In 2011 we took on the new challenge with the building of the village’s first kindergarten.
In which way could we speak about cooperation in this context? Through years of collaboration, we understood that we have to mean “co-operate” only as “working together”. Mentioning Hassan Fathy’s words: in Ropi every experience in the field of appropriate technology is led by the motto of “working actively with people”, not for. Passive dependence on assistance and beneficence are not welcome in site. In spring-summer 2011 a group of students from Genoa University of Architecture, took part to the design and partially to the construction of the kindergarten: in a preliminary step they produced preparative drawings and rough sketches. Once in Ethiopia, the project was elaborated directly in construction site and the paper was replaced with ground, pencils with sticks and nails. Buildings are the only marks remaining, what had been said or drawn was washed off by the rain. Shared design and assisted self-construction give to the student or to the architect coming at this latitude a behavioral warning: they can’t pretend to bring a project on paper and realize it as it is, they can’t fixate on an idea. If they thought about a round plan, most probably it will become rectangular shaped in few steps: the conditions for a project are set by reality, needs and materials.
So a deep examination of habits, relations and spaces, of traditional techniques and a reciprocal exchange with the villagers and the members of the cooperative are the inescapable prerogatives to achieve the goal of spreading appropriate technologies. We always have to start from the culture of the place.