Building safe schools and decent houses
Bloq Es' vision is to provide safe and decent housing in developing and emerging countries. Bloq Es (short for Bloques de Esperanza / Blocks of Hope) is a social enterprise located in Honduras (German management). It was established in 2009 by a human aid volunteer working in an orphanage in Honduras.
The product - patented, cheaper and of higher quality
Bloq Es has built a number of schools, community buildings and houses through blocks that interlock when laid. Bloq Es houses are usually cheaper, faster to build and of higher quality than traditional houses built of hollow blocks. While the block itself does not look specatuclar, the secret lies in the form and the mix of the block. Both are so unique that have earned patents and both the form and the mix have been improved continuously to form a perfect fit with developing and emerging countries. The form, the mix and the interlocking system have been developed with the following objectives in mind:
- Bloq Es blocks should significantly raise quality as compared to local blocks
- Bloq Es houses should be cheap, preferably cheaper than local houses, by using as little mortar (costly) as possible
- complete houses should look nice and valuable
- walls should be very easy to lay, preferably without professional masons
- walls should be fast to lay and blocks should be easy to be used in remote areas (high mobility needed).
- Bloq Es houses should offer higher resistance to earth quakes than local building systems (by their interlocking system).
- walls should be bullet proof 
The bottleneck
Bloq Es produces blocks with hydraulic presses. These demand a high amount of manual labor. In 2012, Bloq Es has bought a mobile block laying machine (Knauer 129) that increase production volume to a theoretical maximum of 600.000 blocks per month and improves the quality of blocks.
Video: The current way of production is very labor intensive and prone to quality issues. A large share of blocks has to be pulped.
Video: The new production machine (Knauer 129A) increases production volume by more than 1000 percent and also significantly increases the quality of the blocks so that far less blocks need to be pulped.
What is needed?
Apart from production presses, Bloq Es owns a production Hall in Santa Barbara, Honduras, a light fork lift, a truck, and various tools and other materials. Orders have been coming in steadily for 2 years, however, Bloq Es cannot produce fast enough to fulfill these orders.
In order to avoid bottlenecks and to be operational, Bloq Es needs
1) a stronger fork lift ($9.000)
2) a truck with a crane ($15.000)
3) a block mold ($6.000)
4) transportation of the Knauer 129 from Germany to Honduras ($5.000)
Your guarantee:
We are very aware of the fact that giving money to a social business in Honduras is a risky thing. The money might be used for reasons that it was not intended for by the investor. On the one hand, you have our promise that we count and record every penny, and we take responsibility for what we bought with it (one managing partner of Bloq Es is a German banker, the other one studied at Wharton, so we are pretty accurate as regards recording transactions). On the other hand, we wish to offer a "Thank you scheme" that guarantees the investor/donator that his money has been used for the intented purpose:
1) If you donate $100 or more, we send you a picture of the tool we bought with your money.
2) If you donate $1000 or more we engrave your name in one of the building blocks of the house you supported, and send you a picture with it.
3) If you donate $5000 or more, we invite you to stay at the orphanage that is adjacent to our firm in Honduras (we will cover the costs for your flight (up to $1000), the taxi service and for housing and food for one week)! You can see and witness first hand what we have bought with your money and how we use the tools to produce our blocks and build houses.
4) If you donate $10.000 or more, we will personally meet you in Germany and one of us will fly to Honduras with you to show you around and explain what we bought we your money. Your flight, housing and food will be covered.
Being a social business, this is the mission of Bloq Es:
"...The generated profit is used to advance the organization and to support charitable projects. Funds are sustainably dedicated to children"˜s homes, day and youth centers, schools, and hospitals. Adolescents from orphanages shall be preferred in the selection of employees in order to provide them with a stable future when they have to leave the orphanage for age reasons."
Video: Bloq Es in remote areas. Old building can be seen on the right, new building on the left. Local children can be seen watching and helping.
More information on Bloq Es
Please feel free to take a look at our online brochure.
