Construction to Combat Climate Change

Great news : Tapas is fine now!  I had downplayed the fact that she couldn't eat in the last report.. it was actually very scary to see her deteriorate in front of one's eyes... she lost 22 kilos!  Until I found a fantastic homeopathic remedy that helped her to start eating again.  We take something like eating so completely for granted!  When that is challenged, life itself becomes a question mark!  OOOOF! I am SO glad that awfully challenging period is over!  No more tremors, balance is fine, and we are taking long walks together every single day, without fail, in the Auroville forest.  She also walks in the early morning.

And, she and I have started discussing all the minute aspects of the building all over again!  With Tapas becoming well, finishing our building becomes a possibility again!  I have already mentioned that she is the heart and soul of it.

And in other news :-

• Work on the Building Documentation and Knowledge Share started again.  It will also have two expert interviews : On Probiotics in Construction, and on Lime, Passive Cooling, and the difference between "Sustainable" and "Green".
• We made a film on our building.  Please do have a look!  27 minutes and it covers many different things that make this building special and why it is an example of construction to combat climate change.  Please click on the video title (rather than the video preview window) to make it play : https://www.linkedin.com/posts/aurovillelanguagelab_auroville-language-laboratory-sustainable-activity-6789489311386615808-wxwl
• Incidentally, my post on this in LinkedIn has received 2941 views!  It has been a wonderful opportunity to connect with people from around the world and spread the message of sustainable building. In case you haven't seen the film, please go ahead and do so, and help us get over the magic 3000 views!  Please share this link widely!
• Actually, we did that film for Climate Action Week here on GlobalGiving, and a BIG HUGE THANKS to all of you who contributed!  You know who you are, and you know we hold you in our hearts!  We collected Rs.1,73,000/- that is, 2368$ out of which $1450 were donated by 13 donors, and we got $918 in matching from GG!
• We have also applied to be part of GlobalGiving's "Climate Action Fund".  If selected, we will get $10,000 per year for 3 years.  Our fingers and toes are crossed! (Please do the same!)
• We bought more old second-hand wood and Iyyanar, the carpenter, has prepared several cupboards for spaces upstairs and downstairs.  Now we have two cupboards in the Special Needs Kids room, one in the Tomatis Waiting room for the children's books, one in the children's control room plus tables, and two for the English library books in the large room downstairs.
• We have also bought scaffolding to access our very high courtyard roof to clean it.
• Thanks to your donations and the fact that we managed to buy the old wood earlier, meant that the work on the cupboards could continue during the Second Wave of Covid lockdown. (Construction work thankfully was and is still allowed).
• Unfortunately, we didn't manage to finish the NZEB application but an amazing thing happened :
• On Linkedin, we met Tom Abbott from a UK company called Green Easy which is a sustainable construction company.  Tom not only donated to our project here on GG, but actually has started fundraising for us by opening a fundraiser linked to our page on GG.  He also proposed to do a "Breeam-in-use" assessment of our building, with the idea that we could get a Breeam Outstanding award.  He has even offered to pay the costs of Certification!  BREEAM is a very robust academic certification for sustainable buildings. 
• And just today, Tom organised a meeting with the head of Breeam, Dr. Shamir Ghumra, as well as friends of ours who are senior sustainability consultants from the UK and Germany.
  - You can find out more about Breeam here https://www.breeam.com/
  - Here is a link to Tom's post about the meeting, where you can see some of the attendees.https://www.linkedin.com/posts/twabbott_project-architecture-construction-activity-6809042961238638592-_iys
• Our friends, Andreas Von Zadow (from Germany), Clare San Martin and Fred London (from JTP, London) supported us in this meeting making very relevant comments about the special features of our building like the fact that it is built in lime, and that our cooling system (which needs finishing) is very important as a low-tech system which does NOT use water, as opposed to high-tech inventions which are high-maintenance and costly. And that our building is a very important pilot project which needs to be completed.
• Tom requested that the certification charges be waived and the Breeam team said they would consider it and get back to us!

And finally, we have some absolutely FABULOUS volunteers working on different projects, and it is so heartening to see such committed young people with such amazing skills, contributing wholeheartedly to the project.  More on their work in the next report!