MRHP, Tanzania, Brick-making using agricultural waste - Ashden Award winner

This video can be downloaded here: http://www.ashdenawards.org/winners/mrhp MRHP won an Ashden Award for Sustainable Energy in 2006.

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The Mwanza Rural Housing Programme (MRHP) has trained villagers in northern Tanzania to set up enterprises making high-quality bricks from local clay, fired with agricultural residues rather than wood. These enterprises have made sufficient bricks to construct over 100,000 homes with greatly improved comfort and durability, in 70 villages.

Mwanza, the second city of Tanzania, is on the southern shores of Lake Victoria. The area close to the lake is fertile, but further away the land and people are poorer and there is extensive deforestation. Here houses are usually made from mud, and need frequent repairs and rebuilding because of damage from rain and minor earth tremors. Using wood to make durable, fired bricks has exacerbated the deforestation.

MRHP has developed processes for making high-quality bricks from local clay, which are fired using readily-available agricultural residues like rice husk and cotton waste, instead of wood. Houses made from the fired bricks are durable, comfortable and clean. Homeowners are freed from the hassle of frequent rebuilding, and many use their improved housing for businesses as well. The quality of the bricks is such that they are now being used in building programmes in the city as well as in the rural areas.

MRHP has trained local people in brick-making and business management, and has provided loans through a savings-and-credit scheme to start businesses. This has enabled over 50 brick-making businesses to become established in the 70 villages where MRHP works. MRHP itself operates a large kiln which is fired using sawdust. To date about 100,000 homes have been built using bricks from MRHP businesses. MRHP also runs a programme of tree planting and reforestation in all the project villages, and has trained entrepreneurs to make and sell efficient cooking stoves.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• mwanza
• rural
• housing
• project
• MRHP
• Tanzania
• sustainable
• Brick
• making
• agricultural
• kiln
• waste
• biomass
• ashden
• awards
• energy

[tappakeggaday1]

they could also use some of the brick and make an under ground methane pit with animal waste to fire the brick with the gas and also to heat their homes and cook with it as well and save the rice hulls for the winter months for added fire to the brick pits

[AshdenAwards]

@tappakeggaday1 That's a good idea. Many of our other winners use biogas.

[acr08807]

@tappakeggaday1 That's way better than my idea, putting a gazelle and a lion on a treadmill to generate electricity.

[mocny01]

@AshdenAwards they lost forest and climate became more dry and hot,,probably water problem,,

[tappakeggaday1]

@trkiehl I agree, seems like someone would have some kind of pelleting machine they could make pellets out of the rice husk with and then use pyrolysis to make the charcoal out of it, it would compact the rice husk more and make it more dense for longer burn times.more low cost houseing like this could also help out the homelessness here in the states as well as there are still lands that can be donated to do this with ceb bricks and have a nice earthern plaster on it.

[trkiehl]

One storey houses like these don't really require fired bricks. Compressed earth bricks (CEBs) would be more appropriate.

The agricultural "waste" is better used for the production of biochar. Rice husks can be an excellent feedstock for biochar.

[wbabu]

That's very encouraging, this noble idea should be exported to neighbouring countries.Ahsante sana wananchi wa TZ.