El Salvador is a small country with just 6.5 million people but about 2 million of them live in shacks with dirt floors. 1.6 million people have no indoor plumbing or access to clean water, and electricity may be a luxury as well. As tourism grows and the country becomes more developed, the locals are being displaced from homes they have lived in for generations for road expansions and hotel developments.

Our goal is to improve the quality of life for these people in whatever ways we can! The primary projects we are working on are educational workshops, installing rainwater collection and water filtration systems, and using green building methods to create affordable homes.

Green building in El Salvador is the way to go for EVERYONE! It is such a smarter way to build when you factor in that it will be earthquake and flood-resistant, have a naturally temperate interior, and is using a lot of materials that are readily available and can actually help us address the pollution problem at the same time.

Most of the building materials we need are free! Tires, plastic bottles, glass bottles, and cob will be free resources to use for most of the build. Things we will need to pay for include:

Delivery truck for tire collection and drop off at the property.
Truckloads of gravel, possibly dirt to pack the tires, and river sand for the cob.
Electrical components for wiring the house.
Water tanks and gutters for rainwater collection system.
Septic system and plumbing set up for kitchen and bathroom.
Toilet, sink faucets, shower head, kitchen faucet, etc.
Plastic sheeting to go under the flooring and foundation.
Plywood for framing and bamboo for columns and beams.
Windows if we can't find recycled options.
Roofing material
Cement and rebar for bond beam and possibly other small elements.
Tarps to protect the work area as it is in progress.
Chicken wire for the eco brick walls.
Polypropolene bags for the earthbag bedroom.
And we expect some unknown costs to pop up too!

For this first build, we will have to buy a few basic tools that we don't already have. Then, the more labor we can afford, the quicker the build will go.

Labor in El Salvador doesn't cost a lot... that is part of the poverty issue. One month of minimum wage is $370 for a six-day workweek. Most laborers make $240/month! We are hopeful the more people we can hire, the more people we can help out of poverty in a different way as well.

Overall we are estimating that the house itself will require $5,000 in material costs and that will cover some of the labor for specific jobs like the septic system and electric as well.

To cover the cost of four laborers working on this full-time for the next two months, it would be $3200. All in all, this home should cost less than $8,500 to build! Fingers crossed 😁

Now, in terms of building a house, that is a super affordable home!

$$ MONEY UPDATE (5/3/24): The roof cost an additional $3,000 we were not planning on so we have increased the fundraising goal to 10k. Future homes will be dome homes so we don't have this roofing expense in the future. We were planning on building the roof out of bamboo harvested from our farm but the curing process didn't work and we were worried about the long-term future of the house if we used untreated bamboo.

But that is a lot of money when we consider the number of people that need our help. There are two million people in El Salvador who live in homes that are essentially shacks with dirt floors, no plumbing, and a leaky roof. This is a country with occasional earthquakes and a severe rainy season that causes flooding and intense lightning storms. We need to help these people have safer and more comfortable living situations!

We are hoping that in this process we will be able to spread the word and teach people how to build this way for themselves. If families and communities come together to do this, the labor costs would diminish. We could also build dry composting latrines that would help us eliminate some plumbing costs and the septic system. This means we may be able to come up with a design that would cost about $3,500 per home.

Our fundraising goal for this first concept home is $10,000. Any excess we can raise will be used to hire additional workers or will be used towards the next project. When we complete this home we will be able to compile a full materials list with costs and how-to videos so anyone could replicate this process. This will be posted online in Spanish and English to help spread the word and allow people to learn how to do this themselves.

We all know it is hard to thrive when you don't feel safe and secure at home. This is the first of many homes and will allow us to fine-tune and perfect the process so we can move forward with clarity and help hundreds of families in the future. We are so excited to get this project off the ground! Please donate if you can and share it with your friends. Sharing is caring! Every dollar truly does make a difference.

Help us build homes for the poor in El Salvador!

The Poverty & Pollution Solution

Team Members