BENIN #000 – intro

BENIN #000 testo in italiano

My Name is Mattia Calore, I am an architecture student at the  Faculty of Architettura e Società of Politecnico di Milano.

Following there is the text I wrote a few days before leaving Italy. I hope it will help to understand the whole thing.

Here you can have a look at a short movie

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This brief text that I am going to write has several functions: to describe, analyze, explain and recall.

The drafting of this text states the beginning of a path / project that I am about to undertake.

I believe that writing this text will be very useful especially to me, to have clearer ideas on the project to realize. It could also be a source of information for those who want to continue the project or for those who undertake similar tasks, or simply for curious minds.

I am going to write my own desires and ideas as an architecture student dealing with a thesis that is different from traditional ones.

The aim is not to write a definitive plan but trace feasible and flexible guidelines that will be developed to reach the final objectives.

These guidelines are the result of studying and pondering before leaving my country, out of the context and therefore not yet affected by it. The text can be useful in the future, when I am in the complexity of the territory, in the need of reconsidering it to challenge my plans and the way to develop them.

In two weeks, on December 12, 2009, I will land at the airport of Cotonou, one of the most important cities in Benin, west- central Africa. From there I will move in the direction of Abomey Calavi to reach a residential recovery and vocational training center for girls who lived in conditions of neglect and servitude called “Claudia and Sonagon.

This center, which occupies an area of 3,200 square meters, consists of eight buildings (canteen, kitchen, school, workshops, sleeping, recreational areas, and Paillote).

Around it an informal settlement, inhabited by natives, is developing.

The center, from collected data, lies is in a sparsely populated area  and is difficult to reach (especially in the rainy season due to the precarious road system). It has a power generator that works for a few hours a day, and a  fixed wireless telephony system that is rather uncertain .

The place has been created with the aim to heal and educate girls that come from a hopeless situation. In fact, just  baby-girls and  teenagers are the main beneficiaries of this project , as they are the most likely victim of abuse and exploitation. This is prior issue in Africa, especially in poorer areas such as Benin, one of the poorest states in Africa.

The location offers them a safe and pleasant place to live. They are given the opportunity to be cared for, learn reading and writing in French, the official language , know rights and duties and learn a job. At the end of the stay the girls are taken back to the local community and driven towards an occupation, with the financial support of some microcredit.

This center has been created with the efforts of the association “QUI LE STELLE” , ONLUS  in Como, which has financed the construction. The building began in March 2007 with the collaboration of Interafrican developing solidarity association KIBARÉ. The center was inaugurated on 26 June 2008.

Since 2009,QUI LE STELLE has expanded its plans entering into a partnership agreement with the CENTRO AMBROSIANO DI SOLIDARIETA’, Onlus in Milan, which is planning, among other projects, assistance to the people who dwell around CLAUDIA AND SONAGON and that live in conditions of extreme poverty .

The two Italian associations have asked for a collaboration to the Milan Polytechnic in order to have technicians and specialists in the field of development (architects and engineers).

Here begins my journey. I am going to that site to gather as much information as possible and make a full analysis of the situation.

I’m going to develop my research using different techniques that will produce heterogeneous materials also useful for later stages.

The first step is going to be the analysis of the territory. It will consist of  focussing  the area related to the project and its surroundings; it will be articulated in :

-making a survey of the area settlement system to finish with producing plans and sections.

-localizing primary sources (water springs,vegetation etc..)

- analyzing the road network and the power system

- study of materials and construction techniques.

I will also study the territory on a broader scale, the main commercial routes and neighbouring settlements, infrastructures, flows and relative criticality.

The second analysis is going to be a sociological one. I am interested in getting to know  the inhabitants of the center and the people who live  in the settlement nearby. I want to hear stories from these people ( different sex, age and social group) to understand their lifestyle, their needs,  expectations and desires.

This material will lay the foundation for my project of participatory planning that will be developed according to the following points:

- To understand the potential of the territory and the people who live there;

- Develop a project that, by exploiting these potentialities, promotes dynamics that would make possible to achieve besides little and fundamental objectives also the following macro-objectives, such as:

- To strengthen the location as a shelter and training center, expand the facilities improving theier efficiency, for instance: working for the enhancement of the well that supplies water to the center.

- Make the center financially independent achieving survival without external financial aid, for instance : by creating small businesses that could produce profits; implementing technologies that provide basic goods for the needs of the center (water, electricity, food etc. …) with the creation of wells, systems for energy production, horchards and gardens for vegetable crop etc …
- Improve the conditions through which the  informal surrounding village interacts with the center, creating synergy between the two.

- Strengthen relations with the surrounding more distant territorial realities , implementing the development processes taking faith to the founding principles of the center.

My thesis will outline some future scenarios which may give solutions to individual problems together with an action strategy for development.