Science & Home Ec. Lab – Progress

Pouring of concrete in all stripe foundations has been completed. Brick-laying of substructure bricks (hydro-form) commenced on the 6^th of October, 2010 and we have done fifty percent of the work which will be concluded by the close of business on Tuesday.

Plastering of exterior substructure walls also commenced on the 7^th of October, 2010. Backfill and blinding will follow immediately internal plastering is concluded on the substructure walls.

Trainees being shown how to lay column blocks

Training: – All trainees are faring well and committed to their training. All are looking forward to acquiring a trade’s certificate. Trainees have learnt the following- tile and column making, site setting, importance of putting up a hoarding, excavations, cutting and bending steel, importance and type of reinforcement for foundations in these kind of soils, concreting mixing and casting.

In the last few days we have been rotating the trainees as we lay the substructure walls. Since concreting is completed for the foundations, we will have the majority raising foundation walls and plastering while others will continue with tile and column block making.

Webby demonstrating to trainees how to move the tile mix

TEVETA, the national vocational training body) visited in Sept – happy with progress and trainees will go for formal assessment in November.

Tile and column block making: - A total of 2,125 columns have been made, with 600 still required. A total of 2,334 tiles have been produced and the balance is 212.

Local material gathering: - The only challenge with local material gathering is that transport is only available to us on weekends because during weekdays transporters are busy ferrying maize grain for the Food Reserve agency.

Using the Tile Mould

We hope that we can gather as much material as possible before the onset of the rains which normally happens in early November.