Projects

This project is to financially support buying 84 solar water heaters for three villages to use as a beneficial water heating tools, which can protect the endangered forests and the rich biodiversities along Mekong River and lead to a safer environment for the project beneficiaries of over 580 people.

Funds needed: $18,504(126,840 rmb)

Gelsang Lhamu is from Chalitong Village, Yunlin Township, Deqin County, Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, and PRC. She is a newly graduated college alumna who majored in English and Tibetan for four and a half years in English Training Program of Qinghai Normal University. Recently, she started undertaking her new job as an office manager in an Eco-tourism Company in Shangri-la, Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, and PRC.

Project location

The project will be located in three Natural Tibetan villages (Yongren, Yangza, and Yongjiu), which are officially in Yunlin Township, Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, and Southern Yunnan Province. This area is characterized by extraordinary topographic extremes-ranging from arid canyons to snow-capped peaks-that have led to the region’s significant biodiversity. The collection of fuel wood, the No. 1 energy source, is denuding forests and eroding soil at alarming rates. There is almost a two hour drive to the county town, Deqin, an 8 hour drive to the prefecture town, Diqing.

Population
Yunlin Township has 927.7 square meters of space. Its population of 5,700 is mainly groups of Tibetan agricultural villages ranging along Langcang (Mekong) River. Within this project, three villages would be the targeted groups. The beneficiaries: the total number of households is 84 and the total population is estimated as 584, including 183 children under age fifteen, and 192 male and 209 females.

Education
Within the 584 total populations, 70 percent are illiterate with women accounting for 50 percent and men 20 percent. In all the past years, most parents had difficulties affording tuition fees when their children started going to middle school in the county town or the prefecture city. It used to cost them more than 1,000 rmb per year. All the 39 school-aged children in the villages attend the primary school on account of the government’s newly enacted law, “Nine year compulsory education,” which means the government provides free education for all the children till they leave their middle school. Parents these days still need to pay for many school-related services, such as food, insurance and class money (a small amount of money which is collected from everyone in a class, usually 100 rmb, to spend on class activities like picnics). In total, one school semester costs parents between 1000 and 1200 rmb. However, parents usually keep their children at home in order to help them during busy work times or as an assistant for them for complex and great quantities of farm work in the fields (plowing, seeding, weeding and harvesting all year around). This is especially common during times when families collect a special kind of mushroom to sell and when they need to collect fuel in the mountains. As a result, some of the children are kept at home to do the house works for the busy times and some are not sent back to school again. People traditionally believe that girls can be better assistants to their parents. At the present time, (Yongren, Yangza, and Yongjiu) those three villages only have 1 college attendee and three secondary school graduates (2 girls and 1 boy), 4 high school attendee (three boys and one girl) and over 7 middle school children (3 boys and 4 girls). According to local government statistics, school enrollment in Yunlin Township lags far behind than the other places in Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.

Cash income
Due to the environmental conditions (the villages are surrounded by big mountains covered with a lot of trees), the targeted villagers (Yongren, Yanza and Yongjiu) only own a little land on the mountain range, the smallest is 0.9 mu that is true to the majority of the families, this 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, villagers go up to the mountain forests, collecting a special kind of mushroom during three months periods from July to October each year. In years past, the villagers could find more than 10 kg of mushroom in a day, and sell them in the small market at night that is near the village. At this time 1 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 source. In order to find more mushrooms, people now dig big holes, sweeping away the important surface of the earth in the forests. Last year, the average amount people earned was 500 rmb, however previously, every family could earn more than 3,000 rmb in the same time period.

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 1,300 rmb.

Villagers could barely support themselves all around the year as they can barely depend on the little land they have, therefore, extra money is needed to purchase barley, meat, wheat and rice. This costs each family at least 1000 rmb per year. On average, each family has to spend more than 600 rmb on everyday expenses per year, as well as at least 15 rmb per month for electricity. In total, families have to spend around 2,500 rmb per year, as well as keeping 1,000 rmb aside for emergencies. For families with high school and college students, 8,000 rmb is required 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 Yunlin Rural mountain areas: corn, wheat, potatoes and many kinds of vegetables are harvested within one year. A rich family owns 6 mu of fields, and the low income families own 0.9 mu of land. On average each family owns 2.2 mu of arable land. Every family harvests around 1000 kg of wheat and corn each year with the two-harvests.

Herding
Yongren, Yanza and Yongjiu 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 over 50 domestic animals can earn 1000 rmb per year from selling butter, cheese, and meat. Poor families have no such cash income. Usually, the sheep and cattle are left to remaining elders and children herd these animals during spring, summer and autumn time.

Weather
The weather in those three natural mountain villages (Yongren, Yanza and Yongjiu) is rather warm in all season, though rain is common in spring and summer. Raining weather is ideal for crops and forest mushrooms, but does significant harm to the mountain’s barren land, where people have cut all the trees. Frequently flood rushes create a rather dangerous environment for the villagers.

Project goals and benefits
The immediate goal of this project is to financially support buying 84 solar water heaters for three villages to use as a beneficial water heating tools, which can lead to a safer environment for the project beneficiaries of over 580 people. The overarching goal of this project is to protect the endangered forests and the rich biodiversities along Mekong River.

Problems

The collection of fire wood is denuding the forest at alarming rate.
In the mountain villages of Yunlin Township, the collection of fuel wood, the No. 1 energy source, is denuding forests and eroding soil at alarming rates. At the current rate of consumption, researchers of The Nature Conservancy Fund have predicted that the forest cover of oak, pine, fir and spruce will be gone in 40 to 50 years. 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 (usually the parents) 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 as much wood as they can.

Collecting wood causes a major threat to the mountain biodiversities
Each household in Yunling Township collects and burns almost 11 cords of fuel wood per year - just one cord would fill a large pickup truck bed.
Collecting wood is a major threat to biodiversity, when the forests disappear, so do plants and animals that live on the land or in nearby rivers. The weather is warm and rainy effectively all year around, especially during the summer season. 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 villages, eroding all the earth with it and making deeper channels every time it rains. The damage being done has recently intensified, and the holes are getting larger and deeper, the holes look like a huge dragon that is sleeping among the mountain on top of villages. 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. As of last year, one family house in Yanza Village was significantly damaged by flood, as well as fields and other family related properties (vegetable fields) were damaged in certain levels in all three villages.

Women lack spare time for attending social community works
Females throughout the Yunlin Area complete all housework; including tasks like 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, so they do not have access to a basic power share in their families.

Wood burning custom threatens villagers’ health base
Indoor air pollution from constant wood burning leads to respiratory health problems and disease. Compared to cooking with a wood burning fire, solar water heaters are totally green products.

Heavy workload is involving in wood collecting task
for two or more weeks 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 ( in Chinese means 索道. Flying-fox is a thick wire cables across a big mountain from the top to the foot, where the village is‘ located, it’s a kind of flying fox without a box attached, used to transport the wood collected in the mountain top to the foot, where the loading site is located). This process of carting 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.

Responsibilities are put on the school children’s shoulder from the family
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.

Life is at danger through the process of wood transporting
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.

Wood causes much damage and hard work as a main fuel
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.

Access to the outside world is restricted; soil erosion blocked the road
Every year, during the rainy season the road leading to the county is covered by mud flooding from the top of the mountain. As a result, the transportation system becomes totally unavailable. In this situation, the villagers can’t reach the county town even in urgent times such as the start of school or sudden accidents or sickness to anyone in the Village.

Benefits of project
solar water heaters are an alternative free energy to use, which will reduce fuel wood needs at least 60 to 80 percent.

Solar Water Heater is a proven, simple, low technology without any negative feedback; and they are workable, doable strategy to reduce their life threats from the natural disaster.

Village women gain more leisure and their health is less threatened, because solar water heaters could reduce the wood burnt as well the smoke that brings disease.

The unbelievable heavy workload of the villagers would be reduced aggressively. And they 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.

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 water heaters will provide time for the school children to enjoy their own interests after school instead of doing labor 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. And this task of risking their lives to use the flying-fox could be deleted. Consequently, people’s living conditions will improve.

Solar water heaters are an updated 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. Overall, it fulfills the villagers’ need of hot water everyday.

Gender Equality
There has been a clear division of gender buried in people’s mind since I was a little girl, families celebrate sons’ birth but not daughters as I myself had experience to be born as a second daughter in my family. People (including male and female) have highly valued and impressed of my second success of development project. And all the nearby villages have come and showed me their passion for the solar water heaters, which they could never afford by themselves. Therefore, here I am to complete another proposal to help them fulfill their dreams.

Traditionally, people have stereotypes of believing girls are less useful than boys, as in the case of education, more boys are sent to school. Girls are better at doing housework and helping their parents when they are busy. I’m currently the second college girl in my village, and the second woman ever to go to college. There are some male college students who have already graduated. The majority of the girls become victims of arranged marriages and the burdens that come in their youth. During the wood collecting season while some children are kept at home to finish housework tasks, both of their parents are equally involved in wood colleting tasks and the conveying process. Besides, the majority of the women owe a certain time to prepare the dinner afterward and accomplish the family indoor tasks, including all the house works.

Project Plan
1) Several short interviews with the villagers were held and contacted the Village Government worker, Acheng, gathered necessary information for my project proposal. (Already done)

2) Write project proposal. (Already done)

3) Contacted the Solar Water Heaters Company locates in Diqing Shangri-la Prefecture city that I have purchased in my last project and knew well of the leader. We had made an agreement upon the price. (Already done)

4) Once the funding is secured, go back to the project location and hold a meeting, meanwhile the local contribution is collected.

5) Get back to the prefecture and start the purchasing.

6) The solar water heaters will arrive at the project location and installed within one week.

7) Complete the project. Show the villagers how to use and care for their heaters, meanwhile interviewing them (male, female and children).

9) Pictures are taken meanwhile (the mountains, the flood’s hole, the forests and the solar water heaters).

10) Write final report.

11) Send final report with all pictures and receipts.

Time frame
this project will take a total of more than 13 days to finish the whole process: Once the funding is secured, it will take one day to visit the solar water heating company to prepare the materials and loading the heaters to truck. By the next day, we will start the journey to Yunlin Township targeted villages, and arrive there by the twilight. The distribution to Yangza, Yongzen and Yongjiu three natural villages should take one day to finish. And the installation of the heaters to every family takes more than 10 days to finish.
Detailed Budget

Item	Price per item in rmb	Number of items	Donor contribu tion in rmb	Shem women’s Group in rmb	Local contribu tion in rmb	Total Cost in rmb
Solar water heaters	2,210	84	126,840		58,800	185,640
Management Expenses (Phone calls, photocopies, developing photos)					300	300
Management payment				500		500
Total			126,840	500	59,100	186,440

 

Total amount requested from donor: 126,840 rmb

Sustainability
this project retains the rich forest and the living creatures among those topographies. Apart from those two facts, the heaters are being purchased from a well known Han Zhou Solar Power Company in my prefecture, where I have purchased 34 of the heaters in my last project. The company will be responsible for the installation and the repair tasks for one year; all the damages or problems occur afterwards will be solved by the villagers.

Reference information
Since July 2007, I have successfully implemented two small scale development projects mainly to protect the damaged mountain forests as well to prove the rural Tibetan villagers’ life in Yunlin Areas. The total beneficiaries are more than 700. Among them, 510 residents have received solar cookers to cook for their animals, which have been reducing their burning of forest wood as their No. 1 energy fuel. Another 210 people have received solar water heaters to achieve the same aim, i.e., to protect the mountain’s rich heritage of plants and animals in Yunlin areas and, in the long term, to make people’s life better. However, groups of villagers, who scattered among the Mekong River through the mountain range, were not included as the beneficiaries in the first two projects. These villagers have come and showed me their great passion for solar water heaters. They asked me passionately to get them water heaters as I have done to my own villagers, therefore, here I am, to write another solar water heaters proposal, to try my best to bring them heaters, which they could never afford themselves. My pervious projects were funded by Shambala Connection and the Australian Embassy in July, 2007 and February, 2008.

Governmental support
on 19th, April 2008, Yunling Governmental worker, Aching contacted me by phone. He represented the government and asked me to submit a new proposal to the donors for more solar water heaters for more villages, since they barely succeed to help the villagers as they have always wanted to. He stated through the phone, “Solar water heaters are the exact items our villagers have been yearning for over decades and never could afford themselves. The environment’s condition has only been damaged worse and villagers’ life condition stays in the same step, solar water heaters could save the trees, free of charge, and bring the villagers to climb further to a better, more convenient life as well as undisturbed by natural disasters such as flooding.”

Map of Deqin County

Deqin is my county and belongs to Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan Province.

Pictures taken in the project site

Mountain with little trees on the surface.

Mountain with a few trees surrounding the village houses.

Rocky Mountains along Mekong River.

Flood hole right through the village, cutting through the middle of the fields and houses.

The flood hole cut through the village water canal and stopped half of the villagers’ water source.

The depth of flood hole.

Fields collapsed by rain damage.