Project Manager: Yeshay Drolma (Rachel)
relieve women and girls of their time-consuming work burdens. With a running water system, more children, especially girls will be able to attend school. Similarly, local villagers may work less hard and improve their personal hygiene and health.
Funds needed: $13,750(96,093 rmb)
Yeshay Drolma is from Ganzi Township, Ganzi County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, and China. She is currently working towards an Associates degree in English at the Qinghai Normal University Nationalities Department English Training Program.
Project Location
Sitong Da Village is about 85 kilometers from Ganzi county town in the southeast of Ganzi Prefecture, Sichuan Province, China. There are several other villages near Sitong Da Village. All the people in this area are Tibetan.
Population
There are approximately 767 people in Sitong Da Village. The residents consist of 305 women, 328 men, and 134 children. There are 113 households in Sitong Da Village.
Education
In Sitong Da Village, twenty percent of the people are literate (not including students). Eighteen out of this twenty percent of literate villagers are older men. These men were taught by their monk relatives how to read and write Tibetan when they were children. The other two percent of literate villagers are young girls and boys who went to primary school for two or three years, but then stopped their education to work at home. In Sitong Da village, there are two people who graduated from Ganzi County National Normal School (甘孜县师范学校) in 1999 (now changed into Kambei National High School (康北民族高级高中). These graduates are now working as teachers at the primary school, which is near Sitong Da Village. There are no boys or girls in middle school in Ganzi County Township. There are 63 primary school students (27 girls and 36 boys) in Donggu Primary School, which is located 1 km from Sitong Da Village. There are 98 school-aged children (57 girls and 41 boys), and 36 children too young for school (19 girls and 17 boys) in Sitong Da Village. In total, 63 children total go to school (27 girls and 36 boys), and 71 children total do not go to school (49 girls and 22 boys).
Some families have more than one child going to the primary school, while other families do not send their children to school at all. The level of education for a child depends on a family’s financial condition and how many workers there are in the family.
There are six grades at the primary school, but the fifth and sixth grades are vacant because there are no students who continue to study after they attend school for the first two or three years. Many village families do not take education seriously, with children attending irregularly and feeling little motivation to go. The most significant problem of school attendance is that when children reach a certain age, their parents expect them to stay home to help the family do housework. Usually, girls stay home to do housework and field work, while boys go to work somewhere outside of the home, such as taking a job at a building site. Most families do not think that allowing their children to receive an education will improve their job prospects, so they place little value on education. There are no college students from Sitong Da village yet.
Cash Income
All of the villagers in Sitong Da Village are farmers who grow barley, peas and little potatoes in their fields. Wealthy families own six mu (1mu = 0.0666 hectares) of land, but most of the families in the village own only two mu of land. With so little crops, few families sell their barley, resorting to this only when necessary. If absolutely necessary, village families can sell about 200 kilograms of barley saved from the total amount of the barley they produce. Similarly, most families sell their peas only when they are short of money, earning about 400 RMB each year.
On average, each family in the village owns two yaks. The villagers produce butter and cheese from the female yak’s milk, but only enough for their own family’s consumption. The villagers’ main staple foods are barley, butter and cheese. There is no extra butter and cheese left for villagers to sell to make money. Only the poorest families attempt to save butter and cheese from their own consumption to sell for extra income. Most of these families can save 7.5-10 kilograms of butter and 15.5-15 kilograms of cheese per year. This cheese and butter can earn the villagers about 400 RMB.
The greatest source of cash income for all of the families in the village is digging caterpillar fungus, a kind of herbal medicine found growing wild on the mountains. The caterpillar fungi are very difficult to find and the place where they are dug is very far from the village (about 300 km), so the diggers have to leave home for almost three months. When villagers go away to dig, there are only old people and children left in the village. People usually go to dig the fungus at the beginning of May and return home at the end of June. Each caterpillar fungus can sell for around 9 RMB. The caterpillar fungus dug by these villagers is not as big or as good quality as the caterpillar fungus in other place such as Guoluo and Yushu prefectures, so the price of each caterpillar fungus is much lower than others. In one season, each person digging can earn about 2000 RMB. However, due to an increased number of Han people digging the caterpillar fungus, the numbers of fungi are going down and income is decreasing.
All the money earned from caterpillar fungus is spent on family costs, such as New Year Festivities and house renovations. In one year, people spend about 1000 - 1500 RMB on food and 200 - 500 RMB on clothes. In one month a household will spend about 50 - 70 RMB on electricity and other essentials.
In total, the average family makes 3000 RMB in cash income per year, and spends 2800 RMB per year. This leaves 200 RMB left over each year. If the family has students who are going to middle school in Ganzi County Town, or someone in the family gets sick, then money becomes a large problem. To afford tuition and medical costs, village families must borrow money, and return the money after they dig the caterpillar fungus the next year. There are around 27 households in Sitong Da Village that have to borrow money (100-1,000 RMB). Money is especially limited when a household is rebuilding their house.
Agriculture
In Sitong Da Village, each family has approximately two mu of land. The main crops grown are barley, peas, and potatoes. One mu of agricultural land can produce around 400 kilograms of barley or peas. This amount of barley can only support the individual household. Villagers only sell their barley when it has been an especially prosperous harvest or when they are short of money. Villagers usually sell their peas, earning about 600 - 700 RMB per year.
Herding
All of the villagers of Sitong Da Village are farmers, and each family has an average of two yaks. Most of the yaks are female yaks and are used to produce butter and cheese from the yak milk. The few male yaks are used for working in the fields. As butter and cheese are the villagers’ main foods, there is no extra butter and cheese to sell and make money. If villagers really need to sell butter and cheese to earn money, then they have to reduce their everyday consumption. They can earn about 400 RMB per year, depending on how much butter and cheese a family can save. If a family is able to save any butter and cheese to sell, this money is used to buy everyday essentials such as tea and salt, and for medical expenses.
Problems
1 Health problems
The water the villagers use for drinking is fetched from the river. The river is turbid all the time, especially during the summer due to the summer storms. During the summer the river practically turns into mud and the villagers have to rest the water in the pails for about 1 hour to make it drinkable. The river is also polluted by the people who live further upstream and use the water for bathing, washing clothes, and throwing their rubbish into. The river is the only source of village washing water.
Drinking the unclean muddy water every day, many villagers have gotten stomachaches, with some suffering from dysentery. It’s very difficult for villagers to completely heal from this kind of illness, so it becomes a major problem. A woman who has dysentery cannot complete the housework and childcare, nor can she perform income-generating work. Men with dysentery cannot work productively, reducing their income and increasing their wives’ burden. Due to the difficult nature of carrying water, villagers use their water very sparingly. This desire to save water affects levels of health and hygiene in the village, as families do not wash their clothes or houses often. Villagers change their clothes only once a month, and rarely wash the mop, even when it has washed the floor two or three times. Vegetables and other foodstuffs are rarely washed.
Carrying water on their backs and shoulders many times every day, many village women and girls suffer back problems or become hunchbacked. Fetching water is especially harmful for the growing children who have their development affected by carrying heavy loads.
2 Health impacts on entire household
Although there is a small river flowing by the mountain, it is very difficult for the villagers to fetch water, especially the people who live on the upper mountain. Villagers must fetch water in buckets from the river and then walk almost 1.5 kilometers on the treacherous mountain paths back to their homes. Due to the long and torturous path to the mountain which makes the journey difficult, villagers cannot fetch full buckets of water. With their limited carrying capacity, villagers must fetch water 4-5 times each morning.
It is difficult for a woman to fetch water many times each day if she has a health problem. In addition to being difficult, this hard labor may increase her health issues or make the existing ones more serious. With health problems, a woman cannot complete the housework and take care of the family. A woman’s health problems creates a difficult situation where the man in the family must do the housework and take care of the family, leaving no time for him to work on his outside, income-generating work. This causes a family’s income to be reduced and a housewife’s burdens to be increased. In addition, health problems greatly increase medical expenses.
3 Time consuming
The river is about 1.5 kilometers from most of the villagers’ houses, which are located on the upper portion of the mountain. There are two treacherous paths to walk for fetching water. Due to the difficulty of the paths, villagers cannot carry full buckets of water, so they have to fetch water from the river many times (4-5 times) every early morning. Each trip to fetch water takes a minimum of 30 minutes.
4 Impedes the children from getting an education
If a family gets into financial difficulties and cannot improve their living condition because of diseases caused by unclean water and the task of fetching water, the parents will not allow their children to go to school. Instead, children are kept at home to help the elders do housework. Fetching water is one of the most necessary and difficult tasks for a household. Therefore, if there is any adult who is sick or lacking work, children have to help in the house to reduce the family’s burden. Usually the family will send children to go to work and earn money for the family.
5. Dangerous
Fetching water or washing clothes in the river during the flood time is very dangerous. The riverbank is very spongy during flood time, so when the villagers step on it, the bank may suddenly collapse. Also, villagers have to cross the freezing river to fetch water during the winter, which is very dangerous, especially for young children and older villagers.
Benefits
Building a running water system in Sitong Da Village with a tap in every household, will solve many of the village problems:
1. Everyone in the village, including the monks in the Donggu Monastery (located on top of the mountain) and the livestock will not have to drink muddy, polluted water. Instead, the village people will have clean water to drink. The villagers will wash their clothes and houses more often. Vegetables will also be washed with clean water, improving health and hygiene.
Drinking clean water will lead to a reduction in stomachaches and dysentery. This will decrease the social costs of illness, as well as the monetary costs of medical expenses. This excess money can be spent on other useful things.
If the villagers don’t need to fetch water on their backs and shoulders, their bodies will be healthier and suffer less medical issues. The village children will especially benefit from this.
2. If there are not health problems to impede a family member’s normal work, then he or she can produce more. Women can spin and weave or attend more activities if they are healthy and happy. Reduced health problems will also allow men to work outside the home and to earn money without restrictions caused by the housework and the labor of taking care of the sick people in the family. In addition, money that does not need to be spent on medical expenses can be used to improve the family’s condition.
3. A running water system will save lots of time (2-3 hours) for the women and girls of Sitong Da village from the task of fetching water in the morning. This will allow the women to finish their other daily work earlier, such as cleaning the house, washing the clothes, and collecting or drying the dung. Women will get more time to spend on leisure or income-generating tasks, such as weaving, or knitting.
4.If there is no difficulty in fetching water, children are more likely to be able to attend school as they are not needed at home for doing housework or earning money outside the home.
5. The villagers will not need to worry about the spongy riverbank when it floods in summer. Similarly, villagers need not worry about slipping on the frozen river. Children and the elders will especially benefit from this rise in safety levels.
Project Goals
The immediate goal of this project is to build a running water system for 30 House holds in Sitong Da village.
The overarching goal of this project is to relieve women and girls of their time-consuming work burdens. With a running water system, more children, especially girls will be able to attend school. Similarly, local villagers may work less hard and improve their personal hygiene and health.
Solution
The solution of the water project is to connect on section pipe from the water source from the mountain about 1.8km away from the water box. Then connect another section pipe from the water box along the road to the 30 households. All the two sections of pipes will be covered in ditch which the village labors will dig.
Most of the households are in one side of the road and not very spread from each others’ houses along the road. There are eight houses are along on the other side of the road. So when the pipe reached to the village, then divide the water to each houses using smaller pipe.
Beneficiaries
This running water project will benefit both livestock and people in Sitong Da Village and the monks of Donggu Monastery that is approximately 1485 people and 936 livestock. There is currently a water system shared by two villages (Sitong da Village and Gura Village) in Donggu Community and Donggu Monastery, which was built by the government in 2002. Unfortunately, the current water system doesn’t work well, with poor materials creating unclean water, and an inconsistent water supply. In addition, the running water system cannot supply enough water for all the households in Donggu Community and Donggu Monastery. Building a running water system in Sitong Da Village will mitigate the tension over water between the villages in Donggu Community and Donggu Monastery.
Gender equality
This running water project will benefit mostly women and girls in Sitong Da Village because they do most of the housework, including carrying water. Both women and men in Sitong Da Village will participate in this project. Currently, women in the village have a much lower position in the village than men. There are no opportunities or time for women to attend village activities. It is generally thought that men are more knowledgeable than women, so women are expected to spend all their time on household duties. If women have more time freed up by the new water system, then they will have extra time and desire to attend more activities, such as village meetings. This will increase women’s voices in local decisions and allow them to be more aware of news. By allowing both men and women to oversee the water project, gender equality will be encouraged. Accomplishing this project, as a young girl from Donggu Community will show villagers that women who attend school and who gained knowledge are really different than those who didn’t or couldn’t gain an education. This project will help the villagers to see that women are just as capable as men. This project will not only raise women’s status in the village, but also encourage women and girls.
Effect on children
In Sitong Da Village, there are seldom children could attend school or complete from the preparing school cause the lack of labors to do housework for their families. Especially fetching water is one of the most difficult and time- consuming task. Usually, when children reached the age of 14 or 15, they have to go outside to earn money for the families if the family’s life condition is low. The running water project would definitely release the children from their task of fetching water, and avoid from dangers when they fetching water from the river. Moreover, as the running water project could reduce health problems such as hunch, dysentery, or other sickness, a family could spend less money and energy on health care so the children will get more chance to go to school. And the children who are attending school will have more time to spend on their studies and homework after school. They don’t need to fetch water after come back home from school.
Government approval
The government built a running water system in Sitong Da village in 2002, but it is too small to provide for the whole village, and the quality of water is not good. After I discussed this project with the leader of Donggu Community local government, Chun Yong, and the leader of Sitong Da Village, Luorong Pucu, they discussed it with the County Township leader, Bacai, on July 23rd, 2007. All three leaders gave me permission to go forward with this project and helped me to get much important information. The leaders really want this project to be a success because it will be very helpful to many poor local families.
The steps of project
- Talk with the village leader about the community’s most essential needs and how to solve these problems. (Done).
- Ask the village leader to hold a meeting in the village to discuss what their most essential needs are. (Done).
- Collect information for the project from the villagers, village leaders, and local government. (Done).
- Talk to the water conservancy engineers, and discuss with them the needed materials. (Done).
- Invite one of the water conservancy’s engineers to come to the village to inspect the location and construction of the village. Determine the best place to build the new water system. (Done).
- Find contractors and discuss the project with them. (Done).
- Determine the price of materials in Ganzi County. (Done).
- Hold a meeting with the villagers and discuss the division of labor for the project. And ask five villagers, two women and three men to be responsible for the materials, to supervise the condition of the water spring and ditch system. One man will take care of the materials. One woman and one man are in charge of the spring. The other men and woman are responsible for the water ditch. (Done).
Take pictures of current local conditions. Write project proposal. (Done).
Receive funding.
Hold a meeting with the villages to discuss the start date of the project.
Purchase materials, such as sand, stones, cement, and birches from Ganzi County Township. Have the assigned women and men begin overseeing the project construction.
Oversee the participation of the villagers until the project is completed.
After the project is completed, interview the villagers to evaluate the success of the project.
Take pictures of the project after its completion.
Send final report with photos and receipts to donor.
Detailed Budget
*Round trip for the manager to go to the project location from Xining City in Qinghai *Round trip for the manager to go to the project location from Xining City in Qinghai
| Item | Quantity | Unit Price in rmb |
Donor Contri bution in rmb |
Local Contri bution in rmb |
Shem in rmb |
Total cost in rmb |
| Cement | 250bags /50kg |
35/bag | 8,750 | 0 | 0 | 8,750 |
| Plastic Pipe #63 |
2,500kg | 14.5/kg | 36,250 | 0 | 0 | 36,250 |
| Plastic Pipe #40 |
800 kg | 14/kg | 11,200 | 0 | 0 | 11,200 |
| Plastic Pipe #32 |
600 | 14/kg | 8,400 | 0 | 0 | 8,400 |
| Plastic Pipe #25 |
500kg | 14/kg | 7,000 | 0 | 0 | 7,000 |
| Valves | 5 | 70 | 350 | 0 | 0 | 350 |
| Connections #63, #40, #32, #25 |
#63/660/piece #40/212/piece #32/160/piece #25/95/piece |
3 /piece 4/piece 2/piece 3/piece |
1980 848 320 285 |
0 | 0 | 3,433 |
| Iron wire | 200kg | 3.5 | 700 | 0 | 0 | 700 |
| Material transportation fee |
4trucks | 900/truck (from Ganzi County-Sito ng Da village) |
3,600 | 0 | 3,600 | |
| Iron bar #16, #6.5 |
1ton | 3,800/ton | 3,800 | 0 | 0 | 3,800 |
| Black plastic Pipe |
90m | 7/m | 630 | 0 | 0 | 630 |
| Stone and sand |
90m3 | 27/m3 | 0 | 2,430 | 0 | 2,430 |
| Cement bricks |
2,000 | 4/piece | 8,000 | 8,000 | ||
| Unskilled Labor |
50people/ 50days |
35/person /day |
0 | 87,500 | 0 | 87,500 |
| Skilled Labor |
2workers/ 15days |
100/person /day |
3,000 | 0 | 0 | 3,000 |
| Tap | 30 | 10 | 0 | 300 | 0 | 300 |
| Project management expenses |
*980 | *980 | 0 | 1,960 | ||
| Project management payment |
0 | 0 | 500 | 500 | ||
| Total | 96,093 | 91,210 | 500 | 187,803 |
Province to Sitong Da Village in Sichuan Province for designing project and for getting information by trains, busses, staying in hotels and other expenses.
Donor contribution： 96,093 rmb
Local Contribution: 91,210rmb
Shem Women’s Group: 500 rmb
Total cost: 187,803 rmb
*Here I want to emphasize that the price for each material is not very certain nowadays. The market price for same material is very different in different places and it is unstably appreciating each time. Even the sellers are not sure what the price will be next time. So it is very difficult for me to find out a very certain expense for the project but I tried my best to figure out a credible budget.
Sustainability
Villagers will be shown their household’s tap and switch and will be advised on the proper use and care. The villagers will constitute a care taking committee lead by the village leader and the five local villagers who implementing the project after the project is implemented. They will remain sustainable and monitor the completed project using the collected funds. In addition, each household will offer one laborer whenever needed the material suppliers have guaranteed a return policy that they will make repairs and return or exchange faulty parts if needed during the first 5 years of using.
Past experience
On July 2006, during the summer holiday, Yeshay Drolma had two weeks of English teaching for the local students in Xunhua Tibetan Middle School, Xunhua County, Haidong Region, Qinghai province with other 14 Tibetan students and 15 foreign students which was organized by the Global Root.
In the same year, from September1st, she had been working for Trace Foundation as an English teacher in Xunhua Tibetan Middle School, Xunhua County, Haidong Region, Qinghai province. She worked there as an English teacher for three junior classes for a whole semester which was about five months. .
The photos of the project
This is the old reservoir, which was built in 2002 by the local government.
This is the one side of Sitong Da Village, which is located on the mountain and the small river is flowing by the mountain.
The housewife came down to the river to wash the vegetables.
The woman is carrying two buckets of water after her task in the field finished.
The river is relatively clean in the late afternoon.
The river is turbid all the time, especially during the summer due to the summer storms.
The old housewife is cleaning the house and the furniture with dirty water.
The map of the project location
