Kern

Kern i my name and i am working as a teacher mostley for carpenter students at the construction school in Strömstad / Sweden.

Another teacher at our school is working as a talesman for an NGO in the Gambia, called FIOH, future in our hands, or in swedish just "gambiagruppen" (the Gambia group).

In march this yaer we decided that it could be interesting for our building students to visit the Gambia and learn more about the diffrence of construction between Gambia and Sweden, as well as the diffrences of culture and standards. The named teacher, our principel and I headed to Gambia in march for recognisation, and we decided that it would be possible to bring along students. We get money from Atlas for exchange projekts and left Sweden november 7 to stay and work with school buildings to november 28 in corporation with FIOH.

FIOH has build schools in Gambia since many years and has a lot of experience.

The headoffice of FIOH, the office buildings. From here the volonteers are working and projecting. It is belayd in a compound together wih a second building with apartments for the volonteers and visitors like us. The compound is surrounded by a wall and has security service 24 hours a day. The office is belayd in Kololi, a suburb to the capitol Banjul. It is not a turist place, leaving the compound you are in an african suburb with shaggy "houses", pouverty and garbage.

The entrance of the office, nearly "western" standards, only air condition is missing. According to the volonteers it is most of the time possible to work without greater interruptions, but as a example the first days of our visiting the internet was down and it happened quite often that we had no electicity. That is commonly not a bigger problem, because the organisation has a Diesel generator backup, but for example today the Diesel was empty and we had to drive a longer distance to get new, because the whole quarter had no power and without that the gas stations didn`t work either.

One of the schools our students working on in Serrakunda, another suburb of Banjul near Kololi. In front materials to keep the form for the second and third floor at its place while filling with concrete. In the background the becoming school building. Almost everything needed for building have to be imported from Senegal. Nearly everything is made of concrete, starting a building the first thing to do is producing own bricks in concrete.

Outside of the becoming building, the form is ready to fill with concrete.

I

Inside the room of one building, waiting for the concrete to the second floor. Biggest diffrence to Sweden are after the building method the tools. Almost everything common in Sweden is missing, the only electricity you get is from a little Diesel generator, but mostley everything is handcrafted, you got to fill the form with concrete by only using a spade for example. This is not easy at all for our students when the temprature is about 100 degrees F.

A learnig situation of a diffrent kind for our studets, the market in Banjul. It was not polite to take pictures inside the market, so this is only the panorama to see. The studets where impressed by the pouverty of the people and the hygenic standard on the market, mostley in the meat and fish selling parts. There was no refrigurator att all, the food was laying in the heat, coverd with millions of flys, while rats where running around att the ground.

Hello. My name is Stefan Sandberg. I have been working as a mason for around 27 years. 1,5 years ago i change track in life and took a job as a masonteatcher at a upper secondary school. The schools name is Aranäsgymnasiet. Its around 1100 pupils in the whole school and 94 of this is attending the constructionprogram. I have responsobility as a coach and mentor  for 17 pupils. Beside that i have responsobility for the pupils that wanna become masons/plasters or tilesetters. In the teatchersteam there also 5 contructionsteatchers and 1 english/swedish teatcher, 1 religion/swedish teacher. The pupils also study societyknowledge, sports and health, math, blueprints and finally workingenviorment and safety.

At the right the masons workshop.  At the Left the concretemixerroom.

Here you see a simulated kitchen where the pupils sets tiles over the zink and at the floor.

A pupil is practising on tilesetting at the brickwall he have built and plastered.

He is doing a sharp corner 

The shield of the greatest soccerteam in the world. Made by  a 3:grade student.

The room we keep our masonry tools

Working on tileseem.

The mixer in the foreground is only for lime and that in the background only for concrete.

Plastering.

Peter Skoog Blog!

Here is the entrence to the construction workshop, before a class its
always crowded with students in this area.

This is the first exercise we do with students in the construction workshop. It's a screws, nails and measurement practis.     

                                                                                  



                                                                 

In the beggining the students only use hand tools for the tasks and as you can see the tools are numberd so that the students know witch tools are theirs.

           

For using this machinesaw education is required. This education is provided of the teachers when theirs time, or when theres more then one teacher in the workshop. After their education the students are aloved to use the saw first with the teachers attention and when the teacher see that the student can control the saw they use it whenever they need.







                                                                  

The school is also training to other crafts as including bricklayers,

                             sheet metal workers, carpet layers and painters








This is the school i did my internship at!






                                                     
                                                     This is the major ports where we load in and out material






                           

Jesper Lindholm 2

In order to start learning basic carpentry skills the students begin with simple tasks.

Using hand tools

One of the first tasks is to build a mold.

This will later be used for a concrete casting.

It´s important to be precise otherwise the concrete block will have the wrong messurments

Photo 5

This is a very important project - the first year saw stool/saw horse. I did my own apprenticeship in Ireland and this is the first project we made too!

This is the project from Work Task 1. Using the same structure of clustering subjects together our apprentices learn about;

• Occupational Health & Safety
• Handle Carpentry Materials
• Use Carpentry Tools and Equipment
• Communicate in the Construction Industry
• Plan and Organise Work (Cuttting lists, safe work method statements etc)

We start Work Task 1 by marking out and cutting (by hand) Halving, Mortice & Tenion, Dovetail joints.

We then do a full size set out for the saw stool. After this, we practice marking out the angles for where the legs join to the top.

After a few practice runs the students usually feel confident enough to attempt the complete project!!

It is a nice feeling to watch them leave with their saw stool carried across their shoulders.

Photo 4 Enzo Multari

Fix Wall Tiles

The project above is part of stage 2 training. The walls are bricked up and rendered plumb and straight and all external corner tiles are mitred. The centre is tiled with a diagonal layout and a full tile step at the bottom.

Photo 3 Enzo Multari

                                                                    Tile Curved Work

The project above is part of tile curve work training.
Our stage 3 Apprentices prepare a template to plan details producing an elliptical shape.
Sill tiles are cut to the required size and shape x 2, the template is then used to construct the brick work and render the surface accurately. Tiles are laid plumb, level and square with accurate face alignment and joint consistency and then grouted. 

Photo 8:

Photo 7: ‘Aspects that are interesting’:

In the foreground is a pergola that the indigenous, aboriginal students constructed whilst doing a ‘construction pathways, course. In the background is K block. A new, mean green machine, that is a low carbon footprint, automatically breathing, new age building.

Photo 7:

Photo 7: ‘Aspects that are interesting’:

This area has been constructed by CIT Carpentry students with the purpose of displaying practical skills regarding various competency’s. It is a frequently used outdoor area for the campus students. In the background is F Block, which is predominantly used by the Building and Environment students.