Gordon Browne – the last Chairman of Good Earth Trust

The Good Earth Trust was set up in January 2007 by the late Jim Cogan to promote the use of compressed stabilised earth blocks to construct buildings, latrines and rainwater harvesting tanks in East Africa.

A particular machine that was very robust, locally made in Nairobi, manually operated, requiring very little ongoing maintenance and providing for an interlocking profile was mainly used. There has been a lot of training and promotion with many examples built over the years; this has led to steady growth and acceptability of this low carbon building technology. This increased activity and interest has led to our country representatives establishing their own charities and social enterprises that work with local partners and gain funding to develop the technology to improve the lives of people in need.

Having established these viable operations in Tanzania and Uganda, the Trustees determined at their Board Meeting in February 2013 that the need for maintaining the UK based charity no longer existed; it was felt that our work in the UK had been successfully completed. We believe this to be a positive move and that Jim Cogan would be proud of us.

Sadly in early 2015, Dan Andabati died in a traffic accident having continued the good work started by the Good Earth Trust. He had worked with the Haileybury Youth Trust in developing improved water and sanitation conditions in the shanties in Kampala using the interlocking block technology

All I ask is that you click on the links to the activities in Tanzania/Kenya and Uganda to see the extent of the legacy we have left. Certainly any donation you may wish to make will go directly to those who are using the technology. You can contact Good Earth people in Tanzania and Uganda by clicking on the contact us link for their e-mail addresses.

One of our close partners in Uganda is the Haileybury Youth Trust: http://www.hytuganda.com/

Thank you to all of you who have supported the Trust over the years. It has been a privilege to have served as your Chairman.

Regards

Gordon

Welcome to Good Earth Technology

We believe that all people should have access to decent housing, clean water and proper sanitation. The reality is that billions of people live in extremely poor housing conditions, both in urban slums and rural villages.

Often the burden of water collection is left to women and children who spend hours and walk far distances to fetch water.

Good Earth knows that life doesn’t have to be like this - appropriate technologies exist that could meet the very basic human needs of construction, water and sanitation.

Our vision is of a world in which low-income people can access technology that improves their wellbeing and livelihoods whilst preserving and enhancing their environment.

We currently focus on a simple low-cost technology that can help people improve their housing whilst greatly reducing the impact on their environment. The technology uses interlocking compressed stabilised earth blocks for construction of houses, schools, clinics, water tanks and latrines. It uses local talent and materials, improves people's living conditions, supports local small-scale business and has significant environmental benefit.

The technology has huge potential - it can improve housing for millions of people, savings hundreds of millions of dollars, tens of millions of trees and millions of tonnes of CO2.