Situated in the tiny tribal village of Bakhel in northwest India, the school has been built on a rocky outcrop of wasteland in the village. It currently has 140 children coming every day, 10 teachers, two cooks, a cleaner, a construction manager and our wonderful co-ordinators, Deepak and Gopal. When construction is underway, we then have a workforce of a further 10 – 30 people or so, depending on the load, which we rotate so that work is shared evenly between the families.

The initial build cost was less than £5,000, which paid for 4 classrooms and 2 water tanks. There are now 10 classrooms, another water tank, a rainwater harvesting system, composting toilets, a kitchen, wood store and other store rooms. We have also planted hundreds more trees and plants and the original trees are looking in better shape (normally people cut them for firewood, but as it is now school property they have been left and able to grow).

The whole space looks beautiful and unique. We think that if the education is to be excellent, it has to be in excellent surroundings. As such, everything is largely constructed from natural materials and in ergonomic, organic designs. The natural materials also means less environmental impact, virtually zero construction pollution and if in a few hundred years the school has moved on, it will decay naturally and invisibly back into nature. Natural materials are also those that local people use the most in their own house building, so using them, rather than imported cement, steel etc, gives people confidence experience of new building methods using materials they can access. It also enables them to feel pride in something they have created with their own hands.

The journey from plans and ideas to a solid school has been exciting, at times turbulent, but always enjoyable and the project is by no means over- this is only the beginning, the real challenge lies ahead improving the quality of education at the school, whilst continuing to develop the infrastructure with solar panels, a well and more.