This project is to help 74 households in two impoverished Tibetan villages to build 74 pigsties. The overarching goal of this project is to help the local villagers to increase self-reliance and income by selling surplus pork and keeping swine away from damaging crops; to improve household and village sanitation by keeping swine in separate clean sties.

Funds needed: $19,208(121,010rmb)

Basonlhamo graduated from ETP in 2006, she is going to complete her MA

 in Qinghai Nationalities University in 2013. She was a volunteer teacher in

Banma Charitable school for five months, worked as PA and translator to the

 Chief Geologist of QDML, Eldorado Gold for two and half years, and attended Mine Sight and Geology training while working for QDML.

 She designed, implemented and completed a couple of small grant projects including a book project in Banma Charitable School in 2006 and two secondhand projects in Kharzer, Sichuan Province in 2005. Currently she is working in Shem Women’s Group (www.shemgroup.org) as project manager.

Contact Information    

Contact Group: Shem Women’s Group

Address: Qinghai, Xining, Xining Shi You Zheng Ju, Xin Ning Lu You Ju，20-5 Xin Xiang, 810008, P.R.C

Telephone: 0971-6302115 (Shem Women’s Group’s Office) 

E-mail: info@shemgroup.org

Project location:

Ranglorwa Tibetan Administrative village (contains two villages Ranglorwa and Zhasercur), is located 28 kilometers southeast of the administrative centre of Wendu Tibetan Township, Xunhua Salar Autonomous County, Haidong Region, Qinghai Province, and China.

Population:

The population of Wendu Township is over 7,900, all residents are Tibetan. Ranglorwa Tibetan Administrative village has 85 households with population of 595 with 235 female, 221 male, 139(75 female and 64 male) children under sixteen. Villagers live in adobe-wood rooms constructed around a central rectangular-shaped open courtyard in both Ranglorwa and Zhasercur villages. This project will directly benefit 74 households with a population of 524 including 213women, 204 men and 109 children under sixteen.

Education:

A recently collected statistics by the Administrative Villager Leader shows that there are 125 students who are regularly receiving education in both Ranglorwa and Zhansercur villages. Among which 18(6 female and 12 male students) are attending college or university, 25 (11 female and 14 male students) are in high school and 43(18 female and 25 male students) are attending middle school, as well as 39 (20 female and 19 male students) are primary school students. However, 56% (70 male students) of the total number mentioned is male and only 44% (55 female students) of 125 students are female.

Cash Income:

Local people in Ralorwa and Zhaercur Village earn cash mostly in three ways:

Firstly, caterpillar fungus is a major source of income for families in these two villages. During the short growing season of one month, each family approximately can earn over 3,000-5,000rmb on average after deducting the land fee for digging caterpillar fungus in other places outside of Xunhua Salar Autonomous County, Haidong Region. This income is mostly spent on essential needs including medical treatments, clothes and tuitions for supporting kids at schools.

Crops are another source of income. Villagers in both Ranglorwa and Zhasercur villages grow wheat, barley, potatoes and rape. However, most of the crops are for self-consumption and there is not much left for selling after feeding family, livestock, and leaving seeds for next year. Families with more members are able to work can generate a small amount of extra money from crops, on average over 500RMB to 700RMB per year. Families use this money for daily subsistence expenses and utilities.

Construction work is a way to increase cash income as well. Mostly, the healthy and young people in the family go to do short term construction work for the period before and after the plowing, planting, harvest seasons and the caterpillar fungus digging period until winter. A laborer is paid from 70rmb to 100rmb for doing construction work per day, and one can earn around 2000RMB to 3000rmb per year. Thus, families with young men at home are a bit more likely to improve their living condition by purchasing coals and thicker curtain for keeping warm during winter, or reconstructing the adobe house etc. However, there is only one person from each family who is able to go and do construction work regularly. .

Although caterpillar fungus and construction should be regarded as good income source, it is not dependable for two reasons. One is, the period for digging caterpillar fungus is relatively short, mostly it is only for one month or few days more and it is also risky for the villagers paying a huge amount of money without ensuring the amount they are going to earn.( It is possible and happens frequently that the diggers don’t earn even enough to pay the land fee), usually they are supposed to pay (4,000RMB to 6,000RMB) for digging caterpillar fungus in a certain area. Another reason is that villagers cannot stick to construction work since they are needed back at home for farming, thus, they are not earning much by doing construction work.

Agriculture:

The Villages owns 170mu of irrigated land and 222 mu of non-irrigated land. Each household owns 4.6 mu on average and the families can get 1,784 kilograms of crops a year on average. Most of the farmland is not irrigated and it depends on rainfall. Therefore, rainfall as a natural phenomenon decides the production. The main crop is wheat, which the local people use for self-consumption (bread, noodles). Other crops include barley、 rape、 potatoes、 and beans that are mostly for both self-consumption and livestock feeding. The farmland is cultivated once a year and much of the agricultural work is the duty of women. Plowing is done by cows and mules, and such other activities as weeding and harvesting are done by hand.

According to the villagers, 1 mu of non-irrigated land can produce no more than 200-300 kilograms of crops and it can be expected to get over 500 kilograms of crops from 1 mu of irrigated land on average. The total annual production for 85houholds is 151,600 kilograms at most (66,600kilograms from non-irrigated land and 85,000kilograms from irrigated land), Consequently, it is almost impossible for most of the families to earn any money by selling crops after leaving seeds for next year and self-consumption.  

Herding:
Each household in both Ranglorwa and Zhasercur Villages owns livestock. They keep mules, cows, sheep, goats, donkeys and pigs. In total, the two communities have 63 cows, 230 sheep, 89goats, 46 mules, 35 donkeys and 33pigs according to the village leader. However, the scatter of the number and the kinds of the livestock is unbalanced among the families. For instance, one family would possibly own 20 sheep but most of the others do not own any. Mostly the livestock is for self-consumption as well such as cows mostly for milking, pigs and sheep are for meat supply (mostly prepared for the New Year celebration), and goats are for hair collection. Donkeys and mules are for loading crops、fertilizer、grains and plowing. As a result, there are very few families who are able to earn any money by selling livestock; only the ones who have few numbers of sheep or goats can earn some money by selling sheep or mutton and goats or goats’ hair. Usually, a 25kg weighting sheep can be sold for 1,200 rmb. However, two families own only one sheep on average in both villages; thus, it is very hard for the villagers earning any money this way.

Project Goals:
The immediate goal of this project is to help 74 households in two impoverished Tibetan villages to build 74 pigsties. The overarching goal of this project is to help the local villagers to increase self-reliance and income by selling surplus pork and keeping swine away from damaging crops; to improve household and village sanitation by keeping swine in separate clean sties。

Problems:
1. Fewer families are raising pigs thus more families losing self-reliance. 

Traditionally, pork has been the main meat for village inhabitants due to the lower price compared with beef and mutton. However, fewer families raise pigs because they lack pigsties; pigs don’t gain weight well due to the poor, dirty and cold living condition, and this has forced the villagers to buy pork rather than raise pigs. This puts a heavier burden on the villagers and soon they will lose the self-reliance to keeping pigs continuously. 

2. People get diseases and infections from pigs.                      
Since the pigs are kept inside the household yard, it makes the yard very messy.  Hence there is a high possibility for people to get infected if the pigs get any disease such as swine flu. Therefore, it is very important that human and pigs live separately for the health of both humans and the swine.

3. Negative impact on village sanitation and environment.
Pigs are running, shitting and digging everywhere in the village. Consequently, it increases the chance of spreading infectious diseases among themselves and mankind. The village environment and sanitation are negatively impacted by releasing pigs out everywhere in the village.  

4. More money is needed for buying meat and local diet is getting poorer.
Villagers are forced to spend more money on buying pork since fewer families raise pigs by themselves. This leads to the villagers to not have extra money to buy meat. Thus many of them chose not to have pork except for the New Year celebration. Consequently, the local diet is getting poorer. 

5. Village women gain lower social status and family position according to less attribution to the family.
Traditionally, women are supposed to stay home and take care of family chores, look after elders and kids; and as a consequence, they have fewer chances to earn income. In contrast, local village men are mostly out making money and they are attributed to family income, accordingly, they gain higher social status and position in the family because of traditional gender stereotype and cash contribution to the family.

Benefits
If the villages can get those pigsties built, all the problems stated above will be solved:

1)        Pigs will have a warm solar-heated room year round and pigsties are warmer than the current compartments; pigs will gain more weight so more swine can be raised and local diets will improve with more meat. Surplus pork can be sold, thus both villagers’ self-reliance and household income can be improved.

2)        Swine waste will be concentrated in a single location outside the household and they will rarely have contact with most of the families after the pigsties are built. It can limit the possibility of swine-human disease infections and it has the potential to purify the air condition in human living areas.

3)        There will be no more shitting and digging around the villages by pigs after the pigsties are built. The villagers can avoid pigs messing in the household yard, the air condition can be improved without the pigs in staying in the household and this will definitely help to reduce the chance of getting themselves infected by any possible diseases and the village sanitation can be improved.

4)        If pigsties are built, pigs will gain more weight due to the warmer and cleaner living condition and more feces are accumulated that could be used as fertilizer for crops. Chemical fertilizer could be replaced by feces through which people can save the amount of money that used to be spent on buying chemical fertilizer. Accordingly, less money will be spent on buying meat and chemical fertilizer and local diet and income will be improved gradually by raising pigs.

5)        Local women are supposed to stay home taking care of family chores, looking after elders and kids traditionally, thus, they have less chance and time to go out for earning money as the men in the villages. Although their work is time consuming and hard enough it is not valued as making income contribution to the families. As a result, local women own lower social status and family position. By raising pigs local diet can be improved and the local women’s social status and family position can be improved in particular by earning income from selling surplus pork.

Beneficiaries
This pigsty project will benefit 74households with population of 595 people directly. Moreover, it has the potential to get neighbor villages motivated through years in the future.

Gender equality
This project is designed and will be implemented and managed by Basonlhamo, a current full time staff of Shem Women’s Group. The project plans to provide opportunities to both village women and men to build and sustain the sense of self-reliance equally, and it also provides village women, who are bound by family chores from earning cash, a chance to earn cash at home by selling surplus pork without leaving home in particular. Besides, a young woman designing, implementing and managing the project will be a great example for the local village women and it will require the local villages to value women’s education as well. Moreover, the project is designed to select equal quantity of males and females as a project implementation assisting team, therefore, the project will be processed by equal voice from both men and women, ideas from both sides will be included, so that full equal participation of men and women during the project implementation will be insured.

Governmental Approval:
On December 20^th 2011, the project manager, Basonlhamo was told by the Administrative villager leader, Drolmajab that a pigsty project (it was brought out by the villagers after a research meeting done by the village leader as the project manager asked) is in most need to reduce villagers’ expenses and to improve local diet and self-reliance. Accordingly, Basonlhamo is fully approved to try for this pigsty project and the villagers are willing to provide all required information regarding the project and support the project manager to their best ability.

The Steps of Project:

1. Discuss the problems of the villages with the village leaders, and decide what can be done to alleviate these problems. (Done)
2. Talk with villagers about their essential needs by phone. (Done)
3. Discuss the sustainability of the project with the village leaders by phone. (Done)
4. Ask the village leaders for permission to carry out the project. (Done)
5. Collect required information and pictures. (Done)
6. Find out the material price. (Done)
7. Write project proposal. (Done)
8. Receive funding.
9. Inform the villagers, collect local contribution.
10. Purchase materials for pigsty construction.
11. Hold a meeting with the villagers to emphasizing the importance of the sustainability of the project.
12. Organize time to construct the sites.
13. Interview the villagers to evaluate the project
14. Work on the final report
15. Send final report to donor.

Time frame:

To complete this project, it will take how long in total?

1. a meeting to announce the project details.(1 day)
2. Purchase all needing materials and transportation arrangement. (2 days)
3. receive and check all the purchased materials.( 2 days)
4. get all the sties built. (Over 2months)
5. take pictures and check the project process during implementation.(3days)
6. interview the beneficiaries and take pictures after the pigsties are built.(1day)
7. write the final report.(4days)
8. send final report.(1 day)

Detailed Budget:

*Project management expenses: Money spent on transportation, food for visiting the project sites to collect needing information. Phone calls to the villages’ leader for collecting additional information, and to visit project sites for any unforeseen problems.

Sustainability:
Individual households will be permanently responsible for one’s own pigsty and this will ensure the villagers will take good care of the pigsty since it one’s own family property. Since every family will get a strong, clean and separated pigsty, more and more families will be motivated to raise more pigs not only for self-consumption but also for selling surplus pork to earn cash. Pigsties will be built outside the house in case of reconstructing the house, and qualified bricks would last longer than ten years. Swine feces will be accumulated and it can be used for fertilizing the crops, thus, an expense for buying fertilizer can be saved. Apart from above, since the roof is portable for getting enough sunshine the foundation of the pigsties can be prevented from getting drenched by urine or waste fluid inside the pigsties. Therefore, there will be no hidden hazard for the sties corrupting in the future. To ensure the sustainability of the project, an agreement of 4 years keeping and raising the swine between the villagers and the project manager will take place under the witness and proof of the administrative village leader, emphasizing that the villagers have to pay the amount spent on their pigsty in the project (as penal-sum) back to the project manager, and the project manager and the village leader have the right and obligation reallocating the penal- sum to any other household in need of pigsty from neighbor villages. 

 Additional Information:

Pigsty Sketch

Map of project location:

Map of Qinghai Province showing the location of Haidong Region in red. 

Map of Haidong Region showing the location of Xunhua Salar Autonomous Prefecture in red.

This project is to give training for both men and women in these villages (Yondrub, Dongwei Village, Chamri, Gyalyi, Drughar) to discuss health issues and share each other’s knowledge about health openly to help the local people to encourage each other for looking after themselves and help prevent themselves from getting fetal disease and sickness in the future. In addition, medical check also will be be provided for females to heal the small health problems, and to encourage the ones who have heavy and serious symptom to go for further treatment.

Funds needed: $13,055.92 (83,072.5rmb)

Background:
Female health problems are not discussed and shared publicly in rural Tibetan areas, especially in nomadic areas. As a result, each year, there are many women who get gynecological diseases but they don’t go to the hospital and don’t talk about this with their families or husbands, since local women totally lack knowledge regarding health problems. Therefore, they never go to hospital until they can’t bear the sickness, which also worsen the diseases.

Location:
Yondrub Village, Dongwei Village, Chamri Village, Gyalyi Village, Regmo Township, Gonghe County, Drughar Village, Guo Ma Ying Town, Guinan County, Hainan Prefecture, Qinghai Province. The villagers are on average190 km away from Xining.

Heath Training For Tibetan Women in Rural Nomadic Area
Facilitator: Doctor Douzhou Cairang, Jimao Cairang, and Shem Staff
Organizer: Shem Women’s Group

Brief Introduction of Doctors
Doctor Douzhou Cairang is the director of the Digestive Department of Qinghai Tibetan Hospital, and he has been doing many health related private projects in various Tibetan rural areas in Qinghai Province. He provides medicine and health checks for those poor villagers. Doctor Jimao Cairang works as the visiting staff in the Gynecological Department. She graduated from Qinghai Tibetan Medical University and specialized in gynecological diseases. She has rich clinical experience in treating women’s diseases such as uterine fibroids(子宫肌瘤), virginities(阴道炎), ovarian cysts(卵巢囊肿), breast hyperplasia(乳腺增生)and so on.

Brief Introduction for Organizer
Shem is a women’s group dedicated to empowering Tibetan women and their communities through grassroots development. We focus on increasing the well-being of people in impoverished communities by providing access to basic needs such as water, fuel, electricity, health care, and basic education. We fulfill our mission by training educated Tibetan women to design, implement, and manage sustainable grassroots development projects that will successfully alleviate the problems that their communities face.

At the village level, while our projects fulfill basic survival needs for village women and their families, our project managers-educated Tibetan women-present villagers with strong female role models. The work of these young women raises villager’s confidence in women’s abilities and encourages villagers to value women’s education.

At the university level, we offer discussion groups and workshops designed to empower educated Tibetan women, and we provide women with the resources and training they need to put their ideas into action.

During the course of the semester, the students learned how to identify the problems of their communities, design sustainable projects that would successfully alleviate these problems, write professional proposals to outside funding sources, and manage the execution of their projects.

Contact information
Contact Group: Shem Women’s Group

Email:

Phone: 86-971-630-2115

Mailing address:

Qinghai, Xining

Xining Shi You Zheng ju,

XinNing Lu You Ju
20-5xin xiang,
810008
China.

Website: http://www.shemgroup.org

Why we need this training
Generally speaking, health issues are not taught in most of the rural nomadic villages in Qinghai Province, China. As a result, local nomads have very limited knowledge about health problems and hardly are aware of health issues.

Although the society has stepped forward into twenty first century, people are still sensitive to talk about health problem related to sex or reproduction. Thus most Tibetan women and girls are shy to talk about those health issues openly even if they know they have some health problems.

Moreover, the rural Tibetan local women do not have a space for discussing health issues openly to share their problems among women themselves. Also, people hardly encourage others to pass their health knowledge to one another.

Most local women are illiterate and they cannot get any knowledge from books, magazines or newspapers even if inside there are any topics related to health problems around them. This is part of the reason the local women are lacking information on health problems.

Additionally, the rural Tibetan local women almost never go to the hospital to check for Gynecological diseases unless they get seriously sick, so once they are very sick and go to the hospital they are already in serious condition.

Due to the crucial problems listed above, the knowledge of Tibetan rural village women have about health and health conditions is worse than any others. However, there are several of causations for the above problems: firstly, rural Tibetan local women are mostly very busy with their heavy work and they usually have no time to discuss health problems and gain knowledge about health issues. Secondly, most of them have never attended school and they have no priority to gain knowledge about health problems through media or books and magazines, and even if there is a possibility to learn some of them through television, they have no time to watch it. Thirdly, they are born to societies that unfortunately lack health information, and that especially encourage people to avoid talking about the subjects related to reproductive health issues, thus, most of educated women are shy to talk about those issues openly even if they have received some of knowledge of health problems. There is also no encouragement from people encourage to share what they learnt about health issues.

According to Doctor Douzhou Cairong and Doctor Molam, in Yondrub, Dongwei, Chamri, Gyalyi and Drughar villages, there are a lot of women who have cervical erosion mostly due to low awareness of venereal diseases and STDs. Because the villages in Regmo Township are near to Qinghai Lake, there is a higher possibility for local people to interaction with outsiders since it is a tourist place. On the other hand, these villages are far away from county town and they don’t go to see doctors very often.

Solution
We will provide a space for both men and women in these villages (Yondrub, Dongwei Village, Chamri, Gyalyi, Drughar) to discuss health issues and share each other’s knowledge about health openly. This will help the local people to encourage each other to look after themselves and help prevent themselves from getting fetal disease and sickness in the future. We will also invite Doctor Dongzhou Cairang and Jimao Cairang to give training on health issues for those male and female participants including illustrations on the importance of caring for health problems, common disease, and related causations and solutions will be introduced as well. Additionally, we will also provide private medical checks for these participants, some Tibetan medicines will be distributed to those who have small health problems, and those who have heavy and serious symptom will be strongly encouraged to go for further treatment.

Beneficiaries
Around 600 households with population of 3600 (men and women) from Yondrub Village and the other four villages will directly benefit from this health training project and more residents in neighboring villages will have the chance to get informed of health problems through the participants of this project. 

Brief Contents of Training 

1. Introduce basic knowledge about women/men’s health issues

2. Discuss the causation of these common/contagious diseases

3. Further explain different categories of common/ contagious diseases

4. Introduce the methods of solving these problems

5. Introduce how to prevent these diseases.

6. Providing private doctor consulting for participants

7. The do’s and don’ts during pregnancy

Time Frame

This training will take from August 10^th – September 30^th 2012

This project will take 20 days

Three days: Purchase necessary materials and contact doctors.

Two days: Prepare with the training materials to Regmo Township

One day Go to the project site in Regmo County and inform the four villages’ people

Eight days: Give health training in Regmo Township for four villages, two days/village

One day: travel back to Xining

One day: Prepare the training materials for Drughar village, Guo Ma Ying Township

One day: Go to Project site in Guo Ma Ying Town and inform Drughar villagers

Two days: Give health training to Drughar Village

One day: travel back to Xining

Detailed Budget

Budget for one village:

Note: The budget above is only for one village. The total donation requested from the donor is83,072.5 RMB (16,614.5 RMB *5 villages = 83,072.5RMB), which is for the mentioned five villages in the proposal.

Note※: Due to the doctors’ time, we cannot do the training for so many days at one time, so we need to travel

again when they have time in the project time period.

This project is to buy 745 books, 363 Tibetan books, 173 English books and 209 Chinese books. Niandu School already has Chinese books and some Tibetan books donated by Gesang Meiduo Organization. However, the Tibetan books and Chinese books they have do not fit the students’ level.The purpose of this project is to improve the students’ study level, promote gender equality by providing the same materials for both girls and boys, and create access to more information on a variety of educational topics.

The New Zealand Embassy funded this project

SonamTso is from Lhaka Village, Niandu Township, Rebgong County, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province. She graduated with an associate’s degree in English at the Qinghai Normal University Nationalities Department English Training Program. Recently she works at Children of Shambala Organization as a social worker. 

Contact information

Contact Group: Shem Women’s Group

Contact person: Kalwangjyid

Address: Qinghai Xining, Xining Shi You Zheng Ju, Xin Ning Lu You Ju, 20-5 Xin Xiang, 810008, P.R.C

Telephone: 0971-6302115(Shem office)

Email:  info@shemgroup.org, kalwangjyid@yahoo.com

Project location

This project is for Niandu School. Niandu School is located in Lhaka Village, Niandu Township, Rebgong (Tong Ren) County, Rmalho (Huang Nan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province. Niandu Township is about 2 kilometers from Rebgong County. Rebgong County is 178 kilometers from Xining (the capital city of the Qinghai Province). 

Niandu school background

Niandu School is located in the center of Niandu Township, in the northern part of Rebgong Autonomous County, Qinghai Province and it was established in 1952. The school teaches grade one to grade nine (primary school). There are 246 students (116 girls, 130 boys) and 19 teachers in Niandu School. Their salary for their work is 3,500 rmb per month. The students in the school study mathematics, Chinese and Tibetan. Although the students need to study subjects like social studies, science and ideological education, schools in the countryside rarely teach these subjects. In rural areas like Niandu School, children cannot afford the necessary textbooks and the teachers often lack relative knowledge and skills to teach these subjects. Therefore, in Niandu School they only teach three core subjects (Chinese Language, Tibetan Language and Mathematics). These children have no access to information outside of their core textbooks. Niandu School teaches English only for the sixth grade. There is only one teacher who teaches English. Also, Niandu School sometimes hires temporary English teachers who only stay for about one semester or sometimes even one or two months.

Niandu School’s library was built in 2005 by Niandu School’s headmaster Sonam Tso. The local teachers and headmaster collected some money from Niandu Village and the local government established the library. After building the library, the school did not have any books in the library except textbooks, so the school got their first donation (Tibetan books) from Gesang Meiduo Organization in 2006. Secondly, the project manager herself did a small book project, which was funded with 3,000 RMB from an Australian private donor under Shem’s help in 2008. However, due to the small amount of money, the number of books bought was limited. So the school still needs more books to help students have more reading materials and give them a better chance to get higher scores on their entrance exams. It also helps the teachers have more access to teaching material to enrich their lessons to ensure more interesting classes.   

Population

Niandu Township is located in the east central part of Qinghai Province in the northwest part of China, west of the Rongbo River. There are 250 households in Lhaka Village; the total population is approximately 1,500 (740 men and 620 women). 

Education

In Lhaka Village if each family has two sons, one of them is typically sent to the local monastery to become a monk. Sons who go to the monastery begin to learn how to write and read Tibetan. Traditionally, girls are kept at home to help the family do house chores. In this village, only 10% of the young people are literate, and they have completed their nine years of compulsory education. 

There are 198 school-aged children in the village. Among these, only 58 children are attending school (10 university students, 18 high school students, 20 middle school students and 10 primary students). The rest of the children stay at home to help their parents with household chores, farming and digging caterpillar fungus. Many villagers believe it is a waste of time and money to send their children to school. Some villagers believe that even if their children go to school they will not be able to get a good job.  

Cash Income

All of the villagers in Niandu Township earn their living by farming. People usually earn money by selling their excess barley and earn about 300 rmb each year. However, most families only have two to four mu (one mu= 0.07 hectares) of land, which is not enough for their living expenses. 

People also earn money by doing construction work. Adults do construction work in the county town. Men can earn 60 to 80 rmb per day, but women are only paid 60 to 70 per day. The workers can earn approximately 1,000 rmb in one month. Workers are not guaranteed this money because sometimes work group leaders abandon the workers without paying their owed wages.    

People also can earn money by digging caterpillar fungus. Some villagers don’t let their children go to school and ask their children to dig caterpillar fungus to earn money. Each day they can dig 15 caterpillar fungi, and each fungus can be sold for 7 to 10 rmb. On average, a person can earn about 12,500 rmb from digging for caterpillar fungus for one month (people from Niandu often dig for caterpillar fungus in distant places such as Yushu and Golok because the caterpillar fungus there are worth more). They must pay a land fee of around 10,000 rmb for the privilege of digging on other people’s land. So they are only left with 2,500 rmb.

In total, the average family can make a little over 2,000 rmb in cash income per year.  Families have to spend about 1,500 rmb per year for electricity fees and water fees. On average, each family keeps 500 rmb per year as saving. However, families who have university students must borrow money to pay for their tuition.

Agriculture

Niandu villagers grow wheat, potatoes, barley, rapeseed and beans. The villagers only have one productive harvest each year due to limited fertilizer, rainfall and weather conditions. The villagers cannot irrigate their lands often because they have to pay a fee to water their fields. Each household shares 5 mu of land with their family members (5 to 7 people on average in a family). One mu of agricultural land can produce around 500-600 jin (=1/2 kilogram)of barley if the weather is good. Some families have financial difficulties if their land is not productive and they cannot afford to buy fertilizer. These families are not able to harvest extra products to supplement their income. In some cases, households are not even able to harvest enough to feed their family.

Herding

In all of Lhaka Village, there are only about 10 livestock. Most villagers sold their livestock because there was not enough grass for the livestock to eat. 80% families do not have any livestock and the other 20% only have a few cows. The families who do have livestock are not able to sell dairy due to the poor grazing conditions. 

Project Goal

The immediate goal of this project is to buy 745 books, 363 Tibetan books, 173 English books and 209 Chinese books. Niandu School already has Chinese books and some Tibetan books donated by Gesang Meiduo Organization, however, the Tibetan books and Chinese books they have do not fit the students’ level.

The overarching goal of this project is to improve the students’ study level, promote gender equality by providing the same materials for both girls and boys, and create access to more information on a variety of educational topics. Also, it can save some money and time because teachers do not need to collect money from students and do not need to go to the county town to copy or print the materials. 

Problems

1.     Not enough books; no copy machines or printers: I did a small book project with Shem Women’s group for Niandu School a year ago which was funded by some private donors. At that time, we only bought Tibetan books and there were not enough for students to read because of the small amount of money (3,591.5 RMB). Also, the teachers suggested that it is better to buy Tibetan books than English books because it is very hard for Niandu School to find English teachers, and students do not have any English classes until grade six. Therefore, a lack of study material affects students’ results on important advancement exams, and without many books to read, students will not be able to improve their knowledge. In Niandu School, children just carry around their textbooks and do not have access to any other reading materials such as magazines, exercise books and books for free reading. Also, when they graduate from school or transfer to different schools, they are disadvantaged. Compared with others students, they have never had the opportunity to learn about subjects like social sciences and the environment. Niandu School does not teach these subjects because they do not have the appropriate teaching materials.    
2.   Low literacy skills: The school cannot provide books for the students to read other than textbooks. The learning environment is very poor. Students just memorize things from their textbooks. This has a negative impact on their motivation to learn how to read and write.   
3. No money to buy books and no money to print or copy studying and teaching materials: For the poor families, they try their best to send their children to school, but they have do not have enough money to buy other study materials like reading books for their children. Even if they could afford one book, they could not afford to do this very often. Also, during the advanced exams, other schools always provide study materials and every student can get copied materials for studying, but not at Niandu School. At Niandu School, teachers always collect some money from students for copying and printing fees, so poor families cannot pay it and the family members are sometimes angry with the school because they ask the students for money. Therefore, it is very hard for teachers to provide students with printed or copied materials.   
4. Difficult to buy books: If students could afford to buy a book, they would need to walk to the county town, which is about 2 kilometers away from school. Also the road to the county town is in poor condition; there are many bumps and the cars or other vehicles pass by very fast. Students can easily become injured on the way.  
5. Lack of interest in teaching: In Niandu School, teachers’ motivation to teach is low because of the school’s poor conditions. Students constantly review the textbooks but show little improvement. Teachers do not have access to other educational material to enrich their teaching. Gradually the teachers lose their interest in teaching.  

Benefits

1. Textbooks will not be the only books students have access to and they will have more books and materials to read. Thus students will have more interest in studying.
2. Access to more reading materials will improve students’ literacy skills and give them a better chance to do well on their entrance exams. Also, if students have access to more reading material, they will have a better chance to learn more about other places and people, helping students have a better understanding of this world.
3. Families will not need to worry about not being able to buy books for their children or paying for copying and printing fees. Students in the school can read books and study materials continuously.
4. If the students have access to books, copy machine and printer in the school, then they will not need to walk to Rebgong county town to buy books and copy or print study materials which means it is very convenient for both teachers and students. Also, parents will not need to worry about their children’s safety.
5. Teachers will have more access to teaching material to enrich their lessons. Teachers will also be more motivated to plan interesting lessons, which will lead to better teaching. Also, if students are more interested in going to school, this will make teachers more motivated to teach in Niandu School.  

Beneficiaries

This book project will directly benefit 246 students and 19 teachers from the school and it will indirectly benefit about 1,500 people, including the people in Lhaka Village.  

Gender equality

Generally, in this project area, the boys can study in a monastery during the holidays but girls cannot join the monastery to study. This project will balance this current gender inequality by providing books for both boys and girls. 

Also, the project manager will encourage girls to study hard and serve as a good role model for girls. Villagers often look down on girls and they do not think girls are able to accomplish these kinds of projects. If this project is completed, then villagers’ opinions about girls might change, and this project might bring a new perspective on women in the village.

Government support

In July 2011, the project manager talked about this project with the village leader Dan Dai. Both of us had a meeting with a local government leader, Renchen. He gave me full permission to go forward with this project and encouraged me to do it. 

The steps of the project

1. Met the school principal, asked about the school’s problems, gave advice about what could be done to solve these problems.  (Done)
2. Asked both teachers and students what kinds of books they need. (Done)
3. Found the books, copy and printing machine’s price. (Done)
4. Figured out the transportation fee. (Done)
5. Wrote a proposal. (Done)
6. Funds received.
7.  Buy books from Xinhua bookstore and buy a copy and printing machine from Sheng Li Lu machine market. .
8.  Transport the books and copy machines.
9.  Distribute the books and copy machines to school.
10. Hold a meeting in the school to discuss the sustainability of the book project.
11. Take pictures of books and machines when project is completed.
12.  Write final report and send it to the donor with pictures.

Time frame

This project will take around 8 days

2 days: buy the books from Xinhua bookstore and buy a copy machine from Shen Li Lu machine market in Xining city, Qinghai Province.

3 days: transport the books from Xining to Rebgong County and distribute the books and copy machine to Niandu School. Hold a meeting with villagers, teachers and students on how to protect the books and copy machine. Take photos of the book project.

3 days: write the final report and include some pictures 

Project Budget

Donor Contribution: 22051.6 RMB

Local Contribution: 4910 RMB (One teacher and two students will volunteer to be a librarian. They will be responsible for managing the library and see that it is running successful.) 

Detailed list of Tibetan books 

Detailed list of Chinese books 

Detailed list of English books  

Sustainability

Firstly, I, as the project manager, will ensure the books and copy machine that are purchased are of good quality. Additionally, the teachers and students will work together to take responsibility of the books and copy machine. The books and copy machine will be stored in the school at the school library. When the books are distributed, teachers will make a schedule and let students borrow books every day. Also, the school librarian, book manager and teachers will enforce strong rules for both teachers and students to follow when they need to borrow the books or copy materials. If anyone loses or damages a book or copy machine, he or she will need to pay for the book’s replacement and fix the copy machine. Finally, if any of the library staff members are found to be neglectful of their duties, new library staff will be chosen. 

Map of the project location

Photos of Niandu School

This project is to buy 675 books, including 415 Tibetan books, 205 Chinese Books, 55 English Books; 3 book shelves, 5 tables, 10 chairs, 4 LCD-projectors, and 20 teaching VCDs, for Gser lung Junior Middle School in Gser lung Township. Aiming to provide rich learning and teaching conditions for both teachers and students; to increase the rate of students passing examinations; to improve local students’ educational levels meanwhile ensuring that the female students’ higher chances of getting higher education; to reduce families financial burden and increase the number of students’ enrollment. .

Funds needed: $6,393(40,360rmb)

Bkra shis sgrol ma is from the Number One Production Brigade, Gser lung Village, Gser lung Township, Henan Mongolian Autonomous County, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China. Currently, she is studying for her Bachelor’s Degree in 2008 BA Class, Qinghai Nationalities Teacher’s College, Qinghai Normal University.  

Project Location

Gser lung Junior Middle School is located (107.08 E, 34.28 N) between Gser lung Village and Sga khas village, in Gser lung Township, Henan Mongolian Autonomous County, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China. It is the only school where all of the villages’ children can complete both their primary and middle school educations in Gser Lung Township. This school is about 63 kilometers away from Henan County in the west, and 325 kilometers away from Xining, the capital city of Qinghai Province.

Population

1)      Township Population: There are 678 households with 3678 people (1978 men and 1700 women), among them there are 747 students (381 males and 366 females) in total in Gser lung Township. 

2)      Gser lung Junior Middle School Population: There are 375 people in this school. 340 students (168 boys and 172 girls), 25 teachers (16 men and 9 women) and 10 none teaching employees (6 men and 4 women) in Gser lung Middle School.

Education

For Gser lung Township, there are 747 students in total: 340 primary (168 boys and 172 girls), 185 middle school students (101 boys and 84 girls), 182 high school students (88 boys and 94 girls), 40 university students (24 boys and 16 girls). Among university students, 33 students are studying for Associate’s Degrees and 7 students are studying for Bachelor’s Degrees. In total there are about 747 students are receiving education. However, this is a small number according to the population of this township. In this township, approximately 62% of the villagers are illiterate and around 38% of the villagers are literate. The villagers who are literate also includeds both the people who have attended schools and the monks in the monasteries. They could read and write Tibetan and a few Chinese words, but none of them could speak Mandarin Chinese except some of the students. A few villagers could speak Ningxia  dialect (Han Chinese and Muslim province near to the project site) with Han Chinese businessmen selling livestock. None of them could speak English.

Among the students, primary and middle school students receive the government nine-year free education. As soon as the students finish their nine years’ free education, they have to attend high school. And many of them lose the opportunities to continue their education in the school because of financial problems. Since parents themselves never have been educated, many families don’t know the value of education. Thus, because of these families’ conditions, it is difficult for many families to afford tuition for their children. For all these kinds of reasons, not all children get  the chance to attend school.

This is especially bad for girls because when they finish primary or middle school and try to get further education, the traditional idea or gender inequality causes most of the villagers to think that girls are not as capable to deal with difficult matters as boys are. Some of the parents hold the idea that girls have to marry, and they can’t help their parents’ homes. So, most of the villagers believe that sending girls to school is just waste of money. And brides go to live in their husbands’ village, so it is better that girls keep doing housework in the home until they marry.

Traditionally, the male is considered the head of the household, and a wife’s duty is to help and obey her husband, serve her husband’s family, and follow his parents’ orders. If a woman doesn’t know how to do housework and can’t be helpful for her husband’s family, the woman will be sent back to her parents’ home, villagers jeer at her inability, and it is difficult for them to get remarried. Because of this traditional way of thinking, there are fewer female students receiving education in the school. 

Cash Income

Gser lung Township is a nomadic township with has five villages.  NInety-eight percent of the families depend on livestock. Each family raises three kinds of animals,:horses, yaks, and sheep. Villagers earn income from selling yaks, butter, cheese, sheep, sheep wool, and animal skins. Some families earn money from renting their land to the caterpillar fungus collectors, caterpillar fungus is a medicinal herb that grows in certain areas. In total each family earns about 8,000 RMB to 9,000 RMB each year.

They need to spend around 4,000 RMB for buying different kinds of food: such as wheat flour, barley, rice, oil, vermicelli, potatoes and other vegetables. They spend about 3,000 RMB during the New Year and other festivals for food to share with family members and friends, clothes, gifts to give relatives and neighbors. Since villagers don’t have construction work skills, they have to spend about 1,000 RMB each year for hiring construction workers to repair old things or build new houses and walls.  For example, wall repair to keep animals safe from wolves, thieves and cold weather; fence repair for dividing land between different families; winter home construction, and digging wells for water. Families spend about 1,000 RMB for daily necessities, such as electricity, medicine, children’s birthday celebrations, offerings to the monasteries, etc. Additionally, some families have to rent extra land for the animals to have enough grass to eat, because their own land doesn’t have enough grass or the land quality is too poor. Usually they don’t have any money left for saving.

If a family has a university student, they have to borrow money from thevillage leader or a local bank for tuition fees. Families who are poor and with high school students or middle school students pay tuition fees by borrowing money from rich villagers or relatives. 

Herding

       Gser lung Township is a nomadic area where families depend on livestock. In 1983, the government divided the common area into land plots with sizes coordinating to the number of their livestock and common among the families，according to family sizes. Each family has three kinds of animals: horses, yaks, and sheep. Men only herd animals, other house chores are done by women. For example, collecting yak dung, milking female yaks, producing butter and cheese, tailoring clothes, carrying water, and cooking food. Each family plot was separated it into two parts: ‘summer land’ and ‘winter land.’  Therefore, each family needs to move at least twice a year. So, women have to sew new tents for shelter and make homemade stoves for cooking at least twice a year. Some families have to move three times due to insufficient grass for livestock. They move to either ‘spring pasture’ or ‘autumn pasture’ for one or two months. Both ‘spring pastures’ and ‘autumn pastures’ were rented from other families which sold all their livestock and moved into the town. These families left their nomadic lifestyle to be drivers, businessmen, or security guards.

Agriculture

      There is agriculture in Gser lung Township but because of the climate, which is dry in summer and cold in winter; and geology, rocky mountain ranges with deep canyons and valleys, it is not suitable for planting any crops.  It is even difficult to grow trees in this place.

Project Goals

       The immediate goal of this project is to buy 675 books, including 415 Tibetan books, 205 Chinese Books, 55 English Books; 3 book shelves, 5 tables, 10 chairs, 4 LCD-projectors, and 20 teaching VCDs, for Gser lung Junior Middle School in Gser lung Township. The overarching goals of this project are to provide rich learning and teaching conditions for both teachers and students; to increase the rate of students passing examinations; to improve local students’ educational levels meanwhile ensuring that the female students’ higher chances of getting higher education; to reduce families financial burden and increase the number of students’ enrollment.

Problems

No. 1) The Problems Caused by Book Shortage

1)      Lack of study materials for students

Gser lung Junior Middle School only provides textbooks with basic knowledge. Each student has one book for each subject. They have few extra exercise-books to practice with and don’t have any other books to read from the in library. It is difficult for students to improve or get enough knowledge by only depending on textbooks.

2)      Few students pass the high school entrance examinations

When students finish in primary school or middle school, they need to take entrance examinations of entering middle school or high school. It is also time to compare with other school students. Students get really depressed after they fail in competitions. Most of the students feel very embarrassed and under heavy stress after all the scores are shown in public. And it is also very hard for their parents to accept such bad results after 6 or 9 years of schooling. So they ask their children to stay at home and do housework. Entrance examinations stopped many students’ chances of getting a higher education.

3)      Lowered interest in studying and development of bad habits

Because of lack of books to read from the library and few exercise-books to practice with, students can only depend on teacher’s own knowledge and skills. Since teachers don’t have any materials to use for teaching except the textbooks, the teachers have to make some exercises with their own knowledge. During the spare time teachers are busy preparing for class and making exercises, but the students don’t have any practice exercises to do if they felt that they understood the covered material so they just play all the time. If students pass the entrance examinations they tend to try to keep the traditional way of learning and following teachers’ arrangements or orders. This bad habit will continue and at the end, it would lead to a lazy learning environment for all students.

No. 2) The Problems Caused by Lack of LCD-Projector

1)      Wasted time

In primary school, teachers have to write everything on the blackboard to teach the students. Sometimes it takes the whole class time for the teacher to write notes on the blackboard, for example, if the teacher writes an explanation which is not mentioned in the text book, and students need to copy on their note books, so it takes double the time. In middle school, teachers also have to write all the extra exercises which are arranged for practice. Therefore, writing wastes a lot of valuable class time.

2)      Difficulties in understanding the textbooks

It is very difficult for the students to understand the words and some texts which are not related to nomadic areas or nomadic cultures, because all the students are from nomadic areas and have never traveled.  Their knowledge of the outside world is very limited. For example, it is difficult for the students to recognize different kinds of vegetables and fruits through oral descriptions. It is also difficult for them to get any knowledge about farming, city life, etc.  It is easier to remember vegetables and fruits when presented with shown by a LCD-projector. Without the LCD-projector, teachers can’t make use of their government-issued laptops.

3)      Health Issues Related to Dust

When teachers write everything on the blackboards using chalk, classrooms are filled with dust. It makes the classroom dirtier and breathing in the chalk dust causes throat problems for students.  It also leads to eye problems and other illnesses. If the teacher uses an LCD-projector, chalk use would reduce, and thus the classroom will be cleaner and it will be better for the students’ health.

4)      Waste of teachers’ energy

Teachers not only have to write on the blackboards with chalk, but also have to stand up while they are writing, so they feel very tired after writing for a long time on the blackboards. If they show the notes and other material with the LCD-projector instead of writing all of them on the blackboard, they will waste less energy and time. 

Benefits

No. 1) The Benefits of Library

1)      Save time and money

If there is a library in the school, students can save both money and time. Students wouldn’t need to waste study time to buying books from far places.  They can simply read books in the library. Students would save book buying money for both and the transportation fee for going to the book stores.  This would reduce their families’ financial burden.

2)      Students get more interested in studying

If there is a library in the school, students could learn more things and expand their knowledge by reading different kinds of books according to their interests. Students wouldn’t get bored by studying the textbooks only. They can be enriched through other stories or books. Students can also be inspired by reading many kinds of autobiographies of famous and successful people.

3)       Improve student’s skills

By reading different kind of books, students can improve their comprehension skills, writing skills, as well as helping students to develop their thinking skills, creativity, and vocabulary. It would also help their examinations, too.

No. 2) The Benefits of LCD-Projector

1)      Improve teaching quality by visual aid

If there is a LCD-projector in the classroom, teachers could teach new words by attaching pictures, and teach histories or stories by showing videos. It is easier for the students to understand with visual aids than with only oral explanations. Teachers can improve their teaching skills by using the latest and most up-to-date teaching materials which are used by other teachers on LCD projectors.

2)      Reduce teachers’ burden

If there is an LCD-projector in the classroom, teachers can provide more materials that they collected from the internet by showing them on the LCD-project instead of taking a long time to write them on the blackboard. Thus the teachers could save both time and energy. It also can increase the teachers’ options of teaching methods.  For instance, visual teaching methodology or auditory teaching style..

Broaden the perspective of the students

Because of land formations and inconvenient transportation, there are few people who have gone out of the township and there are few outsiders who come into this area. So both the students and parents do not have much knowledge of outside world.  They just know what they can see in their daily lives. If there is an LCD-projector in the classroom, students will have more chances to watch movies and videos, and it will broaden students’ understanding of other cultures. Students will also get more information that could inspire them. For example, for the female students, it would be helpful if they see women from other cultures with successful stories and great experiences. Female students can be encouraged by that. In Gser lung Township many villagers hold the idea that girls are weaker than boys, so it would be helpful and necessary for the students to see movies about successful women or the struggles of women.

Gender Equality

       Firstly, a library benefits both boys and girls equally. Secondly, LCD-projectors could encourage female students through showing movies about famous women; let students believe women are as capable as men. The school leader promised the project manager that they would show a female movie or film twice a month. Thirdly, the school leader and the project manager will choose 1 woman as the librarian among the teachers, which will help them to have extra working experiences. Additionally, if this project is funded, the project manager, a female will implement this project and she will be a good example for the female students. This will improve villagers’ perceptions of educated girls and which will raise the villagers’ awareness of the importance of educating girls. 

Beneficiaries

       This project will directly benefit more than 340 students and 25 teachers in Gser lung Junior Middle School and indirectly benefits 678 families in Gser lung Township.

Government Approval

On July 12^th 2010, the project manager asked Gser lung Township leader, Angke, about this project. The leader gave her full permission to do this project.

Steps of Project

1. Discuss the problems with the villagers in Gser lung Township and decide which is the most important one. (done)
2. Collect information of the project location. (done)
3. Talk about the problems and the benefits with school leaders and teachers. (done)
4. Discuss with the teachers what kind of books they need in their library. (done)
5. Go to the bookstores/ market to get the information about the books and things to buy and collect price information. (done)
6. Calculate the prices of all the books, tables, chairs, and projectors. (done)
7. Check extra fees including transportation fees, fees for technicians to install the projectors. (done)
8. Write project proposal.
9. Receive funds.

10.  Buy books and LCD-projectors in Xining City.

11.  Transport all the things to the school, put the books in the library and install the LCD-projectors in the classrooms.

12.  Have a meeting with school teachers, village leaders, and students about the goals and plans of the project, take pictures and interview some beneficiaries

13.  Write the final report

Timeframe

This project will take two weeks to complete

First Week: 1) two days: to buy all the books, book shelves

2) one day: to buy LCD-projectors, electrical curtain/screens, hangers, and wires

3) one day: to transport materials to the school

4) one day: to put the books in the library

5) one day: to install the projectors in the classrooms

6) one day: to hold a meeting, take pictures, and interview beneficiaries

Second Week: Write the final project

Project Budget 

Donor Contribution in RMB: 40,360 RMB

Local Contribution in RMB: 3,050 RMB (Village leaders and school leader will pay for this)

Shem Contribution in RMB: 500 RMB

Total Cost: 43,910 RMB

Detailed Budget                                                                                                 

Sustainability

In order to make sure this project will be sustainable we have selected two women as librarians. Their duties include organizing the books in the library, lending and returning of the borrowed books, keeping the library clean, keeping the books in good condition, and opening the library on time during the weekends and weekdays. Students and teachers are allowed to borrow only one book at a time. Dictionaries and exercise books cannot be borrowed and can only used in the library. School leaders will inspect and review the conditions once a month. Librarians are responsible for any lost books, unreturned books and destroyed books.

       LCD-projectors will be hanged in the ceiling of the classrooms; teachers use them during the classes. Class teachers are responsible for keeping them clean and in a good condition. If the LCD-projector is damaged after one year and nobody knows who damaged it, all the class teachers and the ones who use it will be responsible for maintaining the projector. But if the projector is damaged within one month, the business company or seller will replace the damaged projector with a new one; if the projector is damaged within two years, the business company or seller will take responsibility to repair the damaged projector as it will be under warranty.

Additional Information

1)      The project manager has done a school project which is about to buy Chinese Dictionaries, notebooks, pencils to improve their studying situation, and some balls to play in the Physical Education class for the students of Gser lung Primary School. When she was in Huangnan ETP in 2003, she explained to the teacher the students’ poor studying conditions. Then, the teacher helped her and solved the problem. They gave the students some notebooks, dictionaries, and pencils to improve their study conditions; they also provided some balls to them for sports during the spare time.

2)      In the spring of 2011, she has coordinated a Solar Flashlight Project with Shem Group’s help.

3)      In 2011, she organized a library building project for the Third Primary School in Nin mtha Township of Henan County. She was helped by a teacher in Qinghai Normal University.

Map of the Project Location

This project is to buy 58 solar panels for 58 households in Budu Village to provide enough electricity to the 58 families in Budu Village, increasing the students’ study time at night and making it possible to watch TV during their spare time. It will also decrease the amount of money spent on candles, flashlight batteries and butter lamps.

Funds needed: $9,710.52 (61,118rmb)

Blo bZang dPal sGron is from Luhuo County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, China. She graduated from Qinghai Normal University. Now she is working as an officer in Ladao Township.  

Contact information
Contact Group: Shem Women’s Group
Mailing Address: Qinghai, Xining, Xining Shi You Zheng Ju, Xin Ning Lu You Ju, 20-5 Xin Xiang, 810008, P.R.C
Telephone: 0971- 6302115 (Shem office),

Email: kalwangjyid@shemgroup.org  

Web: www.shemgroup.org

Project Location:

This project is located in Budu Village, in Zhuwo Township, Luhuo County; Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, China. Budu Village is about 45 km away from Luhuo County town (called Zhanggo in Tibetan); Luhuo County is located in the southeast of Ganzi Prefecture and Luhuo County is 650km away from Chengdu City, the capital of Sichuan province.

Population:

There are 431 people of 58 households in Budu Village consisting of 165 men, 158 women and 108 children (under the age of 18). 

Education

There are 104 students (49 males and 55 females) in Budu Village, including 16 college students (9 males and 7 females), 15 high school students (7 males and 8 females), 33 middle school students (12 males and 21 female), and 40 primary school students (22 males and 18 females). 23 people (18 males and 5 females) have official jobs and 50% of men and 3% of women are literate in Budu Village (not including students, monks, nuns and functionaries). The rest of the people are illiterate because the older generations don’t believe Tibetan people can get a job after their children attend school since there are very few Tibetan people who have an official job in their areas.

Cash Income

Except for the 25 official workers, all of other villagers are farmers, so their lives depend on agriculture. They plant barley, wheat, potatoes and peas in their fields. The richest families own 15-20 mu (1 mu = 0.0666 hectares), they can earn 2,000-2,500 RMB per year from selling their barley and wheat. The poorest families only own 1- 3 mu of land, so it’s impossible to sell their barley and wheat, sometimes those poorest families even need to buy barley from others to live off of.

The villagers are dependant on agriculture, but they also own at least 4-7 livestock, such as cows, female yaks, and horses, and three families also own 10-15 sheep. From livestock, they can earn around 900 to 1,000 RMB by selling the livestock, and can earn 200 to 400 RMB per year from selling butter and cheese . The sheep owners can earn 300-400 RMB from selling wool. The young villagers who did not attend school are earning money by doing outside work, such as construction work, earning 40-50RMB per day, or or working in restaurants and hotels, earning 20-30 RMB per day. The village’s adults can earn money by digging caterpillar fungus(Caterpillar fungus: That is a kind of herb, which grow on high mountains and grasses. People can dig it during the months of May and June; the best fungus can sell for 20-25RMB). Each piece of fungus can sell for 15 to 20 RMB, and the best fungus can sell for 25 to 30 RMB. Each person usually can earn around 4,000 RMB from digging fungus, and 30-40% women earn around 900 RMB from collecting medicinal herbs and selling sapodillas in the county town. There are 25 official workers; they can earn 1,800-2,000 RMB from the government per month.

On average, each family can earn around 5,000 RMB per year, and all of this money is used on food, clothes, festivities, children’s school fees, electricity, medicine, building houses and transportations. Families usually have around 700-800 RMB left after all those costs.

Herding

Each family has at least 4 to 7 livestock (cows, female yaks, horses, or sheep); they use them for work (plowing fields), milking and transporting things. Their village leaders made a rule that each family has to take turn to herd all the livestock in the village according to the number of livestock each family own. For example, if one family has ten livestock, then that family has to herd the whole village’s livestock for ten days. They sell livestock such as female yaks, horses, and sometimes male yaks and cows. Each animal can earn about 1,000 to 1, 200 RMB. They also sell butter and cheese to earn about 200 to 300 RMB per year, and wool to earn 300-400 RMB.

Agricultural

The villagers are dependent on agriculture; they plant barley, wheat, potatoes and peas. The richest families own 15-20 mu of land, and each mu can produce 500-600 jin of barley, wheat and peas per year. The poorest families have only 1-3 mu of land, which makes their life very difficult.  They must buy or borrow barley from the rich families. Since the village is mostly dependant on farming, the weather is very important to their livelihood; lack of rain brings serious consequences, such as starvation.

Weather

The village is located at an altitude of about 5834 meters. There used to be a stable source of electricity, but in 2009, the county Secretary sold the best hydroelectric plant to Ganzi County (near Luhuo county). Now in Luhuo the electricity is too weak to provide enough for every household, so there are always power cuts, and now the biggest problem in rural areas is electricity. During summer and spring there is lots of rain and lightning, so the hydroelectric plant always shuts off the power, saying that it is very dangerous to use electricity in bad weather. During winter time, the river gets covered with thick ice, so it is very difficult to produce electricity from the water.

The project goals

The immediate goal of this project is to buy 58 solar panels for 58 households in Budu Village. The overarching goal of this project is to provide enough electricity to the 58 families in Budu Village, increasing the students’ study time at night and making it possible to watch TV during their spare time. It will also decrease the amount of money spent on candles, flashlight batteries and butter lamps. 

Problems

1. Unstable source of electricity: Until 2009, the hydroelectric plant in Luhuo(尼奇大电厂) had been a very good source of electricity, but at the end of 2009, the county town leader sold the Niqi plant to Ganzi County, which is near Luhuo. The plant always cuts power in Luhuo County and sometimes there will be no light for three or four days, especially in rural areas. Power is also cut because of weather changes. During the rainy season, there is a lot lightning, causing the hydroelectric plant to cut the electricity. During the winter time, the river freezes, and there is not enough water to produce electricity for the entire county, especially in the rural places. The sudden power cuts create inconveniences for families both at night and in the daytime. During the daytime, villagers are not able to watch TV, listen to music, or listen to the radio. Also, 12 families said they have to use light during the day at home because their houses have no big windows. So there is no light to use when light is needed in the house. Therefore, for 12 households in particular, it has been a very big problem to cut power both at night and in the daytime.
2. Lack of money: In the village, only 20 households said they have no problems buying candles and flashlight batteries, but the other 38 households are strained by the cost of candles and flashlight batteries. Each candle costs 2 RMB and they have to buy at least 10 candles per month. Each flashlight costs 20 RMB and each of the batteries costs 4 RMB. Families buy at least 6 to 8 batteries per month, costing around 30 RMB in total. The total expense is around 70 RMB per month and about 840 RMB per year. Even when there is electricity, the cost is higher than in the county town. In the county town, each degree of electricity costs 0.33 RMB, but in the rural areas, it costs 0.7 RMB, amounting to 700-900 RMB per year for families in Budu village. So most of the families only use electricity at night when they have dinner. The poor households cannot afford to use power during the daytime. 
3. Health problems: There are some health problems associated with the use of candles and lamps, such as pneumonia and deterioration of eyesight. Pneumonia is caused by the smoke from oil lamps and candles. Children lose their vision, perhaps because they study at night with their flashlight and candles.  An example of this is the experience of a woman called Renzhen, who always works hard for her family, but in 2010 she got pneumonia. When they went to the county town hospital, the doctors said it was caused by the smoke from oil lamps and candles. Also, some children have no time to study during the day; they always use candles and flashlights to study at night. So now many of the village’s children are having vision problems, and usually their vision gets worse and worse. The biggest problem is that they can’t even see the words that teachers write on the blackboard. Thus, their grades have dropped. Some children tell their parents about their eye problems, and their parents have taken them to the county town hospital for treatment, where they are given a pair of glasses. 
4. Inconvenient for people to work at night: Only 20 households can afford to use candles and flashlights all of the time. So at night, the other families have to stay in the dark. For old people, it is very challenging to go to the lavatories at night. Women have to milk at night and early morning, and without light, it is very dangerous for them to milk because they can be injured from kicking yaks and cows. Also, when women give birth, without light they have to face a very difficult night. Midwives have to wash both the mom and new baby, cut the umbilical cord, and then wrap the baby in a cloth, all of which are much more difficult in the dark.
5. Lack of news sources: There are always powers cuts, so people have no chance to watch TV. In rural areas, the main source of news is TV. If there is no light, then it means people cannot watch TV and they have no chance to learn and know other things from outside, especially because many people are illiterate. If they have light and can watch TV, it would not just be for entertainment; they could also learn valuable information, such as how to keep healthy.

Benefits

1. If 58 households are provided with solar panels, there is no need to worry about power cuts. Even if it is raining, and lighting, or if the water used to generate electricity is frozen, they will not need to worry. Whenever they want the light, they can use their own solar panels.
2. If this project is funded, they don’t have to buy candles and flashlight batteries, and to pay the fee for electricity. The villagers can use the extra money on food, clothes, medicine and buildings.
3. If this project is funded, the health problems would decrease. For example, children won’t need to use flashlights, candles and butter lamps for studying; instead, they can use the electricity provided by the solar panels, decreasing loss of vision and pneumonia.
4. It is very helpful for disabled and old people to go to the lavatories at night. It is also beneficial for the women who milk at night and early morning. It can provide more time for children to study at night.
5. If this project has funded, people can watch TV to get more information about their country and the world.  It can also help with learning new languages.  Since many people are illiterate, TV or radio is a valuable source for new information（ The solar panels that will be provided are high enough quality to power TVs, radios, and stereos.

Gender Equality

In this village, most hard work is done by women and girls, such as washing clothes, fetching water, milking, and farming (except for plowing fields). During the daytime women have to do lots of housework, so they have no time to watch TV, and at night they have little time to relax because electricity in rural areas is very limited, especially during the winter time. So they have no chance to watch TV, and almost never hear about country news and world news. The children can’t study at night because many of the children’s families have no money to buy candles and flashlights. So if this project is funded, it would be very helpful for those women and children. Also in those villages women never have opportunities to attend activities, such as meetings. According to village custom, women should stay at home to do the hard work and only men can attend activities or meetings. Because of this situation, I made a decision to let both men and women attend this project’s meetings, and let the village women share their skills and ideas. This project will help women to prove that not only men can do heroic things—so can women if they are given opportunities. This project will allow women to manage activities and make decisions in the process of implementing this project.  

Government Approval

The governmental township leaders (Chos ‘dzam, and the clerk, Yama) are very eager to have these kind of projects in their community. The project manager had done two projects before (running water project in 2009 and solar panel project in 2010 for Zhuwo Village), so in October 2011, the project manager asked the leaders for permission, and both of them immediately agreed with her to do this project.

Time Frame

This project will take a total of 5 days to complete.

1st day: Receive funds, and discuss the price of solar panels with Blo bzang dphal sgron, the person who is responsible for the project activities in the village.

2^nd -3^rd day: Purchase and transport solar panels from Seda County to Luhuo County, then transport them to Budu village.

4th day: Hold meeting and give the solar panels to the villagers, teaching them how to install them and take care of the panels, as well as explaining its guarantee by the company. Take pictures during this process.

5th day: Interview the beneficiaries.

The steps of project

1. Asked the village leader how many households in the village and had a meeting to ask what kind of problems the villagers have. (Done)
2. Asked the price of each solar panel at the Dian neng Factory in Seda county (Done)
3. Got government permission to do this project.(Done)
4. Hold a meeting with the villagers.
5. Take pictures
6. Write the project proposal
7. Purchase materials from Seda county
8. Transport the solar panels from Luhuo county town to the village.
9. Interview the 58 households members (both men and women)

10.  Write final report for the project.

Project Budget 

The total donor contribution is 61,118 RMB 

The background of the 58 households

Out of 58 households, 54 families have children and all of them are attending school. The other children and young people stay at home, but when it’s time to dig caterpillar fungus, they go with their families, and when there is no fungus, they go to do construction work in the county town and townships. Under the age of 15, children always go to herd livestock. The income for the villagers is from livestock, digging for fungus, doing construction works, farming, and waiting tables. Many families have no money to pay for electricity(电费), so it is without question that they have no money to buy a solar panel. Each family will contribute 204 RMB for this solar panel project.            

Sustainability

The 58 households are very eager to have solar panels, so the project manager Blo bzang dbal sgron is sure the 58 families will take good care of the panels. Also, the project manager asked the leader (马先生) of the company(岗井电器公司) if they could exchange the solar panels if they have any problems in 1-2 years. Mr. Ma(马先生) agreed and said they will guarantee to repair them if they break within 2 years. If they have problems after 3-5 years, there is someone in the village who is skilled in repairing them, and the families will be responsible for this cost.

Past Experience

In 2008, the project manager did a second-hand clothes project in Rilangda Village.

In 2009-2010, the project manager completed a running water project in Rilangda village, Zhuwo Township, Luhuo County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province. The total funding for this running water project is 23,394 RMB.

In 2010-2011, the project manager completed a solar panel project for Zhuwo village, Zhuwo Township, Luhuo County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province. The total funding for this solar panel project is 39,282 RMB

Map of the Project location

This project is to provide 493 Tibetan, 450 Chinese, 347 English books, and 230 cartoon books and storybooks to Wenle Orphanage in Shang Zhuang Village. The overarching goals of this project is to improve the quality of education and to increase the students’ interests in study; to expand the student’s knowledge, which is helpful for their entrance exams of middle schools; and to reduce financial pressure that comes from money spent on buying books.

Funds needed: $4,515  (28,418rmb)

Tashi Wengmu (Betty) is from Shangzhuang Village, Chengwen Township, Chengduo County, Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province. Currently she is studying at Qinghai Nationalities University for a BA degree; she will graduate in 2012.

Project Location

Wenle Orphanage is located in Shang Zhuang Village，Chengduo County, Yushu Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China. Shang Zhuang Village is about 200 kilometers from Yushu Prefecture. Shang Zhuang Village consists of 3 groups, which are Group 1, Group 2 and Group 3. People in this area are mostly Tibetan, except for a few Chinese people.

Population

There are 300 households and about 900 people living in Shang Zhuang Village, which consists of 3 groups. Group 1 has 125 households, Group 2 has 100 households and Group 3 has 75 households. Altogether there are about 360 women, 312 men, 228 children. There are 377 people in the orphanage, including 362 students (147 girls, 215 boys), 10 teachers (6 men, 4 women), and 5 staff (2 men, 3 women).

Education

There are 300 primary school students in Shang Zhuang Village, including 170 boys and 130 girls; 200 middle school students, about 120 boys and 80 girls; and 79 high school students, about 49 boys and 30 girls.

There are 362 students in Wenle Orphanage School. The education is very poor compared to other schools. There are only 15 teachers and staff to take care of all the students. There aren’t any reading books except for textbooks. There are only 2 computers for teachers to use. There is no equipment for physical education class.

Cash income

Most villagers of Shang Zhuang Village are farmers. They plant barley and potatoes. Each family owns 2-3 mu of land, and it is just enough to support their living. Some families who have more family members can earn some money by digging caterpillar fungus during the summer. On average, each family can earn 8000 RMB per year. However, each family spends about 1000 RMB on food, 500 RMB on clothes, and 500 RMB on fertilizer per year. If the family has a university student, they need to spend more than 4000 RMB for tuition and 500 RMB for monthly allowance, such as for food, clothes, and study materials.

Families also need to spend some money on festivals, such as the New Year Festival and the Horse Race Festival. Each of them costs more than 1500 RMB.

Agriculture

Shang Zhuang Village consists of 3 groups. Each family has 2-3 mu of land for farming. Most of them only plant barley and potatoes because of the high altitude. They can get 350 kg of barley from 2-3 mu of land, so they have to buy rice, wheat flour, and vegetables. A few of the families who own bigger land can sell 20-30 kg of barley each year to buy rice or other food.

Herding

Most of the villagers are farmers in Shang Zhuang Village. 80% of the families don’t have livestock, 20% of the families have 20-30 yaks, and few of the families have around 40 sheep. The families who have yaks and sheep can get milk, butter, cheese, yogurt and meat for food. Some families also sell yogurt, and yak and sheep skin, and sometimes they sell one or two sheep for emergency needs such as for medical treatment for their family members.

Project goal

The immediate goal of this project is to donate 493 Tibetan, 450 Chinese, 347 English books, and 230 cartoon books and storybooks to Wenle Orphanage in Shang Zhuang Village.

The overarching goals of this project is to improve the quality of education and to increase the students’ interests in study; to expand the student’s knowledge, which is helpful for their entrance exams of middle schools; and to reduce financial pressure that comes from money spent on buying books.

Problems
1.Limited opportunities to learn from outside;
Shang Zhuang is a small village in Chen Duo County, and due to inconvenience of transportation, the school has very little materials to assist students to learn. Most of the students in Wenle Orphanage are from nomadic areas and they can’t watch TV or listen to radio at home. They just learn things from their textbooks, which are given by the school.
2. The students’ spare time is not wisely used;
Most of the students in Wenle Orphanage just wander around the countryside with friends and go to internet cafes to play games after class. The students do not have any reading tasks, except reciting new words from the textbooks, which they mostly do in the early mornings. Students don’t have a library where they can read picture books or storybooks.

3. Students’ lack of enthusiasm for study;
During the class, teachers only teach from the textbooks, and students only learn from the textbooks, which not only limits the students’ knowledge, but also makes them bored with school.
Benefits of the project:
1. Increased reading can broaden students’ knowledge;

By providing the books to the orphanage, the school will have a library where the students can borrow books and read whatever they are interested in. Reading books from the library would increase students’ knowledge, and even reading only a few sentences from a book could make a difference in students’ vocabulary development and knowledge.
2. New books will give students a new reason to study
Lots of new books for students will give them a new reason to study hard after school. By doing so, they will develop the habit of reading. This can improve their writing and speaking skills.
3. Stimulate students’ interest in study:
By providing the books, the teachers also can use these materials to help students to learn. The books will help teachers to improve their teaching skills and help students to create their own world for study in school and at home.

Government approval
The project manager, Zhaxi Wenmao, has asked the township leader, Caiga, on Febuary 7^th 2011, for his approval to do this project. The Township leader has expressed his great appreciation of this project and said that the government will support it.

Beneficiaries

This project will directly benefit 420 people, including four hundred students and twenty teachers. Three hundred households will get benefits from this project indirectly as well.

Project steps

(1) Discuss the problems with leader of village. (Done)

(2) Discussions about the most essential needs, and how to solve education problems. (Done)

(3) Decide which projects should be done for Shang Zhuang Village. (Done)

(4) Collect information from bookstore where books will be purchased. (Done)

(5) Write project proposal (Done)

(6) Wait for funds

(7) Receive funds

(8) Go to Xining to negotiate book prices.

(9) Transport the books to village

(10) Ask the headmaster to hold a meeting of how to take care of books.

(11) Write project report

(12). Send report to donor

Time frame of project

 This project will take a total of 30 days to implement.

1. Inform the school leader that the funding arrived (1 day)
2. Hold meeting with the school leader and teachers about how and when to buy the books and transport the books to the school. （4 days）
3. Project committee goes to Xining to buy books (5 days)
4. Transport the books to the school (1 day)
5. Put the books in the library (2 days)
6. Hold meeting with the school leader and teachers about how to take care of the books (1 day)
7. Interview the teachers and students and take pictures（1 day）
8. Write final report (4days)
9. Send the final report to Shem Women’s Group with receipts and pictures (1 day)

Detailed Budget for Books:

Tibetan Books:

English Books:

 Chinese Books:

 Art books

Total

Sustainability:

The books will well-kept by putting them in the coding system on the bookshelf, and making a list of the books and their prices on the computer.

Each month, 2 teachers will take care of library books according to the library rules. For example, a student is allowed to borrow only 1 book each week. Students will be asked to take notes or write thoughts, and students must not write on the books or damage the books. Students can’t borrow books before they return the books they borrowed. If they fail to comply to the above rules, the student has to clean the library for a week or more.

If a student loses the book, he or she has to pay the price. If any books are missing without knowing who lost it, the responsible teacher has to pay for it. In this way, all the teachers and students will take care of the library and this project will be more sustainable.

This project is to hire 50 villagers for a 17-day employment contract to collect the garbage throughout Kawagebo sacred pilgrimage route; giving financial assistance to the villagers, and more importantly protecting the environment of the sacred mountain. 100 locally-made bamboo baskets will be left on the trees along the sacred route. Additionally, the villagers will bring saplings back to the home village, and grow them on the barren mountainsides, where the pine trees were logged down for various reasons.

Funds needed: $13,760 (89,000rmb)

The project manager, Gelsang Lhamu, is from Chalitong Village, at the foot of Kawagebo Mountain, where the sacred route starts. Her village is located in Yunlin Township, Deqing County, Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan Province, PRC.

Contact Information

Contact Group: Shem Women’s Group

Address: Qinghai, Xining, Xining Shi You Zheng Ju, Xin Ning Lu You Ju;

20-5 Xin Xiang, 810008, P.R.C

Telephone: 0971-6302115 (Shem Women’s Group’s Office)

E-mail: info@shemgroup.org

Background:

The aim of this project is to improve the environmental situation on the pilgrimage route of the sacred Mt. Kawagebo. Mt. Kawagebo is one of the most famous Buddhist sacred sites in China, and even the world. With a height of over 6470 meters, it holds the rare characteristic of never having been successfully climbed. Since 1902, groups of international mountain climbers tried to conquer its peak, but all failed. It was not until 1991 that it became better known to the world when 17 professional climbers from Japan and China all mysteriously disappeared on the final day of their ascent to the peak.  The bodies were not found until 7 years later, at the foot of Mt. Kawagebo. After the incident, local Tibetan residents asked the government to ensure that nobody ever climbed that mountain again because it is so sacred to all Tibetans in the world.

Each year, there are thousands of pilgrims, mostly Tibetan, who come from all over China to worship the sacred Mt. Kawagebo on the 700-year-old pilgrimage route. The number of pilgrims reached its highest point in 2003, the year of the Sheep, which is believed to be the birth year of Mt. Kawagebo. In recent years, it has become a popular place of travel for tourists.  However, a severe problem jeopardizes the pristine nature of the pilgrimage route, threatening the delicate environmental balance. Colorful plastic bags and all kinds of food packaging are thrown everywhere along the sacred route. Additionally, I believe the ecosystem of an originally remote and quiet mountain region would be affected from the huge flow of pilgrims and tourists constantly moving in and out.

From this project, I hope to protect the environment from the trash thrown by the pilgrims and tourist groups by giving short-term employment to the villagers living near the pilgrimage route and providing them with payment for their labor. The job is to collect rubbish all along the route. In order to make this project sustainable, the villagers will bring 100 locally made bamboo baskets and hang them on the trees along the route. We will order the largest baskets, and villagers can bury trash after emptying the baskets every year. If the baskets are filled too quickly, a small part of the funds will be kept to hire a few villagers to bury and empty the baskets. Additionally, they will collect saplings of pine and any other kinds of trees to re-plant again on their arrival back to their village. The village mountain used to be very dense with forest a few decades ago, but the number of trees has decreased due to logging for fuel and house construction. The mountain is now bare and empty with little green coverage. Villagers are still unaware of the danger from all kinds of natural disasters such as landslides, flooding and soil erosion that happens frequently. In order to decrease the soil erosion and other environmental disasters due to frequent logging, the saplings will be planted in chosen areas where trees are have been cut and soil is eroding. The estimated time period will be 17 days.
Project location

The sacred Mt. Kawagebo stands on the border of Tibet and Yunnan. The area is characterized by extraordinary topographic extremes, ranging from arid canyons to snow-capped peaks that have led to the region’s significant biodiversity.

Population involved

Yunlin Township is 927.7 square meters of space with a population of 5,700.  It has mainly groups of Tibetan agricultural villages along Lancang (Mekong) River. Within this project, 50 people will be selected from Chalitong Village as the targeted groups. The direct beneficiaries of this project are all 34 households (152 people total) in Chalitong village since Chalitong is located at the point where the pilgrimage route starts, making it a convenient starting point for the project.

Education
70 percent of people in Chalitong village are illiterate, with women accounting for 50 percent and men 20 percent. In the past years, most parents had difficulties affording tuition fees to send their children to go to middle school in the county town or the prefecture city. It used to cost more than 1,000 rmb per year. About 24 school-aged children in the village attend 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 graduate from 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, each 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 to assist in farm work (plowing, seeding, weeding and harvesting all year around). This is especially common during times when families collect (matsutake) 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 busy times and some are not sent back to school again. People traditionally believe that girls can be better assistants to their parents. At present time, Chalitong Village only has 1 college student and 2 secondary school graduates (2 girls and 1 boy), 2 high school students and 7 middle school boys. According to local government statistics, school enrollment in Yunlin Township lags far behind other places in Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.

Cash income
Chalitong villagers own a little land on the surrounding mountain range; the smallest is 0.9 mu(1 mu=0.07 hectare) of farming land where people grow corn and wheat in different seasons. That is true for the majority of the families. This is certainly not enough for them to eat and feed their animals. So, the villagers find other ways of making money:

Firstly, villagers go up to the mountain forests, collecting a special kind of Japanese favored (matsutake) mushroom for three months, from July to October each year. In the past years, the villagers could find more than 10 kg of mushroom in a day, and sell them in the small market at evening 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 the 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 topsoil in the forests. Last year, the average amount people earned was 500 rmb, however in the previous years, each 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 to earn 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. And this is an amount only applied to about 20% of the households.

Villagers can barely support themselves all year around 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 at least 1000 rmb per year for each family. 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 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. The average harvested wheat and corn each year is around 1000 kg for one household. However the majority of the households need to spend extra money on purchasing wheat and corn till the next harvest season. This is due to their relatively smaller land.

Herding
Villagers raise domestic animals, such as pigs, donkeys, horses, cows and bulls. Usually each family owns 1-2 domestic animals. Rich families own over 50 animals which can earn 1000 rmb per year from selling butter, cheese, and meat. Poor families don’t earn any income from this resource.

Weather
The weather is warm in all seasons, though rain is common in spring and summer. Rain is ideal for crops and forest mushrooms, but does significant harm to the mountain’s barren land, where people logged most of the trees. Frequent flood rushes are a great danger for the villagers.

Project goals and benefits

The immediate goal of this project is to hire 50 villagers in the form of a 17-day employment contract to collect the garbage throughout Kawagebo sacred pilgrimage route, giving financial assistance to the villagers, and more importantly protecting the environment of the sacred mountain. 100 locally-made bamboo baskets will be left on the trees along the sacred route. In the situation that the baskets are filled quickly, the project manager will search for more funding for the next year to cleaning the baskets. Additionally, the villagers will bring all kinds of saplings back to the home village, and grow them on the barren mountainsides, where the pine trees were logged down for building houses, making home furniture, and so on. As for the long-term goal of this project, the project manager will supervise the environmental situation of the sacred route.

Problems

The environment of Kawagebo pilgrimage route has been seriously polluted since 2003.  The route needs a stable method for removing trash.

Kawagebo is one of the most sacred snow mountains in all of China, and many people, including the local villagers, are pleased to see an increase in people worshiping its greatness. However, the situation regarding the environment is nevertheless neglected, and according to some villagers who recently went on pilgrimage there, plastic rubbish is thrown everywhere. Firstly, people who travel long distances from Sichuan, Qinghai and Tibet are so far the major population using the pilgrimage route. Since 2003, there has been a relatively small population of tourists, including foreign and Chinese, who have become interested in taking the route as an adventure tour. The normal season that one would choose to go on this pilgrimage is from April to December; it is closed for the winter because of heavy snow. This is just a phenomenon that shows more and more people are coming for the pilgrimage.

The local villagers are in need of financial assistance

90% of the villagers who are targeted as beneficiaries for this project have difficulty earning enough money, especially the households who have to support children’s education. The mushroom (matsutake) industry used to be a major income 5 years ago, but due to the environmental degradation and prices decreasing, it is no longer profitable.

The collection of firewood is denuding the forest

In the mountain villages of Yunlin Township, the collection of wood, the primary fuel 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. For more than seven days they stay in the dense forests and cut as much wood as they can.  In 2008, the project manager designed and was given funding for 34 solar water heating devices for 34 households in Chalitong Village, reducing the amount of fuel from firewood consumed. Since then, the project manager worked with Shem group and got funding for two other solar usage devices projects for another two villages in 2009. Logging decreased dramatically, but the barren mountain was never protected, which causes serious soil erosion during rainy seasons, especially in 2010. 

Both rubbish on the pilgrimage route and fuel collecting causes a major threat to the mountain’s biodiversity and the living condition of the local villagers.

As more and more people start to move into the originally pristine and quiet land of Shambala (meaning completely isolated from the outside world), we can imagine how the wild living animals react to this phenomenon. Personally, I believe they would start moving away from their original habitat causing damage to the ecosystem.

As for the other side of this problem, logging has greatly affected the mountain biodiversities and the people themselves. Each household in Yunlin 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 in and nearby. The weather is warm and rainy all year around, especially during summer. Whenever the rain comes, it runs down from the barren land where the trees have been cut down. Then the water rushes down into the middle of the villages, eroding all the earth with it and making deeper channels. The damage has intensified recently, and the holes are getting larger and deeper. Thus, some villagers have been forced to move from their houses and relocate far from the damage. 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’s house was terribly damaged by the flood, as well as their farmland, and other family properties were damaged to certain levels.

Women lack spare time for attending social community work

Females throughout the Yunlin Area carry out all housework, including tasks like cooking, feeding the animals, sewing and washing. Only some women share extra outside chores equally with their husbands, like cutting trees on the mountains. As a result, the majority of the women have no opportunity to participate in community activities as the men do They do not have the same power in their family as men do and do not make the financial decisions. From this project, I would equally choose the same number of men and women to collect rubbish and hope it can bring women more power in their families.

Access to the outside world is restricted

Every year during the rainy season, the road leading to the county is covered by mud which comes from the floods. As a result, transportation 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.

Benefits of project
From this project, I hope that we could make the sacred route more clean and remind all pilgrims that keeping the environment balanced is very important for the goodness of Kawagebo. There is an old saying I always hear from elders, “the spiritual being may move to other places if people polluted his home.” Everyone from the local region calls Mt. Kawagebo “Grandfather Kawagebo” for its long history and its high level of respect and honor. This project actually will benefit the local villagers in several ways. Firstly, protect the environment of the sacred route. Secondly, the villagers can earn some money for the continuity of their children’s education and family needs. Lastly, we will be saving and planting trees on the mountains which are becoming barren and causing more disasters to the villages in the valley. Especially in 2011, many places in China, including one neighboring place to Yunling, were completely damaged by landslides. Other places in China were so severely damaged by flood and landslides because of heavy rain, many lives were lost.       

Gender Equality
There has been a clear division of gender in people’s mind since I was a little girl. Families celebrate sons’ birth but not daughters’.  Being the second daughter in my family, I know this is true. However, many people (both males and females) have highly valued and been impressed by my success with many development projects (this is my fourth one).

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 seen as 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 who ever attended college. There are some male college students who have already graduated. The majority of the girls become victims of arranged marriages and burdens come in their youth, such as early pregnancies.

Being a girl who graduated from college and accomplished some development work successfully, I hope my deeds can give them a little courage to give more support to girls, especially whom are already in school.

Project Plan

1) Called village leader, Arong Tersang, and shared my project ideas. The village head is so glad and supportive. He hopes that this can be done soon to protect environment. (done)

2) Write project proposal. (done)

3) Together with the village leader, I came up with a name list, including the poorest families and the families with children in school. The total number is 50, approximately half male and half female. (done)

4) Once the funding is secured, choose some project committees whom will be supporting the village leader and helping with the supervision of other’s work. 2 women and 2 men will be chosen, as I won’t be able to take 12 days out of my job to supervise throughout the entire project.

7) After 12 days, when the villagers return home, I will go back to the village in order to take some pictures, finish the contract, and interview the beneficiaries.

10) Write final report.

11) Send final report with all pictures and receipts.

Time frame
This project will take a total of 17 days to finish: Once the funding is secured, the villagers will be called to start the journey to the sacred route immediately, and after their return, they will be asked to plant the trees that they collected on their way home.

Detailed Budget

1) Saplings: Saplings are young trees that the villagers will look for in the dense forest, for the purpose to carry back home and plant them on their home mountains.

2) Second labor is when the villagers return from the pilgrimage, with the saplings collected. For a period of 5 days, the saplings will be re-planted on their home mountains, where trees have been logged. The second labor is after the pilgrimage, when each person from one family will go join the sapling re-planting task.

Sustainability
This project will restore the environment of the sacred route, making it a clean and environmentally-friendly trail for all the pilgrims that wish to be blessed by the sacred mountain. Apart from this fact, 100 locally-made bamboo baskets will be attached to the trees along the sacred route as containers for the rubbish, and signs like “I am the rubbish keeper” will be attached to the baskets. The villagers will also bring young saplings from the virgin forest along the sacred route back to village, and re-plant them on the home mountain with the same altitude, in order to refurbish the mountain soil which has been seriously denuded due to logging activities in the last decades. In terms of making this project sustainable, 30% of the labor fee will be saved until three months after the completion of the project. This will give enough time to ensure the quality of the saplings.

Reference information
Since July 2007, Gelsang Lhamo has successfully implemented two small-scale development projects mainly to protect the damaged mountain forests, as well to improve the rural Tibetan villagers’ life in Yunlin areas. The total beneficiaries are more than 700 people. Among them, 510 residents have received solar cookers to cook, which has reduced their burning of forest wood. Another 210 people have received solar water heaters to achieve the same aim, i.e., to protect the mountains’ rich diversity of plants and animals in Yunlin areas and, in the long term, to make people’s life better. My previous projects were funded by the following foundation and charity groups:

Shambala Connection, The Australian Embassy, Dining for Women (U.S.).

Governmental support
On September 15^th, 2010, I got a phone call from Arong Tserang, Chalitong Village leader, representing the government and all the villagers. The village leader asked me to submit a proposal to the donors for an environmental protection fund for the sacred Kawagebo Snow Mountain.  He also wanted to bring the villagers a way of generating in come and to start saving the eroded soil on the mountains, which will soon become a severe problem.

Maps

Sacred Mountain Kawagebo

The Kawagebo Pilgrimage Route Mapping

This project is to buy 15 cows for the 15 poorest households in order to improve the health, education and living conditions of the villagers in Xunwa Village.

Funds needed: $6,080 (41,500rmb)

Rinchen Tso is from Xunwa Village, Daowei Township，Xunhua County, Haidong Region, Qinghai Province, China. She is currently working at the Qinghai Normal University Sustainable Development Education Center as an English teacher.

Project Location
This project is located in Xunwa Village at two different geographical sites: one called Xunwa and the othercalled Kouxiang.  Xunwa Village is in Daowei Township, which is about 30 kilometers from Xunhua County Town, which is situated in Haidong Region, Qinghai Province, China. Xunhua County is about 150 kilometers from Xining city, the capital of Qinghai Province. All the people in this area are Tibetan.

Population
There are approximately 220 people and 38 households in Xunwa Village: 69 men, 70 women, and 81 children.

Education
In this village, 10% (not including students) of the people are literate and among these numbers, 8% of the people received a primary school education and 2% of people got a middle school education. Students make up 20% of the population. There are 16 university students (7 girls and 9 boys), 14 high school students (8 girls and 6 boys), 10 middle school students (3 girls and 7 boys), and 21 primary school students (9 girls and 12 boys) in the village. There are about 7 school-aged children in the village who do not attend school (3 girls and 4 boys). On average, one child in each family currently attends school. Some families do not want to send their children to school, because they believe that education is a waste of money and time.

Cash Income
Xunwa Village is mainly made up of farmers who grow barley, wheat, and potatoes. Rich families, who own 14 mu (1 mu=666.6m²), can sell their excess barley and earn about 2,000 RMB each year. Most families have 12-13 mu of land, which is enough for them and their animals to live off and is enough to sell excess barley.

A second way that villagers earn money is from livestock, as most families usually own cows. From the cow’s milk, villagers produce butter and cheese to generate extra income. Because people do not eat butter or cheese very often, most of it can be sold. A family can earn about 1,000 RMB per year by selling butter and cheese. Most households can make about 12 kilograms of butter and 12 kilograms of cheese each year.

The third way of generating cash income is working as a migrant laborer. Adults who are able to work usually dig caterpillar fungus, which is very difficult to find. Each caterpillar fungus can sell for around 10 to 15 RMB. People usually go to dig the fungus at the beginning of May and come back in the middle of June. During good seasons, each person can earn about 1,500 RMB, but good seasons are happening less and less frequently. All of the money earned in this way is spent on school children’s tuition fees, and family costs, such as New Year festivities. In one year, a village family spends about 700 RMB on food and 400 RMB on clothing. In one month, a household will spend another 100 RMB on electricity and other essentials. In the summer, villagers need to buy fertilizer, which costs 800-900 RMB.

In total, the average family can make about 4,500 RMB in cash income per year, and they have to spend around 2,500 RMB per year. This leaves the average family with around 2,000 RMB left over each year. If the family has a student who attends university, then they need to borrow money from others to afford the tuition.

Agriculture
Thirty-eight households make up Xunwa Village, and villagers grow barley, wheat and potatoes. One mu of agricultural land can produce around 350-400 kilograms of barley. Each household owns approximately 13 mu of wheat land, one mu of potato land and around two mu of barley land.

Herding
All of the villagers in Xunwa Village are farmers and each family has an average of four animals – one cow, one pig, and two sheep. The sheep and cows are used for milking and the products they produce, while the pigs are for eating. As stated previously, by selling butter and cheese, villagers can earn about 1,000 RMB per year, depending on how much butter and cheese a family can save. This money is used to buy everyday essentials, such as medicine and salt.

Project Goals
The overall goal of this project is to improve the health, education and living conditions of the villagers in Xunwa Village. The immediate goal of this project is to buy 15 cows for the 15 poorest households in Xunwa Village.

Problems

1. Low income leads the poverty
Xunwa Villagers are farmers and besides farming, they have no other sustainable income sources. According to the village leader, the villagers’ per capita income is about 2-3 RMB/per day, which in US currency is about .45-.50 cents per day.

As I mentioned above, people in Xunwa Village are farmers and they have to spend money on basic necessities like salt, sugar, tea, cloth, fertilizer, and school fees for children. Xunwa villagers make a very low income, and more than that many people are sick, especially during the winter time. Most of the household members get colds and other serious illnesses, but most of the villagers don’t have the money to go to a hospital and get good medical treatment from the doctors. This has reduced Xunwa villagers’ life expectancy, and increased the death rate.

And also without nutritious food to eat, most of the people are skinny, and especially for the children who are not drinking their mothers’ milk, they need nutritious food like milk or meat to support their bodies.

2. No enough fertilizer
Xunwa villagers, especially women and girls,  always carry the cow dung and donkey gunge from the mountain top to their home, because they don’t have enough fertilizer in the fields. Because they can’t afford chemical fertilizer, villagers travel far from their homes to collect enough dung. If the Xunwa villagers can’t buy or collect enough fertilizer, then they won’t have a good harvest and will earn nothing from the fields. So people don’t care how hard they have to work, they always go on the mountain and collect the dung so they will have good harvest and earn some extra cash.

3. Low incomes limit people’s knowledge
since we have a nine-year compulsory education policy, many people send their children to primary school and middle school to get a basic education. After the nine year compulsory education, many parents let their children stay at home to help with agricultural work in the fields, or send the children to do migrant labor. Some children are still going to high school, but parents are not able to afford the tuition. School leaders repeatedly ask the student to pay their tuition, so the students feel shy and bad about school, and the school sends them home to ask their parents for the tuition money.

Benefit
1. High income leads to good quality of life
Some of the families raise livestock such as cows and pigs so they can make some extra income by selling milk, butter, cheese, etc. However, many poor families do not have enough money to buy a cow even if they want one. If every household had a cow to produce milk and butter, then the villagers could both eat and save some to sell. If they drank milk and ate butter, villagers would be healtheir, and have more energy to do other work to earn cash income. This is especially important for babies, because if their mother doesn’t have enough milk to feed then at least they could have cow milk to drink and butter to support their young bodies.
2. Good yield is based on fertilizer
As I mentioned above, Xunwa villagers are farmers and they need a lot of fertilizer to help the crops. Xunwa villagers save the fertilizer from livestock and people, so if they have one more cow to produce fertilizer it  will be very helpful for the crops. Usually villagers can get 700-800 jin (one jin=0.5kg) of wheat from one mu; if they have enough fertilizer, villagers could get 1,000 jin of wheat from one mu. If the family has enough fertilizer from livestock and people then they don’t need to spend money buying fertilizer from the county town. And also, women and girls won’t need to go far away to collect the cow dung, so they can do something else in that period of time to help their family.
3. Get education
From selling milk, butter and cheese, villagers earn some income and support their children’s studies. If they have more money to support their studies then those children will learn about the importance of education. The more they study, the more they will think about their future and family, and they will also have more abilities to do jobs besides farming.

Beneficiaries
This project will directly benefit 15 households in the first year, which is about 80 villagers. Every two years a different 15 households will benefit from this project. After six years, the whole village will benefit from this project. Besides, this project will indirectly benefit the whole village’s development by improving general health, education and income conditions.

Gender equality
The women and girls are the main beneficiaries. Women are the main laborers in the families, and their health is ignored by their families. More income could eradicate the health problems that women fAce. The young girls will get the same chance as the boys to attend school. At least, women’s prestige will be elevated by making a small income for their families.

And if this project happens, then this will encourage Xunwa villagers to recognize the importance of sending girls to school to get an education.

Government support
Local government leader Zhoujia and village leader Rinzen fully supported the project manager to buy 15 cows for poorest families in Xunwa Village.

Steps of project
1. Contacted the village leader and discussed urgent needs with them. (DONE)
2. Held a meeting with the villagers to plan the project (identifying what kinds of cows are needed, who will be responsible for the sustainability of the projects). (DONE)
3. Contacted cow sellers and found out the prices of the cows. (DONE)
4. Found out the transportation fee. (DONE)
5. Wrote project proposal. (DONE)
6. Secure donor funding.
7. Buy cows from Gangza Township
8. Transport cows
9. Distribute cows to the households.
10. Visit the households to interview families and villagers.
11. Take pictures and write the final report.
12. Send the final report with all pictures and receipts.

Time frame
This project takes a total of 20 days to complete.

1 day: Visit village and meet with villagers to talk about how we will implement project
1 day: Preparing to buy cows with the villagers.
15 days: Hold a meeting with village and discuss how to purchase cows, purchase the cows from Gangza Township and transport cows to the village.
2 days: Distribute cows to the 15 poorest households and take pictures of the cows.
1 day: Interview the families.

Project Budget

Note: Each cow cost at least 3,500 RMB in the Gangza Township. The local people contribute 800 RMB for each cow.

Project Sustainability
This project is going to benefit all families in Xunwa village after 6 years. Firstly, 15 cows will be distributed to the 15 poorest households from Xunwa Village. During our meeting we decided not to buy male cows, because Xunwa Village has two male cows to sire baby cows with those 15 female cows. After two years, those 15 poorest families will gave 15 baby cows to the second poorest 15 families, after six years each family will get a cow. If one of the cows dies after two years, that family has to give a two-year-old cow to the next family. Also, when we buy cows the project manager will take one of the members from those 15 households and let them choose the cow for their family. After choosing the cows, they will be responsible for it and every villager will be clear about the contract that we wrote together. All the villagers will sign the contract as soon as the project begins. 

In order to make sure those cows stay in good health and the project is sustainable, the villagers are willing to make a contract with the project manager. The first 15 families will take good care of the cows and will be responsible for the health care. They are also responsible for contributing another 15 baby cows after two years.

Those 15 families will be responsible for all those 15 cows. If the cow is sick, then the families need to take it to the vet and take care for it; if the cow dies, then the family will gave 3,000 RMB to the project manager or give  another baby cow to the next family. If project manager Rinchen Tso is not there when those families are distributing the cows to the next 15 families, Rinzen, the village leader, will be responsible for that, making sure those baby cows are healthy.  

Additional information
Rinchen Tso has successfully completed two second-hand clothes projects in Xunwa Village; one was completed on January 9^th, 2006, and the other on August 8^th, 2006. Both of these projects were supported by the British Consulate in Shanghai and the Kleisath family. In April 2008, Rinchen Tso was the project manager for an irrigation project for Xunwa Village, which was funded by Shambala Connection. This project helped 38 households from Xunwa Village and 3 households from Deman Village. Around 241 people directly benefited from this project. In March 2009, Rinchen Tso was the project manager for Book Project for Dordan School, which was funded by the Asia Foundation; this book project helped the whole Dordan School, including teachers, students, and householders. Approximately 1,100 people benefitted from this project directly.

Photos of the project

Project manager Rinchen Tso (Ava) and her friends discussing the cow project with village leader Rinzen.

Zhuoma told us part of their house has already fallen down; she is afraid that her house will fall down when she is sleeping at night, and worries that her family members will die from that.

Xire is the father of four children (two girls and two boys); he told us that because of his children’s school tuition, he sold all his family livestock and there is nothing left at home.

Most of the Xunwa villagers live in this kind of house; if it is raining. then the villagers can’t live in the house, because the roof leaks, especially during the autumn.

Lamao Caidan is a seven-year-old boy, and his mother told us when he was small boy she doesn’t have any milk to feed him and her family also don’t have any cow to milk, so he became disabled..

Map of the project location

]]> http://www.shemgroup.org/proposals/733/cow-project-for-xunwa-village/feed/ 0 http://www.shemgroup.org/proposals/310/proposal-for-%e2%80%9csnow-land-girls-literature-forum-%e2%85%a2-tibetan-women%e2%80%99s-literature-competition%e2%80%9d-project/ http://www.shemgroup.org/proposals/310/proposal-for-%e2%80%9csnow-land-girls-literature-forum-%e2%85%a2-tibetan-women%e2%80%99s-literature-competition%e2%80%9d-project/#comments Mon, 24 Mar 2008 01:54:00 +0000 shemgroup http://www.shemgroup.org/proposals/310/proposal-for-%e2%80%9csnow-land-girls-literature-forum-%e2%85%a2-tibetan-women%e2%80%99s-literature-competition%e2%80%9d-project/

This project is to empower more Tibetan women to write their life stories, ideas, and to value education. An additional goal of this project is to encourage more people to value women’s education on the Tibetan Plateau.

Youth Group from Vienna funded this project

Project Goals
The immediate goal of this project is to hold the Third and Fourth Snow Land Women’s Literature Forum for college women writers, and the First Shem Women’s Group’s Literature Award for Tibetan women writers.

The overarching goal of this project is to empower more Tibetan women to write their life stories, ideas, and to value education. An additional goal of this project is to encourage more people to value women’s education on the Tibetan Plateau.

Project managers

Gonpojyi (female), Pakmodrolma (female), Hortsang Lhegel (male) and Shem Women’s Group

Project LocationsFirst Location: North West Nationalities University in Lan Zhou City, Gansu Province, China, on April 12^th 2008.

Second Location: South West Nationality University in Chengdu City, Sichuan Province, China, on September 20-21^st 2008.

Third Location: Hezuo City, Gannan Prefecture, Gansu Province, China, Mid November 2008.
Population
There will around 2000 people at the Third and Fourth Snow Land Women’s Literature Forum for College women writers.
There will be around 1000 people at the first Shem Women’s Group’s Literature Awards for women writers.

Project Background
In order to improve Tibetan women’s writing skills, motivate Tibetan women to write more and build their self confidence, Hortsang Lhegel, Gonpojyi, and Pakmodrolma together started to hold the women’s writing forum. In 2007, they started a women’s forum and cultural preservation meeting that was attended by around 2000 people in Hezuo City, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province. The second forum was held in Qinghai Nationalities University in Xining City, Qinghai Province. During these forums they invited famous women writers, teachers, and important people who really cared about women’s writings and women’s right. Participants also gave each other advice and feedback regarding the problems they faced. Participants and organizers were enthusiastic about continuing their work with Shem’s support.

Hortsang Lhegel (b. 1976) was born in Martang Village Labrang (Xia He in Chinese) County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, and China. He was not able to attend school due to his parents’ divorce and the mistreatment received from his step mother. In 1998 he realized the importance of Tibetan development and Tibetan history. He also realized the importance of education. He received teachings from a Lama in Labrang Monasteries in Labrang County, He then traveled to many different Tibetan areas to do research about Tibetan culture. Now he is the Executive Director of the Tibetan Folk Culture Research Group. He is also a member of Gannan Writer’s Organization, Qinghai Minorities Charity Fund, and is the Under-Secretary-General of Qinghai Buddhist Cultural Service Center. In addition, he has been the main manager of the First and the Second Tibetan Women Writer’s Forum in Hezuo and Xining. Hortsang Lhegel will be one of the main managers of this project.

Pakmodrolma (b. 1984) was born in Mangra County, Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China. In 2001, she entered Qinghai Nationalities University, Xining, Qinghai Province. She has published over 20 articles in different magazines and newspapers. She was one of the main assistants for the First and Second Tibetan Women Writer’s Forum in Hezuo and Xining. Now she is pursuing a master’s degree in Qinghai Nationalities University. Pakodrolma will be one of the managers of this project.

Gonpojyi (b. 1983) was born in Luqu County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, and China. Since September, 2007 she has been studying for a master’s degree in North West University, Lanzhou, Gansu Province. Gonpojyi has published more than ten poems and several prose pieces, such as << Believe>>, << Welcome you>>, <<A Description of Tibetan Custom Wool Knitting>>, and so on. She was the editor for the <<Poetry Newspaper>> when she was in the college. Now she is one of the managers of Snow Land Women Newspaper, and Tibetan Women Writer’s Forum.

Problems

1. Lack of self-reliance
In Tibetan areas, since the students’ tuition is paid by their parents, students don’t need to worry about their tuition. Hence, the children and university students do not realize the difficulties of earning money. At the same time they tend to rely on their parents. Therefore, most of the students don’t pay much attention to self-reliance and hard struggles. Even after they graduate from the universities many of them stay at home, and their parents help them to find jobs.

2. Social expectations cause women to have fewer ambitions
Traditionally, most Tibetan families expect their daughters to be hardworking, gentle, and obedient. If the girl gets married with a nice man then the girl’s life is settled, and she ought to be happily ready for her new settled-down life. The parents show their love to their daughters by buying expensive ornaments and clothes rather than sending them to the school.

There is a famous saying that is: “The monks belong to monasteries, and girls should get married and stay with their husband’s family”. So the parents expect their daughters to get married with a nice man and get a nice job… They expect their daughters to get married in their twenties. Many parents don’t expect their daughters to continue their education after graduating, asking, “Are you going to study for your whole life?” People expect boys to be successful in studies and work, and they respect the boys who choose not to get married soon in order to study. Therefore, most women in college are not likely to strive toward successes in work and they are less likely to think about ambitious goals in their lives.

Regarding writing, generally, women hardly continue their writing after their graduation or after marriage. The few women writers who continue to write are looked down on and face difficulties getting the work published.

3. Most Tibetan women are not aware of importance of women’s health
Most women in Tibetan areas don’t have access to health education, information about hygiene and sex education. There are rarely Tibetan health books, newspapers and articles available. Therefore, Tibetan girls have very little awareness of health problems especially sex education

Benefits
The Writing Forum and the SWG writers’ award will encourage women to write more and will provide a space for women to express their ideas, difficulties, and successes. These activities will also have an important influence for encouraging more women to become writers. In addition, these events will help participants gain more knowledge and experience. Women will be inspired to accumulate more ambitions in their lives. Furthermore, this project will help these women realize that they can be more independent through writing.

This project will enable more girls to have access to more women’s writings and will be a model for the younger women generations to write more. This project will also encourage people to pay more attention to women’s writing.

In addition, this project will have a positive effect on Tibetan women’s health. These forums will also serve as a platform for women writers to discuss and publish information about health education, especially hygiene and sex education. At the same time, young girls and boys will have easier access to clear health information.

Number of Beneficiaries
This project will benefit more than 3,000 people.

Detailed Budget

Detailed Budget for the Third Snow Land Women’s Literature Forum in North West University.

Notes:

# Phone cost: is for the 3 managers from the beginning (which is from designing until the end of the implementation of the project), Shem Women’s Group and the 3 main project managers are in different areas and need to discuss and provide information to Shem Group through the phone and internet.

Project Steps for the Third Snow Land Women’s Literature Forum in North West University

1. Talk to the female teachers (Huamao, Tsering Tso and Wanmatso) and writers (Dekyidolma and Jamyangjyi) about their plan and ask them to give speech on the forum. (Done)

2. Discuss with Shem Women’s Group and ask them to write proposal and look for donors. (Done)

3. Look for the meeting hall, restaurant and hotels. (Done)

4. Prepare materials for the forum (such as speeches introducing the forum, reasons and goals of the forum, and the supporters of the forum) (Done)

5. Look for a cameraman and some one who takes video, (and borrow video and camera.) (Done)

6. Find out the budget and provide data and information to Shem. (Done)

7. Write proposal ( Shem Women’s Group) (Done)

8. Receive funds

9. Give announcement

10. Make a schedule for the forum.

11. Invite the teachers and writers who give presentation on the forum, and arrange their lodging, meals.

12. Start the forum, take video and photos

13. End the forum.

14. Write final report

15. Submit the final report with receipts

16. Make CDs

Detailed Budget for the Fourth Snow Land Women’s Literature Forum in South West University

# Phone cost: is for the three managers to communicate. As they live in different areas they need to discuss and plan over the phone/internet and also coordinate with Shem Women’s Group.

Project Steps for the Fourth Snow Land Women’s Literature Forum in South West University:

1. Talk to the female teachers (Baimatso, Tseringkyi) and writers (Dekyidolma and Wosartso) about their plan and ask them to give speech on the forum. (Done)

2. Make announcement for teachers in South West University in Chengdu City, Sichuan Province. (Done)

3. Look for the meeting hall, restaurant and hotels. (Done)

4. Prepare materials for the forum (such as speeches introducing the forum, reasons and goals of the forum, and supporters of the forum) (Done)

5 Look for a cameraman and some one who takes video, (and borrow video and camera.) (Done)

6 Research budget and provide data and information to Shem. (Done)

7 Write proposal (Shem Women’s Group) (Done)

8 Receive funds

9 Project managers go to South West University in Chengdu City, Sichuan Province and make an announcement about the forum. 10

10 Make a schedule for the forum.

11 Invite teachers and writers to give presentations at the forum, and arrange their lodging, meals.

12 Start the forum and document with video and photos

13. End the forum.

14Write final report

15 Submit the final report with receipts

16 Make CDs of the forum

Detailed budget for the First Shem Women’s Group’s Literature Award Ceremony for women writers

#: This price is different from the last two forums because after the competition we would like to produce high quality CDs with covers.

Project steps for the First Shem Women’s Group’s Literature Rewards Ceremony for Women Writers

1. Hold meeting with the project managers about the forum. (Done)

2. Decide the style of writing for proposed competition. (Done)

3. Research budget (Done)

4. Choose location (Done)

5. Decide the date of the ceremony (Done)

6. Provide information to Shem for the proposal (Done)

7. Look for a cameraman and some one who takes video, (and borrow video and camera.) (Done)

8. Write proposal (Done)

9. Receive Funds

10. Make an announcement to all the Tibetan Areas mostly colleges in Gansu Province, Sichuan, Qinghai Province and in Tibet.

11. Collect articles

12. Article Selection Section:

a) Select 100 good articles by some Tibetan University teachers and writers

b) Select 50 better articles by Tibetan professors and famous writers

c) Tibetan famous scholars and writers, will select 11 best articles in Xining City Qinghai Province, China

d) Re-confirm date and location of ceremony

13. Give announcement

14. Choose famous, respected people for giving speeches and presenting rewards

15. Select 20 volunteers to help during the ceremony

16. Prepare materials for the ceremony (such as name tag, make schedule, and prepare the loud speaker .etc)

17. Hold the “First Shem Women’s Group’s Literature Rewards Ceremony for women writers” for two days

18. Take Record (photos, video)

19. Conclusion

20. Write final report

21. Submit the final report with receipts

22. Make CDs

Total Cost for the all three events