Close your eyes and imagine the place where you live and the surroundings. Imagine that everything looks very clean. You can see no litter on the streets, parks, river or beaches. You observe instead beautiful green spaces, playgrounds and herb gardens. Families are also there enjoying themselves. Hold that vision and experience the feelings it brings you. Open your eyes. Now write your vision on your eco brick.
There are villages in the northern Philippines who have done this visioning. There is no more dumping, burning or littering of plastics in the Mt. province region, where 270 schools started with the Visioning Eco Bricks project two years ago. After packing thousands of bricks they have made green space with the collaboration of students, families, teachers, principals and community leaders. The project has been acknowledged by the education authorities of the Philippines and will soon be spreading nation wide.
Balili Elementary School recently completed building a pilot park, approximately 900 eco bricks where used. The students and teachers did 80% of the work (packing and construction). Parents, community leaders and shop owners did the rest. Ecobrick designer, Russell Maier, led the construction and lay out. The park is now being planted with fruit trees, vegetables and herbs– to serve as play, rest and food resource for the school. It also serves as a model to showcase the simplest, lowest-cost, Eco Brick construction methods for other schools.
 The Visioning Eco Brick Guide was developed over two years of extensive research and application with dozens, then hundreds of schools in the Northern Philippines. It can be downloaded for free from the ecobrick.org website. It is an invaluable tool for any community or schools that would like to start making and building with Eco Bricks. The guide presents the urgent environmental problem of Plastic pollution and the power of eco bricks to raise consciousness and to get people to take action. It is packed with information for teachers to incorporate this marvelous project into their curriculum, while also laying out all the essentials, pitfalls, and techniques of constructing with these blocks. Eco bricks allow inexpensive collaborations with students, parents and staff to almost zero-cost.
I am a true believer that making eco bricks is an excellent way we to segregate plastics into a container that will keep them from littering and contaminating the environment. These time capsules that can last up to 500 years (when covered from the sun) can be indefinitely reused. I also love that this project applies the power of visualization to manifest a safe, clean, beautiful world. With our imaginations and our bricks we can build our visions!
Eager to put the project into motion in Venezuela, I contacted Russell Maier and volunteered to translate the guide to Spanish. After 4 months of work I am happy to announce the release of the Spanish guide! From now on I will be working hard to materialize my vision which is written on the eco bricks I make:
“ Sustainable communities emerging, building green spaces, growing food and connecting, all through Venezuela, Latin America and the World!â€
To download the guide in Spanish click on the image below:
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