MPI Guatemala is using plastic bottles to construct a 4-room, second-story addition providing space for 200 children to attend primary and secondary school.

In December 2011, responding to the community's request for more classroom space, environmental education, and an alternative waste management system, our MPI Guatemala team began constructing a bottle school in Chaquijyá. 

A bottle school is a structure made principally of "eco-bricks"--discarded, plastic bottles filled with highly compressed inorganic trash. Students and families work together to collect and fill all the bottles that are eventually used in place of cement bricks in the walls of the new school.  

Since the project began, students and their families have been saving and stuffing around 50 bottles per student, which is a total of 16,000 bottles.  The construction is expected to be finished by April 2013.

During a meeting with the local masons, project committee, and school teachers, Esteban, the primary school’s principal, shared: “We all need to support this project. It is important in so many ways for us, for our children, and for our future. In fact, it’s not just a project, it also means that Manna Project is listening to us. Let’s show them we hear them too.”

As of January 2013, we’ve raised $42,000, and the members of Chaquijyá have provided an additional $11,000 in in-kind materials and labor. In order to reach the project goal of $56,900*, we need your support. Consider making the gift that will keep on giving to this community for generations to come!  

*Includes in-kind value provided by community.