BY ELIJAH GICHUNGE

PHOTO: JAMES MWIRIGI

Affordable housing is one of the National Governments big four agenda. It is on this that the county government of Meru has married the idea of equipping the Meru Youth through the ambitious Meru Youth Service with the relevant technical skills that can aid in the actualization on this alongside creating a source of employment for the youth of Meru.

The MYS service Men and Women who graduated as CHVs have been in a two-week exercise, trained on the production of the cost effective, Soil Stabilized Building Blocks (SSB) at Kinoru Stadium, in a training that covered the theory part, through production for normal shelters to much elaborate complex buildings.

The technology has a labor-intensive process that uses less mortar. Due to the block’s significant uniformity, the building process is efficient and takes relatively shorter time than when using other building blocks.

Chief Officer Youth Affairs Florah Kananu who was accompanied by her Sports Colleague, Mercy Ndiira, noted that the County government through her department has been working with the UN HABITAT since the launch of the MYS program in April 2018. She said 60 MYS members were being trained in the pilot project and more will be trained on the said technology.

Florah expressed hopes of using the technology in major County construction projects, likes of the ECDE classes the government is set to construct.

"We are happy to see that with little soil and cement, one can do a very stable project. We are looking into extending this county-wide." Held the CO.

Michael Chicoo Cajuma, Instructor from UN HABITAT, said the interlocking blocks uses less mortar and do not need it in between the interlocks. He said that the construction takes almost half time of a similar building done using other forms of blocks.

After production, the eco-friendly blocks take utmost 21 days to dry using indirect sunlight, giving a naturally appealing outlook, hence no much need for painting