Project Manager: Tashi Hlamo (Charlene)
To build a running water system for Walo Village and Yajiong Village, in order to supply clean water for Walo and Yajiong Villages to reduce the villager’s burden, and increase enrollment of school children and improve their living condition.
Funds needed: $9, 358(64,055.5rmb )
Tashi Hlamo is from Jialaxi Township, Xinlong County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous prefecture, Sichuan province. She graduated from Qinghai Normal University Nationalities Department English Training Program in December 2007, and she is currently working in Shem women’s Group in Xining City, Qinghai Province.
Project Location
The project is located in Walo Village and Yajiong Village. Walo village is about1 km away from Yajiong Village and they are on the same mountain slope, and both villages are in Jialaxi Township, Xinlong (Nyarong) County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province. These two villages are about 18 km from Xinlong county town, this is about 700 km from Chengdu City, the capital of Sichuan Province.
Back ground
The project is located in a very rural township which is called Jialaxi Township. There are about 35 villages in Jialaxi Township; about 7 villages are located at foot of the mountains and other 28 villages are perched seperately on high mountain slopes. There is no road, even for motorcycles, for the villages on the mountain slope. There is a hand tractor road for only Walo Village and another village called Gere and the other villages on the mountain slopes don’t have traffic road. Therefore, the villagers have to carry every thing on their backs to transport goods (e.g. crops, water, supplies) to their homes.
Also the land on the mountain slopes is not arable to grow barley and wheat well. The villagers can not grow vegetables on their unfertilized field lands without water. The villagers have difficulties with water and electricity. In the Jialaxi Township, the biggest village has 17 households and the smallest village only has three to four households. According the education level of Jialaxi Township, there were only six people who received government jobs in the whole township. Only about 40 children are going to school among 480 children in the Township. Most parents keep their children at home so they can help do works such as herding and fetching water. Some villages are very far away from the school and their children can not get to school on time and they can not return home before dark.
Population
Nine households made up Walo Village and two households made up Yajiong Village. There are 69 people in the Walo Village and Yajiong Village, and among these people there are 25 men, 21 women and 23 children.
Education
Among the 69 people in Walo Village and Yajiong Village 57 people are illiterate and only 12 people are can read and write. These 12 literate people in the village are 11 monks and 1 college graduate. There are 16 school-aged children in Walo Village and Yajiong Village, but only 4 children are going to Yinlong Primary school and the other 12 children stay at their home to help their parents herding livestock and fetching water. No one in either village has an official job. Some parents of the villages also say that nowadays it is difficult for the children to get an official job and to send their children to school it just wastes their children’s lives and family’s money. Some parents cannot deal with outside and indoor works such as fetching water, herding livestock and chores at their homes, without their children’s help. Therefore the children have no time to go to school and they have to help their parents to fetch water and herd livestock.
Cash Income
Walo Village and Yajiong Village are farming villages. Both villages are perched on a slope of a mountain separately. On average each household has 10 acres of land.
The other 7 villages who are living at foot of the mountains (in valley), where the land is very good and each acre of land can produces about 200-300 jin (1jin=o.5kg) of barley. But Walo Village and Yajiong Village are very different from the villages at mountain foot and each acre of land can only produce about 80 jin of crop. Because Walo Village and Yajiong Village are perched on a mountain slope, the land is not as arable as the land in the valley. The villagers can not grow vegetables on their unfertilized land without water. In the villages each household can produce about 500 jin of barley, 300jin of wheat,150 jin potatoes and 100 jins of beans for per year from their land and that is not enough for them to survive for a whole year. So they have to buy barley from Ganzi county town for every year and l00 jin of barley cost 130 rmb in Ganzi county town.
Four years ago, the villagers had three ways to get cash income; one way was to sell lumber to other cities, another way was to dig caterpillar fungus and sell them out and the third was that the villagers went out to do construction work to earn money. At that time, the villagers survived well by those three ways.
However, two years ago, Xinlong government enacted a policy “No cutting trees” and the villagers no longer can cut trees for earning cash. Therefore now the villagers have only two ways to earn cash income.
One way is that the villagers dig caterpillar fungus (medicinal herb) and each caterpillar fungus costs about 12 rmb. In total each family can earn about 3,000 rmb from digging caterpillar fungus. Another way to earn cash income is that villagers go out to do construction work in summer and spring. A man can earn 35 rmb and a woman can earn 30 rmb per day from construction work. On average each household can earn about 1,500 rmb per year from construction work. On average, each family can earn about 4,500 rmb in one year. Each family spends at least 6,000 rmb for their clothes, food,, medicine, and the celebrations such as New Year. Sometimes the villagers have no money to celebrate New Year and they have to borrow some money from other people for the New Year’s celebration and could not pay the debt back until they earn cash from digging caterpillar fungus.
Agriculture
Both Walo Village and Yajiong are agricultural villages, and the villagers grow barley, wheat and potatoes. Each household average has about 10 acres of field land. The fields are on the mountain slope and they are terrace fields. They can not grow vegetables without water in their fields, and the fields can not produce the barley well in that village on the mountain slope because of dried land.
Herding
Walo Village and Yajiong Village are farming village and they also have some live stock. On average each household has 5 cows, 2 female yaks and 1 bull. Each household can produce about 30 to 40 jin butter from their milk cows and milk yaks. People in the village just keep the butter for themselves to eat and they don’t sell it out.
Weather
In the villages the altitude is about 3080 meters above the sea level and the climate is very changeable there. Especially in recent years there were few rains in the summer, thus their barley and wheat can not grow well. The villagers can never grow vegetables in their field.
In the winter it is very cold. Sometimes it snows heavily and the road which the villagers use for fetching water is covered by snow. Therefore it is very dangerous for the village women and children to fetch water and they sometimes slip on the snow with their water buckets. Instead of risking the dangerous snow-covered roads village women and children collect snow and melt them into pots for cooking and washing..
Project goals
The immediate goal of the project is to build a running water system for Walo Village and Yajiong Village, in Jialaxi Township, Xinlong County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan province.
The overarching goal of the project is to supply clean water for Walo and Yajiong Villages to reduce the villager’s burden, increase enrollment of school children and improve their living condition.
Beneficiaries
This project will directly benefit 56 people from Walo Village and 13 people from Yajiong Village. In total 69 people will get benefit from the project.
Problems
1. No water to drink
In May and June, the villages’ young people and children go far places to dig caterpillar fungus and they can not return homes until 7 or 8 days from the mountain or high altitude grassland where they dig caterpillar fungus. So they have to stay on the mountains. At that time, only older people and small children stay at home for those 4 or 5 months. They can not fetch water and drink water without the young people’s help. So every two and three days the young people who go to dig caterpillar fungus have to come back home to save water for the older people. The digging caterpillar fungus is their main income and time for digging caterpillar fungus is very important. .
2. Time consuming
The distance between the villages and the water source is about 1.5 kilometers. Fetching water is customarily women and children’s work in the whole Jialaxi Township. Therefore, when the women and children of the village go to fetch water it takes at least one and half hour for one time. If a family invites some monks to chat in its home then one of the family members has to spend her or his whole day to fetch water. Some times one person can not catch up fetching water for the monks’ and the family members’ drinking and two people should fetch water for the family. The children have no time to go to school and the women have no time to do other works like weaving and spinning.
3. Dangerous path for fetching water
The path which the villagers use for fetching water is located on a mountain slope. Its sharp zigzag turns makes it very hard to fetch water. (You can see the picture on the last page) Especially in winter, the path becomes covered with thick snow and it fetching water becomes a more difficult task for the village children and women. Sometimes they cannot see the path clearly and they lose their way. Sometimes they slip on the snowy road with their water buckets and the water buckets break. Two years ago, Songlong Qingcuo fell on the fetching water path and her water bucket rolled down to a valley. At that time some other village people were herding in the valley and they thought a tree log was rolling down to them and they ran once when they heard the sound and it scared them badly; luckily no one got hurt.
4. Health problems
The distance from Walo and Yajiong Village to the water source is very long as I mentioned above. Therefore the village women always have to carry water buckets on their backs for long time, which leads to back problems. . The location of the water source is a windy and cold valley. The women and children often get colds again and again from fetching water in winter. They think that medicines can cure their colds and they always eat medicines, but the medicines can not help them a lot because they always have to go to the windy place. Last year in winter, one woman from Yajiong Village went to fetch water two weeks after she gave birth to a child. Then her breasts got swollen from the fetching water and she could not nurse her child well. Finally she went to see a doctor and the doctor said that she must not fetch water in cold, windy conditions.
5 Increased deaths of baby cows
At end of winter and spring, two- year -old calves can not get water to drink. Because the water is at least 1.5 km far from the villages and the calves are not able to go far from the pastures to drink water as other livestock go. Fetching water for the livestock is a hard task. Therefore two- year- old baby cows slowly died from thirst. Sometimes in spring, the villages ask the neighbor villages that have water in their yard to raise their calves until they get old enough.
6 No vegetables
The villagers can not grow vegetables in their field land without water even in summer because the land is not fertilized and it is dry. The villagers buy vegetables from Xinlong county town and they seldom can eat vegetables. Sometimes the villagers are even not able to get enough water for themselves to drink, so getting water for vegetables is just an impossible thing.
7 Poor hygiene
The villagers are not able to get water for washing their clothes and bodies because of the long distance from the villages to the water. In their minds, they are grateful to get enough water for people to drink; to get water for washing clothes is just kind of dream because it is really so hard for them to get water from the far-away water source. Some villagers don’t wash their heads and clothes for more than one month, and some older people don’t wash their bodies for years. Therefore sometimes their clothes have bad odors and they are very dirty. When they want to wash their clothes then they have to carry their clothes to the water source in the valley to wash them. Sometimes in winter time, women and children wash their heads in the valley even though the water is for the villagers to drink.
8 Poor living conditions
The village women have to do house chores like fetch water and also field work. Especially fetching water takes most of their time. The works which I mentioned above always hold the women back from doing other outside works and they don’t have time to go out of the village to look for extra work to earn money. They also don’t have time to do spinning and weaving at their homes to earn cash. In winter time, the children and women get colds again and again from the fetching water in windy places, as I mentioned before. Therefore they need to take medicine and each family might spend at least150 rmb during winter just for medicine.
9 Few children go to school
Fetching water is women’s and children’s work in Jialaxi Township. The children’s parents keep them at home and let them fetch water and herd the livestock. Therefore some children have no time to go to school.
Benefits
- If there is water in Walo Village and Yajiong Villages, then the villagers will not need to travel the long distance to fetch water and they can use water as much as they want. Especially during the time of digging caterpillar fungus, the older people and the small children can drink water without young people’s help.
- Fetching water is the villagers’ most difficult work and they spend most of their time fetching water. If the villagers have water in their yards, then the village women and children can save their time to do other things such as weaving and spinning, and they also will have leisure time to rest instead of fetching water.
- The village women and children will not need to go through the dangerous road to fetch water. They will not need to think about the dangerous road any more.
- The children will not get colds again and again as before and they will not need to take as much medicine. The village women will not get backaches, because the water will be near them and they don’t need to carry water buckets on their backs.
- The calves can drink water whenever they want to and they will not die from thirst in the spring. The villagers will have more livestock to produce milk and butter.
- Generally the other villages on the mountain slopes have water, so they can water their vegetables in their yards and they can grow vegetables to eat. If Yajiong Village and Walo villagers also have water, then they cloud grow vegetables in their yards. The villagers will be able to eat vegetables that they grow by themselves.
- The people will be able to wash themselves and their clothes each week. They don’t need to carry their clothes to far places to wash and they can wash their clothes at their homes whenever they want. The people will not get illness from bad hygiene.
- If there is water in front of their houses, the women will not need to spend time fetching water. They can go out to earn money from construction work and they also can do weaving and spinning at their homes. The children and women of the village will no longer need to go to the windy valley to fetch water in winter and they get less colds. Overall the villagers’ living conditions will be improved.
- The parents will not need help from their children to fetch water. Therefore the children will have a chance to go to school.
Gender equality
In Walo Village and Yajiong Village house chores like fetching water and other field works are mainly done by the women; women become very tired from those works.. Therefore if there is water in the village then the women will have less work to do and they can have time for leisure activities or earning extra income.
Formerly in Jialaxi Township, people used to believe that women were powerless and they could not do meaningful things as men did. They also believed that sending girls to school was useless.
However last year in 2007, I did a barrier wall project and a solar panel project for two villages in Jialaxi Township. After that many people changed their ideas toward women and they believed that women could do as men can do and they respected women .Before I did these projects, nobody asked me to do projects such as solar power and water for them. But now many people believe that women also can do important things and they ask me to help write proposals for them. Some people tell my father to ask me to write proposals for them while I am not with my family.
If this project is funded, then in my hometown more and more people will believe that if women get education, men and women have the same ability to do meaningful things. More parents will send their girls to school and they will have high expectations for girls. The girls will also have higher expectations to accomplish more meaningful things.
Project steps
- Discussed with the villagers why the village needs water and collect information for the project. (Done.)
- Visited the water spring and see whether it is big enough. (Done.)
- Discussed the project’s needs with Sangjia (who is more knowledgeable about water project than other people in the villages) and see what kinds of materials we need.( Done)
- Contact the firm’s leader to get specifications and prices for the water pipe. (Done.)
- Asked the local government leader, Banggeng Duoji to get permission to do the project. (Done.)
- Decided what labor the villagers could complete, i.e. digging ditches and burying pipes. (Done.)
- Take pictures for the project.
- Write proposal (Done.)
- Receive funds.
- Have a meeting with the villagers to decide the starting date of the project.
- Buy the water pipe and cement and transport them to the village.
- Dig the ditch and bury the pipe in the ditch.
- Interview the village men, women and children about the project and take photos.
- Write final report.
- Send final report with photos and receipts.
Time frame
(The villagers need 68 days to carry out the project with 30 people for each day)
1 day. Hold a meeting with the villagers to assign them tasks.
7 days: Go to buy the materials in Chengdu and Xinlong county town and transport them to the village.
41 days: to dig ditches.
11 days: to bury the water pipe in the ditches.
7 days: to build three cement boxes.
1 day: hold a meeting with the villagers, interview them, and take pictures of them.
Detailed budget
| Item | Number of Items | Price per item in rmb | Donor Contri bution in rmb |
Local Contri bution in rmb |
Shem Contri bution in rmb |
Total in rmb |
| Cement | 110 bags | 35/bag | 3,850 | 3,850 | ||
| Plastic pipe #50 | 1,550m | 15/m | 23,250 | 23,250 | ||
| Plastic pipe#101 | 200m | 17.6/m | 3,520 | 3,520 | ||
| Plastic pipe#30 | 1,300m | 12.5/m | 16,250 | 16,250 | ||
| Valves#75mm | 1 | 210/each | 210 | 210 | ||
| Valves#50mm | 1 | 155/each | 155 | 155 | ||
| Valves#32mm | 3 | 115/each | 345 | 345 | ||
| Valves#32mm | 9 | 7.5/each | 67.5 | 67.5 | ||
| Iron bar #12 |
450 kg | 7.5/kg | 3,375 | 3,375 | ||
| Iron bar #14 | 250 kg | 7.2/kg | 1,800 | 1,800 | ||
| Iron bar #6.5 |
60 kg | 6.8kg | 408 | 408 | ||
| Bricks | 7,000 | 0.55/brick | 3,850 | 3,850 | ||
| Connections (metal wire, screw)Pipes, spigots,valves connections |
150 kg | 7.5/kg | 1,125 | 1,125 | ||
| Unskilled Workers | 52 days, 30 people | 30/day/person | 46,800 | 46,800 | ||
| Skilled Worker | 7 days, 1 person | 100/day | 700 | 700 | ||
| Sand | 5 tractors | 180/per tractor | 900 | 900 | ||
| Transportaion fee for materials | (From Chengdu to Xinlong) | 3,300 | 3,300 | 3,300 | ||
| Transportation fee for sand and cement and Bricks |
12 tractors | 180/ tractor | 2,160 | 2,160 | ||
| Management expenses | Phone calls, Transportation from Qinghai to Sichuan( hotels) | 950 | 500 | 1450 | ||
| Management payment | 500 | 500 | ||||
| Total | 64,055.5 | 49,460 | 500 | 114,015. |
TheTotal contribution is 114,015.5rmb
The donor contribution is 64,055.5rmb
The local contribution is 49,460 rmb
Shem contribution is 500rmb
Project Sustainability
The quality of the water pipe which the villagers are going to use for the water systems is very good. Yajiong’s neighboring village, Gere village, used the same type of pipe to build a water system for their villagers and it has been five years now and the water system still does not have any problems. The spring which the villagers planned to drive to their village is very big and it is enough to supply water for the whole village. Every body knows that fetching water is hard for them in that village and they will take responsibility for the water system well. If it breaks the villagers will be responsible for it and they will ask other skilled people to repair it.
Government support for the project
The project manager called the local government leader Banggeng Duoji on May 3rd, 2008. He was very happy about the project and he said that several villages have difficulties with water in the Jialaxi Township. But the local government doesn’t have enough money to do water projects for them and if the manager can implement the water project for a village that would be great. The local government leader is very happy to give permission to complete the project.
Additional Information
The project manager Tashi Hlamo successfully implemented two small scale development projects in 2007. One was a barrier wall project for Yatong village, which was funded by the German Embassy. Another project was a solar electricity panel project for Yinlong village, which was funded by the British Embassy. The two projects are located in Jialaxi Township, Xinlong County, Ganzi Tibetan autonomous prefecture, Sichuan province. These two projects are mainly to improve the impoverished local people’s living conditions, reduce their workload and improve enrollment of school children.
The Water project for Walo and Yajiong Villages is her third project. Now she is working in Shem Women’s group in Xining City, Qinghai province.
Pictures
Diagram
Map of the project Location
