Friday, April 2, 2010

We are planning a benefit for Domes For Haiti for the 23rd of April. Save the date in your calendar! Keep your eyes out for the details which will be announced here on the blog in a couple days.

This project is re-defining what I think of as DIY.
Usually, DIY, to me, means making stuff by hand, yourself. Although we made the first prototype by hand, we are actually farming out each part of the project to various people working in companies. It takes the individuals who are in the right position in their company or field to lend a hand in the way they can. These people, when they hear about our project they get excited to help and use their skill and expertise to make that particular puzzle piece happen. Like Catie, who is a pattern maker for a very large clothing designer who will go unnamed at the moment... she is creating a pattern for our dome covers to send to the various tensile structure manufacturers who like this project enough to donate some of their labor and materials for the job. Shout out to Catie Thank You. It's people like this that we love. People who know what it takes to get a job done properly and efficiently. Shout out to Brett, my friend who linked Catie up with this project too! Thanks Trans Corp.

We are working hard on finding as many manufacturers as possible to make the dome skins.
This has become like a contest to see how many domes we can send to Haiti. Originally I set my sights on just ten. Now I am looking at making ten and then making 30 or 40 more.
I think this is like the 100th monkey theory, or critical mass, once a certain amount of people hear about it, the more they will want to contribute, kind of like a giant ball of snow coming down the side of a mountain.

If you are a Tensile Structure Manufacturer and you like this project, you can help!
If you have any second quality fabrics lying around in your warehouse, it's time for spring cleaning. Utilize the fabric you were planning on throwing away, donate your labor to the project and bang out 10- 100 of these domes for us, your contribution could mean life or death to a person in Haiti, get a tax break and then get back to the business of making huge fancy tents for gala events. This would be amazing!!

The more I read about what transitional shelters are actually being offered and distributed in Haiti right now, the more baffled I become because I cannot find a single hurricane resistant structure being distributed to the population. I am on a google group called "sheltercluster Haiti 2010" and I have yet to see any hurricane resistant shelters being dispatched and dispersed on ground in Haiti. I see some tents being sent and a whole lot of tarps. These will blow away in an actual Hurricane. I am also seeing alot of hypothetical talk and what seems like alot of money being paid to people to theorize what ought to be done instead of actually doing it. In the meantime, there are people sitting under sheets tied to sticks, waiting for the aid to trickle in, millions of dollars have been raised for Haiti, yet where is the money?
There are what is called NFI: Non Food Items. These are packaged in kits to distribute to people. One of the boxes contains the following items:
3 Blankets, 1 Plastic Sheeting (4 x 5 m), 2 Women's Clothing 3 Plastic sleeping Mats

These are what are being distributed by the following organizaitons:
UNJLC, UNICEF, CARE, UNOCHA and UNHCR
some of them also might contain: - Tents, Tarps, Water Container, Cooking Sets, Hygeine
Kits, Mosquito Nets.

There are many other NGO's that are distributing these or they are currently in the pipeline on their way to Haiti. My point is not that these are not needed supplies, they are, however, none of these solutions address the need for Hurricane resistant shelter systems. A camping tent in a hurricane is useless for anything other than a nylon burrito wrap to wear as you fly through the air with all the other debris kind of like a human torpedo. Not even very stylish.
Our geodesic dome frames are made of steel and anchored to the earth with rebar and cement. Not only are they aerodynamic in shape, but the design of the interlocking triangles serve as a sort of screen to protect the inhabitants from most large flying debris, like a car, for example.
What's a camping tent going to protect your family from?? Why are we sending thousands of tents? They were supposed to be the emergency shelters. Where are the transitional shelters? The ones that can withstand hurricane force winds?

Here is a poster being distributed by the people who work for the various NGO's on ground who use this google group:
what the hell? How much did they spend on this poster?

And here is a proposed transitional shelter being offered by a company who is selling it for a mere $3,000 a pop, they are soliciting on the google group used by the ngo workers in Haiti. : Green Built.

I'm happy to be in a position where I can facilitate a real solution to the shelter crisis.
If what we do saves 100 lives, that is worth while. Even one life is worth it, but consider if many manufacturers got on this project how many hundreds or even thousands of people we could help???

email me today and let me know how you can contribute your specialty or goods to this project.

We are currently seeking grants as well as in kind donations. If you are a manufacturer and would like to donate your goods or services and join the growing list of awesome companies who have already contributed, please email me!!
We are a tax exempt project
info@domesforhaiti.org

2 comments:

  1. Hey...this is Catie, your patternmaker! I love the project (and im a geometry lover too). It's so exciting! I posted the blog on my facebook and I'm about to send out a mass email to my family members. Could you edit the last post and spell my name "Catie"? Lol...didnt know how else to phrase that! Anyway...super excited! Brett has the pattern and my contact info, let me know if you need any adjustments or clarifications!!!!!

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  2. Hi Catie!
    Thank you so much! Brett showed me the patterns last night and told me that I misspelled your name. Egads. I am going to contact you on email so we can bang this out, the manufacturer needs the pattern specs by monday!

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