Bamboo Workshop in Rwanda

Two Week bamboo Construction Workshop

Background:

Following up on the feasibility study made in November 2022, ABARI conducted a 2 week long bamboo workshop in Musanze, Rwanda. It was conducted inside a well-equipped vocational center. There were 13 enthusiastic participants who had a basic familiarity with bamboo as business practitioners and/or as craftsman.

Dates: July 19- July 30th, 2023

Location: Musanze, Rwanda

Organizer: Koblenz Chamber of Skilled Crafts in the "Partner Africa"

Trainer: Nripal Adhikary

Musanze has mild weather throughout the year. It does not receive extreme rain, heat or cold. It has a climate that is conducive to growing bamboo. In fact, there are many farmers that are already growing bamboo in the region. We were using the bamboo variety- Arundinaria alpina.

This bamboo is very straight, slender with diameter of 6-8cm. It is about 10 meters long. It does not have many branches. It has a fairly long internodal distance of 30-45cm long and fairly thin wall thickness 6-8mm.

In our construction workshop we made a two-story bamboo structure with size of 4m by 4m and height of 2.6meter on the first floor and 2.2 meters on the second floor. All the elements were made with bamboo. We used threaded rods, barrel nuts and some pins to staple the walls.

These are the native and introduced bamboo species in Rwanda

In the training workshop in theoretical and practical ways we covered following topics

1. Bamboo Drying and Seasoning

2. Bamboo Harvesting and grading.

3. Cleaning and finishing.

4. Making different joints.

5. Making of beams, columns and trusses.

6. Different weaving techniques for walls

7. Doors and windows fabrication and installation.

8. Mud plaster on bamboo.

9. Bamboo Flooring.

10. Stability and reinforcement