During the week of February 24th, we carried out a prototype project in a house located in Smara, in the Farsia wilaya, one of the Sahrawi refugee camps.
Currently, most of the houses have a simple metal sheet as a roof, supported by wooden planks placed between the “adobe” walls. We managed to install a thermal insulator over a fabric placed between the metal sheet and the wooden beams. With this project, we were able to reduce the indoor temperature by 5 to 7 degrees during the summer months.
Many thanks to geopannel for donating the insulation material!
The second project we carried out in Smara consisted of building a shade net installed at the 17th of June Institute.
This net is installed on metal supports with a foundation to prevent horizontal pushes from the strong desert wind (Siroco) and covered with ropes in the colors of the Sahrawi flag to protect them from the sun.
This is a tested system used in field hospitals, which lowers the temperature by around 5 to 6 degrees Celsius. Its advantage is that it is detachable and easy to install. Ideally, shade nets should be manufactured in the camps themselves to generate activity. They could be made from surplus clothing, chopped water bags, or old ACNUR tarps.
