METI Handmade School

[1] In 1997, Anna Heringer from Bavaria in southern Germany, visited Bangladesh to work as a volunteer with the Bangladeshi NGO, Dipshikha, which assists marginalized communities in areas such as education, agriculture and skills development.

Heringer began her involvement by coordinating fund-raising with the German NGO, Shanti, which had initially introduced her to Dipshikha, successfully raising the US$35,000 needed for the project.

[3] While the original requirement had simply been to build additional classrooms for the Dipshikha school, Cherwatigga and Heringer persuaded those responsible to use local materials rather than adopting the usual concrete construction.

[4] Anna Heringer worked together with her colleague Eike Roswag, developing a design based on regional construction methods and local materials but introducing new approaches for efficiency and structural integrity.

[4] Among the notable advances made in the use of local materials were the introduction of a dampproof course and a brick foundation as well as the addition of straw to the loam mixture of earth and water.