News Blog

It has been 3 months since the first BWB volunteer, Sam Bloch, arrived in Pisco, Peru. Sam began immediately assessing the needs of the people here who were still reeling from the 8.0 earthquake that struck just off the coast. One of the first priorities was setting up an infrastructure to welcome volunteers from the Burning Man community as well as international travelers who are looking to offer their skills to support our reconstruction efforts here.

Because most of the town was decimated after the earthquake and there are no newspapers or classifieds, it was very difficult to find a suitable location to house volunteers. But by working daily in the community and making connections with the locals, Sam was able to find a house that 15 volunteers now call home. And when Hands On Disaster Response pulled out to respond to the aftermath of the cylcone in Bangladesh, BWB took over their infrastructure in order to house even more volunteers. We now have the capacity to house 50 volunteers at anytime. To date, we have welcomed over 70 volunteers from all over the world with new arrivals coming in everyday.

And the coolest part? People who have never been to Burning Man think of themselves as “Burners” here because of their volunter work with BWB. And of course, many people who had never heard of Burning Man will be attending the event this year for the first time because of the fine community they have found here.

What have we been up to?

Here’s a couple of highlights-

We are really proud of a little project we call the “Shitter Project”, which is actually a permanent, cement cornerstone that contains a shower, toilet, and kitchen area. This project addresses the gaping need for sanitation that is not being addressed by the established organizations who are supporting temporary housing projects here. We just had a meeting with the U.N. and the other Non Governmental Agencies in the area and people are really excited about this idea. Our hope is that we will be be able to teach this technology to other groups so that potentially thousands of people will have the ability to have clean water as they start to permanently rebuild their lives.

Le Biblioteca

We have also been working with a local Peruvian volunteer, Carlos, who asked us to help him build a library in a school on the outskirts of Pisco. Initially, this was a 1 day project that involved repairing the walls, painting, and then making bookshelves to house 1,000 books that had been donated.

When BWB volunteers arrived, however, they noticed that the room allocated for the library was a bit small and dark, due to a lack of electricity and asked if they could knock down a couple of walls to let in more light and allow more children to enjoy the library.

Well, it has been one week and in addition to enlarging the space, volunteers dug a trench from the street to the school so there would be light for the library as well as for the rest of the school. And they didn’t stop there. Why not paint a giant, colorful map of the world on one of the walls?

Delphine and Irene paint a flamingo on the wall.