Projects

This project is to buy 18 harvest machines for 38 households in Mani Chukor Village to increase villagers’ income and decrease the local people’s work burden, especially that of students and women.

The German Embassy funded this project

Chiyang Zhorma is from Mani Chukor Village, Dongdatan Township, Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County, Wuwei Region, Gansu Province, PR China. She is currently working towards an Associate’s degree in English at Qinghai Normal University’s Nationalities Department English Training Program.

Project Location
This project is located in Mani Chukor Village.  Mani Chukor Village is in the north of Dongdatan ( called Bde Yang Tang in Tibetan) Township, which is in the eastern part of Tianzhu ( called dPa’ Ris in Tibetan) Tibetan Autonomous County, Wuwei Region, Gansu Province, China. Dongdatan Township is 78 kilometers from Tianzhu County Town (also known as Hua Zang Si), which is 145 kilometers from Lanzhou city, the capital city of Gansu Province. Lanzhou city is about 230 kilometers from Xining, the capital city of Qinghai Province.

Population
There are 264 people of 38 households in Mani Chukor Village, and there are 82 men and 67 women, and 115 children.

Education
There are about 35 young children（26 girls and 9 boys），who stay at home instead of attending school in the village. There are 39 students in the village which includes: 7 university students (5 boys and 2 girls), 7 high school students (4 boys and 3 girls), 11 middle school students (6 boys and 5 girls), and 14 primary school students (9 boys and 5 girls). On average, one child in each family currently attends school. Almost two thirds of the students are male. Only a few students are female students. Some families do not want to send their children to school. They think it would be more useful let their children go outside to earn money for the families or to let girls stay at home do housework. Also in this village, twenty percent of the people are literate (not including students). Of those twenty percent, eighteen percent of them are men, and most of them learned how to write and read from the monastery, not in school.

Cash Income
All of the villagers in Mani Chukor village earn money by growing crops and raising livestock. They cut the yaks’, sheep’, or goats’ hair in the summer time and sell it. On average, each family can get 1,000 RMB from selling wool. During the fall season they can sell four or five sheep, and earn about 1,000 RMB from selling livestock. Also after harvest, they sell crops such as beans and wheat. If the weather is not so bad, families can earn around 2,000 RMB from selling crops. In total, they can get 4,000 RMB in a year. However, their costs outnumber their earnings in a year. They spend money on children who attend school and have other costs like New Year festivals. In one year, people spend about 1,500 RMB on food (vegetables, meat, and flour) and 450 RMB on clothes. For one month, a household will spend about 150 RMB on electricity and other essentials. Also they need to buy grass or animal feed for their livestock; this costs 1200 RMB. During the cultivating time, they need to buy fertilizer, which costs about 700-800 RMB. Thus this leaves the family no extra money for saving. If the family has a child who studies in university, then they need to take out a loan from the bank or borrow from their relatives to afford their tuition.

Agriculture
Mani Chukor village is the smallest village in Dongdatan Township, and it is a half herding and half farming area. Villagers do not have many fields. On average, each family has six mu of land(1mu=0.0666 hectares). They grow crops like wheat, beans, barley, grass, and rapeseed. They mostly grow wheat and beans. By selling their excess beans and wheat, depending on favorable weather conditions, they can earn about 2,000 RMB in a year.

Herding
All of the villagers in Mani Chukor village herd livestock. On average each family has 25 heads of livestock. Some families have goats, some have sheep, and only three or four families have yaks. Also, each family has one horse and one pig. From selling four or five livestock in a year, each family can earn about 1,000 RMB. People are not able to milk livestock like sheep and yaks, because of the poor environmental conditions. So the animals are not able to provide enough milk for selling; families just feed the animals in order to sell them.

Project goals
The immediate goal of this project is to buy 19 harvest machines for 38 households in Mani Chukor Village. Around 264 local villagers will benefit from this project.The overarching goal of this project is to increase villagers’ income and decrease the local people’s work burden, especially that of students and women.

Problems
1.Increase women’s labor
Traditionally all of the household chores are completed by women. During the harvest season women have the extra burden of completing the housework in addition to doing the harvest work.  In this area, men sometimes do not contribute to the harvest work. In the evening at about 5:oo pm, women or girls should quickly go back home and cook dinner for the family. It is hard for women to do both housework and harvesting.
2.Time consuming
The harvest time is also the rainiest season. Due to the unpredictable weather, villagers often have to delay harvesting. Because of this, it will take almost two and half months to complete the harvest. Additionally, villagers live about 4 km away from their fields.  So it takes almost one and half hour to go to the fields. At 5:00 pm they need to return home to prepare the dinner and look for the livestock on the mountain. Moreover, villagers harvest by hand-held tools.  As there is only limited time to complete the harvest, the process is much slower than it would be if the villagers had machines. For the reasons listed above, harvesting is really a time consuming task.
3.Affect the children’s study
The harvest takes two and half months. During this time parents often ask their children to come to the field to harvest after they finish their classes. Also sometimes they ask their children to leave school to help them harvest for about one or two weeks. During this time, children have almost no time to do complete their homework or prepare for courses.
4.Reduced income from village farming practice
In this village, the villagers wait until everybody’s crops have been harvested before bringing the cuttings to another field to prepare the crops. For example, if one family finishes cutting their wheat they must wait for all of the other villagers to also finish. Then all the families move their crops to another field at the same time. This ensures that when families let their livestock graze on their fields (after harvesting), the livestock cannot destroy other families’ crops. However, some families finish cutting their crops much faster than others. When these families leave the cut crops on the fields, the crops can easily become rotten or eaten by mice. This causes families to lose income from the ruined crops.
5.Physical problems from harvesting work
Since the villagers harvest their fields by hand, they often get physical problems from the repetitive manual labor. Many farmers get arthritis, back pains and other physical problems related to harvesting work. During the harvesting time every adult must do this work, even pregnant women.

Benefits
If harvesting machines were available for every household, then several of these problems will be solved.
1. Women’s labor will be decreased; they can finish the harvest in a short time and use the free time to do other things like make shoes that their children will wear in the wintertime.
2. The time it takes to complete the harvest will be shorter than harvesting by hand. To harvest in the traditional way takes almost two months, depending on the weather. If they use the machine, the harvest will only need five to ten days. People can use the saved time to find outside manual labor jobs that will supplement the family’s income.
3. Villagers will not need to ask their children to help them with the harvest. Children will not have to do harvesting work during Autumn and can instead concentrate on their studies.
4. Villagers crop production will be increased, because using the machine is quicker than harvest by hand. The harvest time will be shorter than harvest by hands. The crops will not be destroyed by mice and other animals. Villagers can sell more crops and so their income will increase.
5. Physical problems, such as back pains and arthritis will decrease, and the safety of pregnant women who are pregnant will improve.

Beneficiaries
This project will directly benefit 38 households of 264 people in Mani Chukor Village.   The students and women will especially benefit because they will have to spend less time in the fields.

Gender Equality
If this project is implemented, it will mostly benefit women, because in my hometown women do most of work in the families, including harvesting. If the burden of women’s labor is reduced, then women can join more community activities during their free time. For example, they can attend the community meetings during fall and learn more about village affairs. If more women go to community meetings, it will increase women’s position in the village; most people think that men are more knowledgeable than women. Generally, only men have time to attend community activities or meetings, where they can learn news and ideas, women have no time to join them. Also if I can implement this project, many people will see that women also have the ability to help the local people. They will see that if they let the girls attend school, then girls can also be knowledgeable and helpful as men.

Governmental support
In June 2008, I discussed this project with the township leader, Mr. D. He discussed this project with the county leader and gave me permission to go forward with this project. He encouraged this project because it can help villagers increase their income and can help poor families in an important way.

Project Activities
1. Visit Mani Chukor Village and ask about local needs.(already completed)
2. Decide what can be done to alleviate these problems.(already completed)
3. Collect the information about the community’s background.(already completed)
4. Get official permission to carry out the project from our county leader and township leader.(already completed)
5. Talk to other managers who have experiences working on this type of project. Ask what kinds materials are needed.(already completed)
6. Figure out the price of materials in Hua Zang Si County Town.(already completed)
7. Hold a meeting with the villagers and choose three people (one women and two men) to be responsible for the project.(already completed)
8. Find a skilled worker, Ma Qi Rong who works in the ministry of agriculture to ask what kinds of materials can be use for the long time.
9. Take picture of the current local conditions.
10. Write project proposal.
11. Funds are received.
12. Purchase materials in Hua Zang Si County Twon.
13. Distribute the harvesting machine to the villagers.
14. Lets the experts teach them how to use the machine
15. Take pictures of the project after it is completed.
16. Interview the villagers and see how the project benefits in this village.
17. Send final report to donor.

Detailed Budget

*There are 38 households living in the village, after we had meeting with the villagers, we decided two households should share one machine together, so we will buy 19 machines to the villagers.
*Each household will contribute 200 rmb for the harvest machine.
Total Donor Contribution in RMB 57,266
Total Local Contribution in RMB 7,600
Total Shem Contribution in RMB 500

Sustainability
In order to make the project sustainable, firstly, the project manager Chiyang Zhorma chose three people, one woman( Lhomo Tserang) and two men( Donzhi and Huazang), who will be responsible for this project. If the machines break, first they will try to fix it. If they can’t do it, then they will send the machines to the company where the project manager bought the machines. Also the company already promised that after the project manager buys the machines, the company guarantees that the villagers can return or exchange faulty parts under an eight-year warantee. Additionally, the villagers will also take good care of the machine; if they break the machines without following the usage guidelines, then they will fix it by themselves.

A map of the project location

Photos

The villagers are harvesting in the fields.

This picture can show how the fields are next to each other.

Local people are collecting the crops from the fields and transporting them to their home.

In October 4^th, 2008, Chiyang Zhorma tested a machine with the company manager in some fields close to the machine company

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This is the company of harvest machines where the project manager planed to buy machines if the project gets funding.