Project Proposals

Solar Cooker Project for Chalitong Village Project Manager: Gelsang Lamu (Betty) Buy 80 solar cookers for the villagers to use as a beneficial cooking tool, which can lead to a safer environment and protect the trees as well. Funds needed:$1956 (15100rmb)

Gelsang Lamu(Betty)
Gelsang Lamu is from Chalitong natural village of Chaliting village, Yunling Township , Deqing County , Diqing Tibetan Autonomous prefecture, Yunnan province, PRC. She is currently working toward an Associated degree in English in the Qinghai Normal University Nationalities Department's English Training Program.

Project location:
This project is located in the four natural villages of Chalitong village, which consists by Chalitong, Yongren, Yangza and Guzha, which are in Yunling Township , Deqing County , Diqing Tibetan Autonomous prefecture, Yunnan province, PRC.

Population:
Chalitong, Yongren,Guzha and Yangza are mainly agricultural little villages, and they are situated beside the Lancang ( Mekong ) River. Continuous lofty mountains surround them. This project will benifit 80 households, the total population is around 510, includes 268 woman and 242 men, all the residents are Tibetans.

Education:
Of all the villagers, 70 percent are illiterate, with women accounting for 45 percent, and men 25 percent. There are around 54 children. Beforetime, most parents had difficulties affording tuition fees when their children started going to middle school. It used to cost them more than 1,000rmb per year. Nowadays the government provides free compulsory education, so that children can attend school for free until they graduate from their middle schools . So 35 school-aged children in the villages attend the primary school because tuition is free, and because it is compulsory. So far, there are only ten high school students who are boys, two college girls (including the project manager ) and seven middle school students (three girls and four boys).

Cash income:
Due to the environmental conditions (the villages are surrounded by big mountains covered with a lot of trees), Chalitong villagers only own a little land. Several families only own 0.9 mu, which is certainly not enough for them to eat and feed their animals. So, the villagers do as much as possible to earn money in several ways, which will be outlined below. Firstly, during the three months from July to October, villagers go up to the mountain forests to collect a special kind of mushroom. In years past, the villagers could find more than 10 kg of mushroom in a day, and sell them in the small market (right locates in the center of the four natural villages beside Mekong river) at night. At this time one kg of mushrooms could sell for around 180 rmb, with the price decreasing to 30 rmb per kg towards to end of the season. In more recent years, the forests have become smaller since people cut down the trees as their main fuel. In order to find more mushrooms, people now dig big holes, sweeping away the important surface of the earth in the forests. Previously, every family averagely could earn more than 3,000 rmb in the same time period. Last year, my father told me our family earned only 500 rmb throughout those three months.

Secondly, if a family has more than two members capable of performing laborious tasks, usually one is sent away from the village to earn extra money. Usually these people work as construction laborers and miners. These families can earn 1,000-3,000 rmb per year. In families who have no extra laborers, very little extra money is made at all.

Finally, as of last year, the government enacted a new law - environmental resettlement. The villagers gave up working on their infertile fields and instead planted walnut trees. According to the magnitude of contributed land, the villagers receive money at the beginning year from the local government. The average amount is 1300 rmb.

As I mentioned before, due to environmental factors, the villagers need money to buy barley, meat, wheat and rice. These cost each family at least 1000 rmb per year. The families with students have to find extra money all year around to support them. On average, each family has to spend more than 600 rmb on everyday expenses per year, including at least 15rmb per month for electricity. In total, families have to spend around 2,600 rmb per year as well as keeping 1,000 rmb aside for emergencies ( not including students' expenses or tuition). For families with high school and college students 8,000 rmb is require per year. As a result, these families have no money to spare, and lack even enough money to use for their own needs.

Agriculture:
People harvest twice in a year in Chalitong village, which includes the four natural villages (Chalitong, Yongren, Yangza and Guzha.) They grow corn, wheat, potatoes and many kinds of vegetables. A rich family owns 6 mu of fi elds, and a poor family owns 0.9 mu of land. On average each family owns 2.2 mu of arable land. Every family harvests around 1000kg of wheat and corn in each year, with the two-harvests.

Herding:
Chalitong villagers only raise domestic animals, such as pigs, donkeys, horses, cows and bulls. Usually each family owns between one and three domestic animals, and this number is related to their income. Rich families with many animals can earn 1000rmb per year from selling butter, cheese, and meat. Poor families have no such cash income. Usually family elders or children herd these animals during spring, summer and autumn time.

Weather:
The weather in all the natural villages (Chalitong, Yongren, Yangza and Guzha,) is rather warm the whole year-round, and rains a lot in spring and summer. This weather is ideal for crops and forest mushrooms. Unfortunately, the land at the top of the mountains is barren where people have cut all the trees down as their main source of fuel. Because it rains frequently, floods come often, which creates a rather dangerous environment for the villagers.

Project Goals

The immediate goal of this project is to buy 80 solar cookers for the villagers to use as a beneficial cooking tool, which can lead to a safer environment and protect the trees as well. The overarching goal of this project is to protect the endangered forests around Chalitong, Yongren, YangZa and Guzha, which are the four of five natural villages of Chalitong village.

 
Problems:
Villagers have to find a new source of fuel. One month before every New Year Celebration (a very important festival) people collect fuel for the coming year. At least two members from each family will go up to the mountains surrounding the village. In more than seven days, during the daytime they stay in the dense forests and cut wood as much as they can. Within this time, around 10 trees will be cut down for each family. In total, there are more than 800 trees disappearing each year.

Villagers need a much safer environment to live in. All three natural villages of Chalitong are located in a big valley beside the Lancang ( Mekong ) River. Countless tall mountains that are covered with evergreen plants surround the village. It is hot, humid and rainy all year-round, especially during the summer time. Whenever the rain comes, it runs down from the barren land where the trees have been cut down. Then the water rushes right down into the middle of the village, eroding all the earth with it and making a deeper channel every time it rains. Right now, the average depth of the hole that has been caused by the annual flood is six meters. The damage being done has recently intensified, and the hole is getting larger and deeper, the hole looks like a huge dragon that is sleeping right in the middle of our village. Some villagers have been forced to move from their houses and rebuild far from the hole. This is because every time the flood comes, their houses shake and nearly collapse due to the rushing floods.

Women need more time to participate in local community activities. Females in the villages complete all housework. These tasks include cooking, feeding the animals, sewing and washing. Furthermore, some women share extra outside chores with their husbands equally, like cutting trees on the mountains. As a result, women have no opportunity to participate in community activities as the men do. Using solar cookers would make cooking a much more convenient and efficient task for village women compared to cooking with a wood burning fire. They would also not need to collect fuel in the forests if they had solar cookers. As a result, with solar cookers, they will have more leisure time to spend on other tasks and local community activities.

The villagers' workload should be decreased. Villagers who cut down wood for cooking fuel spend two hours every morning traveling to the forest site. They work all day until sunset when they must spend a further two hours returning to their homes. After they cut enough trees, they must transport all the branches to the flying- fox loading site. This process of cutting the trees to the flying fox loading site takes more than three days. Everyday, villagers use donkeys and horses to carry the branches over more than seven return trips. After more than two days, villagers undertake the most dangerous process, where they use the flying fox to convey all the branches down to the valley. From here it takes another three days (at least) to transport the firewood to each family's yard. Often the time and effort needed to transport the wood varies according to the animals and the laborers that each family has, which means that for some the task is even more difficult.

Children who attend primary school are too busy studying while their parents collect firewood in the mountains. At this time, housework usually becomes the responsibility of the children, and chores must be carried out when they return from school. This leaves students with no time to study or do their homework, particularly in the case of female students, who usually are responsible for most domestic labor (e.g.: cooking, cleaning and feeding pigs). Male students come home to feed the family's cattle and horses, which results in their study also being affected. Some families keep their children home from school permanently in order to do the housework. Students may also be in the position where they must stay at home watching the house while their parents are absent collecting fuel.

Using the flying fox to transport firewood is too dangerous. The process of transporting wood is very risky both in the upper areas of the mountain and down into the valley. The location of the upper flying fox loading site is above a rather steep hill. The villagers must carry bundles of branches tied with steel wire toward the flying fox. Then they attach the bundle to a hook, which then sits on the flying fox. This is a delicate process, as it is easy for wood to fall from the bundle as it speeds down the mountain. Each family carves a sign on the hook for people at the bottom of the valley to recognize their wood. The people who wait in the valley must be very alert in order to avoid the flying pieces of timber, while at the same time searching for their family's carved symbol.

Villagers need a more efficient and cheaper way to cook. Using wood as their main source of fuel requires very hard labor for all those involved in its collection. Moreover, the collection process is dangerous both for the environment around the village and for the villagers themselves. Electricity is not a viable option because using electricity to cook would be too expensive. The villagers also cook for animals such as pigs and cows two times a day, in order to make some profits though selling them or eating the meat and milk.

Benefits of project:

Villagers will have a new source of fuel for their cooking needs. The dense forests that surround the villages will be saved from logging and unnecessary damage. It is estimated that at least 800 trees will be saved from logging each year.

If deforestation is decreased, villagers will have a safer and secure environment to live in. They won't need to worry about yearly flooding or the possibility of being forced from their homes by the eroded hole that the floods have created. Instead they can spend their money on rebuilding their houses towards a better standard of living.

Women will have more time to participate in local community activities. If there are solar cookers, women can complete their housework more quickly. If women use wood stoves, they spend time tending to them continuously. The time that women spend cutting down trees could also be used for leisure.

Villagers will be spared from the large amount of effort that is required to fetch a regular supply of firewood. They will be able to use their valuable leisure time to relax or take part in income generating activities, instead of spending so much time cutting trees in the mountains.

The villages' school-aged children will have more time to study and play. They will have enough time to finish their homework and work on extra study for school. Solar cookers will provide time for the school children enjoy their own interests after school instead of doing laboring in their homes. This will also improve student enrollment rates during the wood-harvesting season, as parents will not have to keep their children at home to do chores.

The dangerous and difficult process of collecting wood via the flying-fox will be no longer necessary. If this project is funded, villagers will not need to risk their lives to use the flying-fox. Consequently, people's living conditions will reach a higher level.

Solar cookers are cheaper and easier to use as a new source of electricity-free fuel. They also make environmental regeneration possible, at the same time as giving villagers a safer and more comfortable standard of living.

 Gender Equality:
As a young girl and the manager of this project, I wish to change people's perceptions about gender roles. People in my area will be impressed if my project succeeds, because most people in my home area traditionally believe that sending girls to school is somehow less useful than sending boys. People believe that girls are better at doing housework and helping their parents. I am currently the only college student in my natural village, and the only woman to ever go to college. There are some male college students who have already graduated. Most girls in my area obey their parents' plans for arranged marriages. They give birth to children at a very early age. Hopefully, my project will be funded and consequently people will start to believe that girls can do the same things as boys, perhaps even better. In the long term, this could mean that more girls will be sent to school. If ideas about women change because of this project, then women will have the chance to join in local community activities and share their ideas in activities like meetings.

 Effect on Children:
So far, all the school aged children are attending their local primary schools mostly are because the government's compulsory free education system. But for a lot of children (aged over 10) who are able of helping their parents to accomplish the housework or help them whenever they needed help, especially the time when the parents are busying with collecting the fuel on the top of the mountains or looking for the mushroom during the daytime. The children are really in need to guide their homes, feed their domestic animals and cook for their families. So, at least one child in one family is driven out of school in the age of around 10 to 15. For the little children who are still in the local primary schools, they usually can't have their own leisure neither to do the school works nor to play with their companions after class, but instead they are in charge of washing the dishes, feeding the animals and cooking food because their parents are no longer in free to do all those housework. As a result, their school accomplishments are rather poor and still getting influences because of they are involved in this task of helping their families as young children start learning in schools.

 Project Plan:

1. Call village leader, the three natural village leaders and some other villagers (both men and women) to gather necessary information for my project proposal. (Already done)
2. Write project proposal. (Already done)
3. Call the solar cooker factory that is located in Kangding of Sichuan Province (because of the reason that I couldn't find a factory throughout my area that sells the same quality solar cooker that my classmates are purchasing in Xining . So I found this factory in Kangding the nearest one to my place and it's the first Tibetans running solar cooker factory, which the leader and the workers are all Tibetans). I have visited the factory and the leader of the factory, which takes two and a half days of journey to my place. We had an agreement the factory will send a truck with 80 cookers to my place in 2 days with adding 75 rmb as the transportation fee into the price of each solar cooker that I'll purchase and the fee which the truck need on its way back to the factory. Gongbo(Derek) the leader of the factory had remarked that I should at least buy 80 cookers in order for him to send a truck with the cookers to my place and back to his factory depend on the distance and an appreciative account for his business. Otherwise, I should rent a truck myself, which means require more money but fewer cookers. (Already done)
4. Once the funding is secured, go to the factory on the way to my home during the summer holiday of this year.
5. Once I get home with the cookers, hold a meeting with the village leader and the three natural village leaders as well, and then start managing the project immediately. Collect the local contribution during the process of distributing the cookers to the villagers, whom are from the four natural villages.
6. In not more than three days, the solar cookers will be in use in all of the natural villages
7. Complete the project. Show the villagers how to use and care for their solar cookers.
8. Interview the villagers (women, men and children) and gather information about the effectiveness of the solar cookers.
9. Take some pictures (the mountains, the flood's hole, the forests and the solar cookers).
10. Write final report.
11. Send final report with all pictures and receipts.

Time frame:
To implement this project, I will need 10 days : it will take 3 days for me to get to the cooker factory by train and bus from my school, and then I'll purchase the cookers there and take them with me to my place in 3 days. Then hold a meeting for 2 day to distribute the solar cookers and about the rules of solar cooker. For example, if one of the recipients sells the solar cooker, then he/she will be punished by paying 235 rmb , which costs one solar cooker, and for its transportation. From then, the villagers will need 2 days to set up the solar cookers.

Detailed Budget:

Sustainability:
This project is very sustainable, because it protects the trees and the environment. The solar cookers are being purchased from a good company in Kangding of Sichuan province, since there are no companies that sell solar cookers (the same price and quality as my classmates are purchasing) in my county town, prefecture town and Kunming , the capital city of my province. Derek (the leader of the company) reported that the cookers' equipments are purchased from Chengdu (the capital city of Sichuan province) and said they are in very good quality, which will last for a minimum of 5 years, and the villagers will be responsible for all the repairing of the cookers once they run into any kinds of problem.

Governmental support:
On May 7th 2006, Gelsang Lhamu (Betty), the project manager, called the village leader, Agao who is the officer worker of our village government, and the other natural village leaders in the other four natural villages, and then explained the project in detail to them. The leader (Agao) responded that solar cookers were items that villagers needed to protect themselves from environmental disasters such as floods. He also said that their use would be very beneficial to the surrounding forests. Moreover, he hoped that I could try my best to get the project funded, and bring a higher standard of living to the villagers. The local government agrees with my project in its entirety.

Map of Deqing County