For years, a tight blockade has prevented communities in Gaza from developing their homes and cities - or even rebuilding the destruction caused by military bombing - in which approximately 180,000 houses were bombarded during the last aggression and many people were left homeless. This has resulted in a product and material shortage of building blocks particularly. Simultaneously, six tons of ash is disposed of un-environmentally in Gaza every week as a byproduct of local coal combustion.

Two Gazan women, Majid al-Mashrawi and Rawan Abdellatif, have taken on this combination of challenges and are breaking new ground in the world of construction. They have created an affordable, high quality, lightweight, environmentally friendly building brick called GreenCake. The material is made of ash and cement and isolates sound, extreme temperatures and fire. It’s named GreenCake because it is actually - literally and figuratively – green, and has a spongy texture, just like a cake.

GreenCake is a solution to an urgent problem that is scalable, adaptable, affordable, durable, and always available to meet people’s needs. As the bricks are not dependent on the import of building materials (sand and aggregate) from outside Gaza, people can rebuild their houses from existing raw materials as self-sufficient communities. And from an environmental point of view, reusing ash helps protect the groundwater, as it would have otherwise seeped into it.