Projects

Build a running water system for 60 households in Daiqian Village, Zhaxiulong Township, in order to improve the lives of the villagers in Daiqian Village

Funds needed: $20,018 (153,525 rmb)

The Council On International Education Exchange Ping Grant and Shem’s private donors Funded this project

Danmajyid is from Dai Qian Village, Zhaxixiulong Township, Tian zhu County, Wu wei Region, Gansu Province, China. She is currently working towards an associated degree in English at the Qinghai Normal University Nationalities Department English Training Program.

Project location
Dai Qian Village is located in Zhaxixiulong Township, Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County, Gansu Province, China. Daiqian is in the east of Lanzhou, and 63km from Tianzhu County Town. From Tian zhu County to Xining is 220 KM. Daiqian Village is one of the small villages in a big village called Zha xi xiu long Township, which includes Dai Qian, Shi Lun, and Zai Ku villages.

Population
There are approximately 357 people in Dai Qian Village. There are 124 women, 159 men and 74 school aged children.

Education
Ten percent of villagers are not currently students and they are illiterate. There are 3 university students (two boys and one girl), 6 high school students (four boys and two girls), 7 middle school students (four girls and three boys) and 9 primary school students (six boys and three girls). Total there are 25 students out of 74 school-aged children in the village. Most of the villagers are not able to pay for high school tuition and expenses, around 2,000rmb for per students, per semester or university school tuition and expenses, around 6,000rmb for per student, per semester.

Agriculture
Dai Qian Village is a nomadic area. The main mode of subsistence is nomadic. There is no agriculture due to the harsh climate and lack of water.

Herding/ Cash income
About ten years ago, each family owned two or three hundred sheep and about one hundred yaks. Their income was very good. They produced butter and cheese and sold these products for cash, they also sold some livestock.

However, the herds have shrunk in recent years due to a combination of factors:

• Grassland destruction, due to mining and overgrazing.
• Limited water resources additionally exacerbated by mining in recent years.
• Disease.

Currently, some families do not have any yaks while those that still have are down to 30 to 50 yaks. The families have about 50 to 70 sheep to day and the all over result is a general decline in the income.

Villagers sell most of their butter and cheese, earning 300-500 RMB per year per family. They can make about 25 to 30 jinn of butter and 30 jinn of cheese each year.

Another way to earn some money villagers is to leave the village in search of work and adults who are able to work do this. They often go to dig caterpillar fungus, a kind of plant, which is very difficult to find and is prized for its medicinal qualities. One stick of caterpillar fungus can be sold for between five and seven RMB. People usually go to dig caterpillar fungus at the beginning of May and go back home in the middle of June. Each person can earn about 600-800 RMB. This money is largely spent on children who go to school and on family costs, such as the New Year celebration.

Families spend about 1000 RMB on food and about 500 RMB on clothes and other family needs. In summer families spend about 400 to 500 RMB on fertilizer for the grassland. Monthly expenses run about 100 RMB per month, which covers electricity, salt, medicine, and other family needs.

Project Goal

The overarching goal of this project is to improve the lives of the villagers in Daiqian Village.

The immediate goal of this project is to build a running water system for 60 household in Daiqian Village.

The problem the villagers face today can be summarized as follows

• The villagers take three or four hours to fetch water everyday. It wastes a lot of time, which could be spent doing something else to improve the living conditions.
• In Daiqian village mostly girls and women do the arduous task of fetching water once or twice every day. In winter they melt ice which is not clean for water. This causes many health problems; however it is extremely difficult to get fresh water in the winter. The unskilled labor wastes a lot of time, the girls cannot enter schools, and the women don’t have time to do housework.
• Villagers currently fetch water to drink from streams which are 1~1.5 km away from where they live. It takes three hours to walk there and walk back.
• Fetching water is also linked to issues of status for village women. When guests arrive unexpectedly and water is not available for customary tea, the women of the household are looked down upon and even ridiculed as unfit mothers, daughters or wives. Often water availability is out of a woman or girl’s control. A running water system will eliminate this issue.
• There was a 21-meter deep well dug in Daiqian village, but it was salty and dried out after one month.
• When younger villagers leave the village to pursue paid labor opportunities. In some cases this leaves elderly villagers and young children with the task of fetching water. Since they cannot carry the large buckets, they must make many trips using just teapots.

Benefits of the project
As discussed above, girls and women currently fetch most of the water for the village. A running water system that carries clean water to each household will relieve girls and women of a time consuming chore. As a result of this project, girls and women may use their freed up time to acquire more highly valued skills and thus reduce their inequality. In particular, girls can use the time saved on more productive activities such as studying and training for other skilled jobs without being over burdened. Women can use the time to relax or work on other household activities. Also, status issues for women will be avoided. Some particular problems a running water system will address:

• After a difficult day of herding, women and girls will not have to spend time and energy fetching water
• Villagers will not have to drink dirty water from melted snow
• More girls can go to school and women will have more time to do other things.
• Women will feel less stress about issues related to water, such as always having tea ready for guests.
• A running water project will solve the drinking water problems for villagers and livestock
• A steady water supply will encourage better hygienic practices, such as washing hands and clothes.
• Some villagers may use the water to grow vegetables.

Gender equality
The project will be implemented and managed by the villagers in Daiqian Village. We chose three women and three men in the project committee and they all have equal power to make the decision and manage the project. Also the project will most directly benefit women, because women do most of the housework, including fetching water. Fetching water problems directly related to women have been discussed above.

Governmental Support
On January16, 2007 the project manager ( Danmajyid) talked to Ma Gongbao and he is a County government leader. He said this is a good project and try your best to do this project and he gave the permission to do this project.

Interviews
1)Lama is thirty-five years old. She has one son and one daughter. The son is a middle school student. The daughter has never gone to school. She must stay at home and help her mother. Lama gets up very early every day. Then she goes far away to fetch water. That can take three or four hours, so she doesn’t have much time to do other things. Almost all her time is spent fetching water. They don’t let the girl go to school because she must help her mother fetch water, herd livestock, etc. Once a week they drive the strong livestock to the river for water. Most other times, the family collects dirty water from cooking and washing to give to the livestock.

2)Caijyid is an old woman. She is seventy years old and she is blind. She can’t go far away to fetch water. She has no children and no husband. She has lived a long life and water is a problem for her. She asks friends to fetch water for her or she goes to a neighbor’s house to drink tea because she has no water to make tea. A neighbor brought a lot of ice to her that she could melt for water, but she left it in the yard and it was covered with dust. She’s worried it’s not good for her health.

3)Zhaxi is a herdsman. He has two sons, but they went to other places to earn money. His wife has bad arthritis. She can’t go far away to fetch water and their livestock does not get enough water. Zhaxi can’t fetch water because he is afraid of rumors starting in the village. In this village men never fetch water from the river, it is a woman’s task. Therefore, they melt snow or ice for water. In the summer, they use plastic to catch water or ladle water from holes in the ground

The steps of the project

Completed tasks of the project

1)During the 2006 and 2007 winter holidays, I spoke with people in my village asking what kinds of projects might improve their lives. They said that a running water system is the most needed project and would greatly improve local people’s lives.

2) I spoke with the village leader about the necessity of the project. Also interviewed some households about the water situation.

3) Got permission from the Tianzhu County leader, Ma Gongbo.

4)Learned from someone who already did several water projects about materials, prices and implementation.

5)Priced the materials, decided on purchasing from a factory in Lanzhou.

6)Held a meeting with villagers and asked three women and three men to be responsible for purchasing the materials, the project committee.

7) Chose the water source

8)Took photographs, conducted interviews, and made a detailed map of the water system (see below)

Implementation Plan

9)Funds received.

10)Hold meeting with the villagers.

11) Villagers dig the ditch.

12)Purchase Materials.

13)Villagers place the tubes underground.

14) Monitor the project.

15) Interview the villagers, men, women and children about their opinion of the result.

16) Take the photos.

17)Send the final report with the photos and receipts.

Timeframe of the project

The project will be completed within one month and a half after receiving the funds.

Detailed Budget of the project

Items	Quan tity	Unit cost (rmb)	Donor contrib ution (rm	Local Contrib ution (rmb)	Other resou rce in rmb (Shem)	Total in rmb
Ceme nt	14 tons	280/ton	3,920	0	0	3,920
Plastic pipe # 63	4,340m	13/m	56,420			56,420
Plastic pipe# 40	3,815m	13/m	49,595	0	0	49,595
Plastic pipe# 25	2,430m	13/m	31,590	0	0	31,590
Plastic pipe Conne ctions #63, #40, #25			3,500	0	0	3,500
Iron bar	1 ton	3,500/ton	3,500	0	0	3,500
Mate rial tr an spo rtation			1,500	0	0	1,500
Water design expert fee	12people/ per day	250/person / day	3,000	0	0	3,000
Stone and sand	150 tractor loads	25/load	0	3,750	0	3,750
Labor	45 days/100 people	30/person / day	0	135,000	0	135,000
Iron tube	50m	50/iron tube	0	2,500	0	2,500
Tap	60 sets	8/tap	0	480	0	480
pipe	150m	7/m	0	1,050	0	1,050
Manag ement expen se（s uch as teleph one calls, deve lop ph ot os and mon itor the pr o ject）			500	0	0	500
Manage ment payment			0		500	500
Total			153,525 ($20,018)	142,780	500	296,805

Notes:

Exchange rate to US$ 7,6RMB
Total amount of donation requested in Renmingbi 153,525 =$20,018

Sustainability of the project
This water project is sustainable, because at first villagers ask the project manager (Danmajyid) to do it and second all the villagers will benefit from the project. Also villagers will be responsible for doing the works like digging and building, because they are the user of the water. They will be responsible for the water spring and that the materials are purchased from the good company which is the company where some of Daiqian villagers usually purchase materials from there and we can ask them to change it if the materials have problems. Besides these, there are three women and three men to take care the water spring after the implementation of the project.

The village project committee, as well as local villagers and Danmajyid will be responsible for maintaining the project after it has been implemented. If there will be any unexpected costs or expenses for repairing, the villagers and villager leader agreed to pay for that.

The donors are expected to reserve the right to visit and inspect projects at any time.

In addition, the source of this water is spring and it is very clean because there aren’t any factories in Daiqian village or near to the Daiqian village, so it is not polluted. Also from generation to generation the people and the livestock in Daiqian village drink this water and no one has got sick from the water. This project is using 7,880meters pipe to carry water from spring to every household. The spring is available. All the households and livestock have enough water to drink. The water has no changing during the different seasons and even in winter it still follows.

Photos from Daiqian Village

The Daiqian Village Project Committee. Danmajyid is to the right and front, in the orange jacket. From left to right, back to front, the other members are Tsepdan, Tashi, Shado Tsering, Dandrin Jyid, and Nadrub Tso.

Yaks lick the ice on the frozen valley stream. Watering animals is particularly difficult during the winter. You can see Danmajyid’s section of Daiqian Village in the background.

Cheji Gyamtsen, Danmajyid’s uncle and a monk from Kumbum Monastery (near Xining), collects water from the spring. The plan is to tap this spring, which has abundant water.

Another section of households that will benefit from a water project in Daiqian Village.

Additional Information
This project must be implemented through summer when it is easy to dig and weather is good. It is impossible to do this project in the winter since the soil is frozen and hard to deal with. Also it is better if this project can happen from May to July because after July to September the villagers are busy at herding livestock and digging medical herbs.
Additional information for the manager, Dan ma jyid (Carol)
In 2006 I did a second-hand cloth project for Zhai xi xiu long village and it was supported by The British Consulate in Shanghai.

Diagram of the project

Map of the project location