We’ve hired local artisanal craftspeople so, for example, the stones on the site are cut from local volcanic rock by master stonecutters, who are teaching others on site their craft.Įmotion. Our hope is that 250 individuals will receive certifications in these skills as part of their involvement in the construction. Workers on site are given training in fields such as masonry and carpentry, increasing their future employment opportunities and adding to Rwanda’s skilled work force. We recently released a video featuring some of the women who work on the site, who have come together to form a women’s group, a female-only space where women can support one other through on-the-job training, financial decision making and other professional and personal support.Įducation. Our 35% female construction workforce promotes gender equity in the field of construction, and we are also striving to maintain a 35% female leadership team. And we’ll be harvesting rainwater on site for use on our Campus green roofs and a constructed wetland to treat wastewater, limiting our impact on the environment.Įquity. “Hire locally, source regionally, train where you can and, most importantly, think about every design decision as an opportunity to invest in the dignity of the communities we serve.”Īdditionally, we are restoring land that was previously used for agricultural purposes, propagating more than 250,000 native plants in our Campus nursery for use on the Campus. Local fabrication is “organized around four principles,” explains project architect Theo Uwayezu. Our construction relies on eco-friendly “local fabrication” design techniques that keep our environmental footprint small. To date our Campus construction project has employed more than 500 local community members and added more than $5 million to the Rwandan economy.Įnvironment. We’re committed to investing in the communities and people surrounding our new home through job creation and local construction techniques and purchases. We call these metrics our Five Es-Economy, Environment, Equity, Education and Emotion-and each month we take a hard look at how successfully we’ve advanced them all.Įconomy. Working with our architectural firm, MASS Build, we identified five key areas of impact that we can quantify and measure throughout the lifespan of this construction project. The Fossey Fund’s entire mission is encapsulated in these four words, and when we began to design and build The Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, we knew our Campus needed to reflect this critical mission before the foundations were even laid.
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