This is not complicated, just green, and it's time for an installment of common sense. For better construction, we're bridging the information gap to help you reach a brighter future in the built world. Today's episode is sponsored by Creative Interface Architecture and Interiors, making sustainable construction practically impactful.

Check us out at www.creativeinterface.design. Welcome friends. I'm your host James, and I'm very excited to share with you the second in a three-part series, and this one is pretty inspirational. I'm gonna introduce you to Duncan Ward. He's the founder and c e O of Classroom of Hope, a purpose-driven organization providing access to life-changing education for children in developing countries.

They build sustainable schools that are safe and secure in some of the most rural communities of Rwanda, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Indonesia. In nine years, they have developed 84 schools serving over 24,000 students. In June, 2021, they built the World's first Block School and Apex First Block Home using Block Solutions technology and recycled plastic.

They have a pipeline to build 200 block schools and 4,000 block homes for recycled plastic waste in Indonesia while creating a new circular economy. Duncan has made it his life's mission to end global education crisis by fighting plastic pollution and the climate crisis. This is one of three episodes dedicated to Block Solution.

Please stay tuned and listen to part one and part three of this series. Enjoy. I started the charity called Classroom of Hope because I wanted to give a bit more back to people and to planet. Uh, because of my corporate life, I was pretty much, uh, living quite selfishly to be honest. And I started Classroom of Hope and our purpose was to provide access to education, to children in developing countries.

Um, and how we we're doing that is we're partnering with local NGOs to implement, uh, school building programs, uh, in rural communities that. As well as, uh, disaster zones for what led me to, uh, block solutions was, um, in 2018, we had the, uh, the major earthquakes that happened in Loock in Indonesia, Indonesia being on the ring of fire, which is very high risk to, uh, earthquakes and disasters.

And it was significant. 500 people died, 90,000 homes were destroyed. Over a thousand schools were destroyed, and we were part of the, uh, the first responding, uh, emergency response in search and rescue food and water. Originally and then eventually getting kids into temporary pop-up schools so that we can get kids feeling safe and secure in an earthquake resistant, uh, five-year temporary structure.

It was, uh, quite shocking to see, uh, the disaster and what happened to that, those communities on that island. And I had some meetings with the government of Indonesia and the governor of Lombok and tb. And, uh, we needed to come up with a permanent solution that was gonna provide a safe and secure space for students to thrive and to learn.

And if there was a future earthquake, that they were earthquake resistant. So myself and a few consultants, we, uh, we got together and started scouring the globe. For what are the best technologies out there that we can build earthquake resistant classrooms that, uh, but out of recycled plastic, you know, plastic is such a major issue and Indonesia being the second largest polluter in the globe.

So when we, um, didn't realize. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. So Indonesia's second, largest first, China third I believe is, uh, either Philippines or Vietnam. So how do we take that plastic waste and convert it into value stream for communities? So we came across a couple of organizations in the globe that were doing great work and uh, creating plastic bricks.

And then we came across, uh, block Solutions and I was introduced to the C e o and, uh, and the founder, uh, Marcus, who invented the technology. And, uh, we agreed to bring, uh, blocks