Green Campus

The Itara Community School site has undergone several years of annual tree-planting, and this will continue in the future with participation of the students. The unbuilt campus areas will be utilized to create dense forest-like vegetation areas.

Electricity will be provided by rooftop solar panels.

The school will employ a rainwater harvesting system. Bugesera District, where Mayange is located, has relatively little rainfall. Thus, the aim of the rainwater harvesting system is to capture every drop possible and, at the same time, to educate the community about rainwater harvesting. Rainwater harvesting from rooftops is already widely practiced in schools, institutions, and homes in Rwanda. Indeed, the government of Rwanda promotes the adoption of rainwater harvesting as a key strategy under the Water Resources Management policy.

Rapid Afforestation.

The annual tree-planting practice will be reinforced with the Miyazaki method a rapid-afforestation technique that has been successfully applied in Japan, South-East Asia, Europe and increasingly Africa over the last 20 years.
Sustainable Practices Education.

The Mayange Green Campus will serve as a model of sustainable community living, educating the students and engaging the surrounding communities in sustainable daily practices and new technologies. Examples are the already existing annual tree planting, but also advanced afforestation and agricultural techniques, water filtration and solar energy education.
Rainwater Harvesting.

The school will employ a rainwater harvesting system. Bugesera District, where Mayange is located, has relatively little rainfall. Thus, the aim of the rainwater harvesting system is to capture every drop possible and, at the same time, to educate the student and the community about rainwater harvesting. Rainwater harvesting from rooftops is already widely practiced in schools, institutions, and homes in Rwanda and therefore is integrated in the architecture and campus design.
Runoff Collection & Water Reuse.

Every drop of water matters. Therefore, also the site run off water will be collected and integrated in the campus water supply system. With the help of natural wetland water filtration principles sewage water will be purified and reused for cleaning and agriculture on campus.
Solar Energy.

The campus will adopt solar energy technologies which are increasingly applied in urban and rural regions of Rwanda. The envisioned system will not only provide the campus with enough energy for daily usage but will also offset the extra generated energy to supply the surrounding communities.

Phased Campus Development

The site masterplan is an ambitious long-term development vision for an integral, self-sustaining, ecological campus community.

The phases shown in the diagram are preliminary. Phase 1 is sized according to the expectations of initial funding. The remaining phases exist to illustrate that the project is intended to grow over time and evolve according to needs. In the masterplan there exists both an immediate goal, phase 1, and also an ambitious long-term vision.