Van Damme making dams from old vans

Above: Van Damme celebrates one of his earliest projects in rural Senegal.

Walking past pile after pile of rusted-out, doorless jalopies in a junkyard 14 miles outside of Brussels, one can see that most of the useful parts--the souls, if you will--have been stripped from the frames long ago, rendering what was left behind virtually useless, but, at the same time, extending the life of vehicles still on the road.

As our society becomes more and more disposable, what will become of sites like these in Belgium and around the world?

One person had a vision of what could be done with this "junk," which had seemingly given all it had to give. Jean-Claude Van Damme (yes, that Jean Claude) asked himself a very interesting question almost two years ago: How could these old vans be used to help people?

"I was doing an autograph session with Jackie Chan and Sylvester Stallone in a junkyard near Maleizen, Belgium, and I was just marveling at all the junked-out cars. But what really caught my eye was the sheer number of old vans. I was like 'dam,'" said Van Damme, while eating a ham and lamb sandwich inside a new Dodge Ram van.

Jean-Claude Van Damme is most well known for his on-screen roundhouse kicks and blood-drawing face jabs that permeated his popular action films of the '80s and '90s. The beatings the actor dished out on film in no way foreshadowed his current devotion to international humanitarian projects.

"Vans with no life are ... well, giving life," said Van Damme from his home in Belgium. "Van dams are the future of blocking water flow where water blockage is so desperately needed."

The vans are being used to create dams that will control flooding and provide drinking water for small villages in developing countries. Van Damme's work, thus far, has been concentrated in Asia and western Africa, with only a handful of projects in South America.

Unlike passenger cars, vans are often bulkier and heavier, proving ideal for damming small rivers, creeks and streams. The actor initially began the the program with smaller sedans and coupes, but scrapped this method after the lighter vehicles were quickly washed away when heavy rains inundated local drainage basins.

Vans have been pouring in from all over the world to help the actor continue his work in assisting the less fortunate and malnourished of the world.

"Two months after creating a van dam in Laos I get a call on my cell phone," said the star of Blood Sport. "The horn on one of the vans went off in the middle of the night startling the locals and causing a small panic."

Van Damme has worked closely with micro loan entrepreneur and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh to serve the water-inundated, low-lying parts of the country. Utilizing the power of van dams in the flood-prone regions will allow residents to store water for later use when the flood waters have receded.

"At first I viewed the program as a way to globally distribute the western world's waste. I was wrong, very wrong! Jean-Claude's van dams have given many people in Bangladesh great hope for clean drinking water. Many are being built by Bangladeshis using the micro loans from Grameen Bank," explained Yunus, referring to the bank he founded in 1976.

Yunus hinted that, if the van dam program continues to grow at its current pace, his new friend could be holding a Nobel Prize of his own some day.

With the recent travesty in Haiti, Van Damme has begun preparations to expand into the Caribbean to construct several dams in rural areas outside of Port-au-Prince. Many dams failed, or were severely damaged, during the 7.1 magnitude earthquake that struck the country on January 12 th.

The success of Jean-Claude's Van Dams may even lead to projects in rural areas of North America and Europe. A northern Saskatoon, Canada, community has already contacted the nonprofit for a possible installation on the Wanatoochee Creek, a waterway in desperate need of a van dam.

North Dakota, Minnesota and Manitoba officials have denied rumors that the two states and province are attempting to solve the oft flooded Red River's woes with a large van dam.

"We cannot comment on the 450 used vans that recently arrived along the west bank of the Red River, just north of Fargo," said North Dakota's governor, John Hoeven.