Global Brigades is a multidisciplinary student-led organization that focuses on global health and sustainable development and currently serves communities in Panama and Honduras. The idea behind Global Brigades in general is to eradicate poverty by developing solutions for not just one, but the multiple disciplines in which the community needs to grow (areas such as public health, medical, dental, environmental, business, architecture, law, water, and microfinance) in order to be able to realistically sustain a better standard of living.
Global Architecture Brigades (GAB) works in Honduras at the moment and has staff who currently live in Honduras. They listen to the needs of the community, do an analysis of the area, and relay that information to each university club that is a part of GAB with details about the project they would like to get done for the community. Each university interested in the project statement is given one month to come up with a design which is submitted back to GAB staff in Honduras. In Honduras, GAB and the community members decide which solution would be the best fit for their needs. Students from all participating universities are then given a chance to travel to Honduras on a one week brigade over winter break to help with the construction of the project. It’s a unique hands-on opportunity for students to see the entire design process through.
The last project was designing a secondary school for a community in Santa Rosa, El Paraiso, Honduras. Students at UVA spent weeks researching the local climate, how to effectively use the local materials available, and simple low-cost building techniques to create an effective and realistic design and recently came back from Honduras after helping start construction on the final design that was created.
For more information, contact Minna Choi at mc5bk@virginia.edu
