the kitchen; parents, who take care of the productive areas; and teachers who manage the elementary school, in order to define the conformation of the spaces.

Nowadays, the kitchen-dining room is made of metal sheet and wood, and in participation with the community, it was proposed to build a space with the reinforced adobe system that responds to local climatic needs, likewise, it will contain the elements, on the one hand, to prepare and serve food for students, and on the other, to function as a meeting space.

Documentary about the reconstruction in Guerrero

Within the strategic line to sensitize communities, public institutions and other actors interested in the importance of Social Production of Habitat, we presented the short documentary Voices of inhabiting the reconstruction of Guerrero Mountain in the University bonding week of the UIEG.

This week, we will also present at the Center for Architectural and Urban Culture (CCAU, for its initials in Spanish) in the city of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.

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In the last trimester, Cooperación Comunitaria (CC) started the following phase of the Comprehensive Reconstruction of Habitat project, which aims to strengthen the political advocacy and to diminish vulnerability to disasters on indigenous communities of the Mountain region of Guerrero. Our first approach (2013 - 2017) consisted in attending the emergency after the hurricanes Ingrid and Manuel, in 2013. Then, the last two years have consisted mainly in the risk prevention and management with the communities of La Ciénega, Moyotepec, and Ojo de Agua, located in the municipality of Malinaltepec. 

Construction of the Environmental Classroom in the Intercultural University

The Intercultural University of the State of Guerrero (UIEG, in the Spanish abbreviation), located in La Ciénega, is the meeting spot of the actors participating in the Environmental Classroom project: teachers, students and Cooperación Comunitaria (CC), whose activities started in the last months of 2018 with a series of workshops about secure settlements and risk self-management in the region; as well as practical sessions of earth construction and elaboration of adobe bricks.

In September and October we met with all the participants to define processes, responsibilities and a calendar of training workshops. The group that will participate in the proposed activities is formed by 24 students of the career in Community Development, who come from 11 of the 19 municipalities in the region.

Then, in November we started the construction of the Environmental Classroom with the reinforced system of adobe, and developed a workshop to sensitize about the importance of using local materials for construction as a cultural right. During this activity, we presented the documentary, produced by CC, called Voces del habitar en la reconstrucción de la Montaña de Guerrero (“Voices of inhabiting the reconstruction of the Mountain region of Guerrero”, translated to English) in order to think about the current situation in the region regarding the constructive processes. The video was chosen to be presented in January during the Engagement Week of the UIEG, that is addressed to the university community, and also people from other communities in the zone.

Restoration of housing in Moyotepec

This trimester we began a process of restoration and reinforcement of three adobe  houses in Moyotepec, that are historic benchmark to the community’s population. This housing have particular characteristics in their constructive system, for example, that all of them have round columns of adobe.

The purpose of this process is to sensitize the inhabitants to revaluate the adobe as a material for construction, through formative workshops and colaboratory work to improve their housing. Also, this contributes to counter the accelerated loss of traditional constructive knowledge. 

As a multidisciplinary team, we orientate learning collaborative actions/activities with the whole project’s participants. In addition, we build alliances that consolidate our action and transfer responsibilities for women and men.

The first activities consist in meetings about how the collaboration between CC and the participants of the process will be carried out. Besides, we gathered architectural data to analyze the structural system and develop a proposal for technical intervention.

Center for Indigenous Education in Ojo de Agua

At the Center for Indigenous Education in the community of Ojo de Agua we did a series of samples for an earth mural that will be developed on the walls of the Center. It is inspired by an ancient codex called “Códice Azoyú”, a pictographic testimony made during the second half of the 16th century that tells a part of the history of the region, very important for the culture of the indigenous group called mè’phàà.

This project is proposed by Mariana Castillo, a mexican plastic artist, in the context of the right to adequate housing as a cultural right. Through her artwork, significant parts of the codex will be chosen and placed as a way to recover a piece of the story in the Mountain of Guerrero, where it originally belongs.

Besides, in this period we concluded the construction of the composting toilet for the Center.

Presentation of documentary about the reconstruction in Guerrero

On October 30, 2019, we presented the documentary Voces del habitar en la reconstrucción de la Montaña de Guerrero in a cultural center in Mexico City, with the presence of Architect Enrique Ortiz and Magdalena Ferniza of the Habitat International Coalition - Latin America and Isadora Hastings, general coordinator of CC.

The video includes the testimonies gathered during six years of work, about different constructive experiences in the region: the ones built driven by the government through real estate companies; compared to spontaneous self-construction of the inhabitants; and the ones produced by the people with the reinforced system of adobe proposed and advised by CC.

This material responds to a strategy of generating audiovisual content to strengthen the processes that we are developing in the region, and to sensitize the communities, public institutions and other people interested, about the importance of building well, the right to adequate housing, vulnerability reduction, and the relevance of the social production and management of habitat.

The documentary was of great interest for the director and secretary of the National Housing Comission of Mexico, who shared it from their communication channels to have wider reach.