BAMBOO WORKSHOP COMPLETE, READY FOR OPERATION

In the three months since our last progress report on the Bamboo Workshop, we are delighted to confirm that the workshop is now 95% completed with electrical installations, machines installed and our students already learning to use some of the smaller equipment to improve their skills, quality and quantity of the crafts they are producing, some of which are already on sale in some Bali outlets.

In addition to the sanding machine, lathe, mechanical saw and pillar drilling machine, our Indonesian donor has bought us a thickness planer and sponsored the cost of our electrical installation to cater for present and future requirements, which meant we had to install a 3-phase electricity supply. We have also added a western toilet at the rear of the workshop. The thickness planer will be a valuable asset in the production of some of the main crafts our students are learning to develop for the tourism and hospitality industry in Bali and beyond, especially the hand-made bamboo latticed trays, where the thickness of each lath is very time consuming when done by hand

As you can see from the progress photostaken up to 5th December, we are now fitting out the workshop with work benches and cupboards for small tools etc. and before we can be fully operational, we need to extend the external work area and provide full training to our local staff and senior high school students on safe and efficient operation of all machines and equipment and establish very clear health and safety regulations which all of our staff, students and visitors will be required to comply with.

Another key activity we have been researching and planning for quite some time is design, development and production of good quality Bamboo Bikes! Our first pilot project will be a standard road bike which is in process as can be seen with some initial frames hanging on the inside workshop wall. We will update you with the progress in our next report.

Once again, we extend our gratitude to all of you for your generous donations from when we launched our GlobalGiving UK crowdfunding campaign last June helping EBPP to empower our most isolated and impoverished communities towards a future of sustainable community based social and economic development, led by EBPP high school students.