If you want to organize a festive earthen building event in your community, and build a functional structure while learning this ancient technology and raising funds for you and your cause, then we are happy to partner with you to make it a success. Youth Empowerment America is paid a percentage of the money that your community project raises to minimize any initial out of pocket expenses. This way, our incentive to make your project a success is equal to yours.
Read over the contents of this website first, to get inspiration and more understanding of what will be involved. This will also help you effectively communicate the vision to others when you start creating your team. Below is a summary to get you started.
YEA (Youth Empowerment America) Festive Earthen Building Event Program has been developed over the last 5 years in Atlanta, Mexico and Australia as part of a mission to gain a better understanding and working knowledge of community, neighborhoods, teamwork and sustainability.
The goals of the program and the project are:
- to strengthen a sense of community and teamwork, through bringing together people of all ages.
- to build and sculpt a functional artistic structure such as bench.
- to teach ancient sun dried earthen building techniques.
- to raise funds.
The lines between work and play are blurred by working together in a festive way, or partying together in a productive way with food, music and community line dances.
The components of the program are:
-The YEA Festive Earthen Building Event Process and support/training.
-The local community host organization.
-The project team leader or coach who is trained by YEA.
-The audience.
-The community supporters and sponsors.
The process involves a team with roles and responsibilities that take collective responsibility for making the project a success. The team is led by a team leader who is trained by YEA in community organizing and the process of organizing a festive earthen building event. The team members are made up of community volunteers that support the local host organization and it goals.
The success of the project is measured by:
-the amount of meaningful fun had by all, both the audience and the organizers.
-the final result; the completion of the functional structure.
-the local community host organization meeting it’s fund raising goals and other goals.
In it’s simplest form the program involves the team organizing three summer/warm weather events.
1.A mud brick making event at least a week before he main event
2.the main public festive building event at least a week later to build/sculpt the structure with the bricks once they are dry.
3. An unveiling event to show the finished structure once it has been plastered and decorated with the final artistic touches.
Each step can be repeated, and scaled to any size depending upon the ambition and excitement from the group.
The project is promoted by the local team, to local corporations, businesses and community members as a festive family event with food, music, community line dances, mud and clay, as well as a fund-raiser for the host organization. Corporations, businesses and community members can sponsor the event and be featured in the program and promotional material. Youth Empowerment America is paid as a percentage of the money that is raised by the team for the project to minimize any initial out of pocket expenses. Therefore, our incentive to make the project a success is equal to yours.
Most of the "work" involved in this project is in the planning and organizing and building your team. Mixing the mud into a building material is very simple like making dough and this is a very forgiving technology that can easily learned by anyone rather immediately. In order to get the right consistency you will only need to either add more water, add more sand, dig up a bit more subsoil, or add some straw. You can learn any building techniques you might need along the way and any so called mistakes can be easily corrected along the way. As the initiator of the project, you will also have to spend time with the community organizing component which includes getting your team together, choosing a location, making a plan, and hosting /organizing your first event.
Once we have created a realistic and achievable fund raising goal together you will be tasked with building and creating your team. You or the team leader will have overall responsibility for the team and the team goal, and your team members will have individual roles and responsibilities to make up your team and it's sucess.
Since one of the primary purposes of the project is to bring the community together in a unique bonding experience, using many hands together at once is valued over using equipment or tools that increase the cost and reduce the number of people involved in a task.
For more info see the heading Team Roles and Responsibilities or Unfired Earthen Building or Project Managers list