Site Plans

The amazing Patti Stouter just finished some beautiful site plans for The Children of Hope sustainable school. The land that is shown below is the piece of property that was purchased for the school. It is divided down the middle, almost exactly in half. On the right half, you are looking at the school campus, which will include 10 classrooms (4 are finished), a cafeteria/large group meeting area (finished-the shade canopy), a basketball/mini futbol court (cement), a playground, kitchen, larger soccer field (grass), 4 composting toilets, an office (finished- on the end of the shade canopy), and a kitchen.

On the left hand side of the picture you are looking at the agricultural area that will be used to teach the students self reliance. It will also be a means to help make the school sustainable. The structures that you see are the trade school, the guest house, and caretaker's house (domes).

We'll be trying our hand at a few different things to help make the school sustainable, including raising two different types of chickens for meat and eggs, tilapia ponds, a tree nursery, rocket stoves, alternative fuel briquettes, oyster mushrooms, and beekeeping. We'll have three fenced areas (upper left) that will serve as both garden areas and livestock corrals. We'll plant each area four months apart so that we are getting more consistent yields year round. After an area has been harvested, the animals will be rotated to that area for a few months to fertilize it.

The middle section of the agricultural area will be left open for about a year so that we can determine what will be the best use of that part of the land, based on the results from our first year of operations.

We'll be collecting and filtering the greywater from the kitchen and showers and storing it in a cistern along with the rainwater collected from each of our buildings. We'd like to get a solar well and need about 16 solar panels to meet our energy needs.

There will be a short wall dividing the school from the agricultural area and another dividing the school from the children's home (orphanage) which lies to the south, or the bottom of the picture. This is to keep the children more secure at the orphanage, as other children and people from the community will use the school. There will be a taller security wall around the outside edge of the entire property (including the orphanage not pictured here) to keep everyone safe.

Here are some more detailed illustrations of what things might look like when finished.