IR/PS Alumnus Danny Paz's NGO Wins $10,000 in International Contest
San Diego nonprofit earns global kudos for school built from trash
12/05/2010
Lily Leung,
The San Diego Union-Tribune
Glass bottles that might have polluted ravines are instead embedded in window vaults as glittering adornments of a future vocational school in San Juan Comalapa — a town of 30,000 in rural Guatemala.
Used car tires that could’ve been burned for disposal are packed with dirt, layered like bricks and stand as the structure’s earthquake-proof walls.
Garbage now serves a purpose in the poor, predominantly Mayan area — the vision of leaders with San Diego-based nonprofit group Long Way Home.
Volunteers have been turning trash, mainly tires and bottles, into a school that will provide the people of San Juan Comalapa training in sustainable construction. The hope is to cut unemployment and homelessness in the community, which doesn’t have a waste management system.
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Related Links
For more about Danny Paz (MPIA '06) and Long Way Home, read UC Newsroom's article, featuring a quote by Dean Peter Cowhey.
Read more about BBC/Newsweek's World Challenge 2010.
