Date: January 09, 2020
Time: 8:00 am – 5:00 pm
During the last decade or so, over 1,700 in Nepal have died and over a million were made homeless by monsoon floods. Working with the National Red Cross Disaster Team, Nepalese-born researcher Komal Aryal and his team have been using Taiwanese bamboo technology to build flood-proof homes in a new pilot scheme in Terai region, Nepal.
Senior Disaster Researcher and Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (PCT) representative Dr Yi-Chung Liu said that under this scheme, Taiwanese volunteers, who have been building and using bamboo houses for generations post-disaster, travelled to Nepal share their knowledge with the Terai people.
Through PCT funding, the Taiwanese volunteers supplied seeds for growing straight bamboo, which are less prone to breaking during earthquakes and easier to construct houses from during an emergency situation. The volunteers also equipped them with the skills to plant, cut and build emergency houses with the bamboo in a safe manner, and taught them preservation methods to make the homes more durable. With the bamboo homes being cost-effective due to the use of natural resources and organic farming, a sustainable and self-sustaining system is set up.