Collaboration and containers

We've just shifted to using central-desktop, a web collaborative software thingy. It's a little insanely big and structured so it feels like we're stumbling about a giant warehouse with maybe three beanbags between all of us. But we have a volunteer checking in to keep our admin under control, someone just offered to supervise our accounts and whew.

We're also looking into containers and other semi-mobile schoolhouses. We were asked about funding a schoolhouse, and my first reaction was 'Oh no' because what we've learnt so far is that being able to pick up and move, having tiny little places inside the slum which means places without clear land rights, often without any real housing or infrastructure, makes a big traditional building way less useful than at first glance. The slums move around a lot too.

Plus, with Steven's House which is rented for the princely sum of US$60 a month, we have limits on how much we can invest in a rented site. The walls can't be easily painted, it needs to be rehabbed for more use, the bathroom is well. Ew. It would be awesome to have a replicable schoolhouse/familyhouse to roll out with shared basic features that can be adapted locally, then recycled around.

So now, we're looking into containers. There are two diabetes clinics in Cambodia made out of refitted containers, and when I go up next week, I'll talk to other groups and check out the sites to see whether it's practical at all.