To buy 15 cows for the 15 poorest households in Lha khang Village to provide those families a way to make extra income by selling the products.

Funds needed: $ 4 994.1(34,100rmb)

Klu mo skyid is from Lhakang Village, Bao’an Township, Tongren County (Rebgong County), Huangnan Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China. She is studying for her Bachelor’s Degree in Qinghai Normal University.

Project Location
Lha Khang village is located in Mapa, Bao’an Town, Tongren County, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province. Tongren County is about 181 kilometers away from Xining, the capital city of Qinghai Province.

Population
There are 67 households with a total population of 335 people – 120 children (about 60 boys and 60 girls), 110 men and 105 women – in Lha khang Village.

Education
In Lha Khang village, 64% of the people are illiterate. Around 36% of the people who are literate, including people who attended schools and monks who have studied Tibetan in monasteries. Among those who are literate, around 70% are primary and middle school students and 30 % are high school and university students and monks and governmental officials.
The high rate of illiteracy is caused by a number of factors, including:
1) Poverty, i.e., families unable to afford school tuition.
2) Labor, i.e., families need all family members to work on the farmland.
3) Lack of motivation, i.e., families don’t know the importance of education.

Cash income
In this village there are three main ways to earn income: farming, digging caterpillar fungus, and unskilled labor such as construction work, building walls or digging ditches.
The average income per family is about 6,500 RMB per year. Most families only have three or four mu of land (one mu is about 667 m²). Families can earn about 500 – 600 RMB per year by selling excess wheat. Families can also earn income by digging caterpillar fungus, a highly-prized medicinal herb. On average, each person can earn about 2,000 RMB per year from digging cater pillar fungus, and there are usually two people who go to dig caterpillar fungus from each family. Additionally, families send family members to work on construction projects, such as building walls or digging ditches. On average, each family earns 2,00 0RMB in total in per year from construction work. Therefore, in total each family earns 6,500 RMB (550+4000+2000).
50% of the money they earn is spent on their children’s tuition fees. They spend about 1,000 RMB for other essentials, like clothes, electricity and instruments that are needed for their family. The money earned from excess wheat, about 500~600 RMB, is spent on fertilizer in the spring. All the farmers spend at least 1,000 RMB to celebrate Tibetan spring festival days every year. As a result, it is quite difficult to have enough money, so they always borrow money from the banks or their relatives.

Agriculture
The families in this village mainly grow wheat, potatoes and rapeseed once a year. On average, they produce about 1,500 kg wheat, 100 kg rapeseeds and 150 kg potatoes. Some families own 4 mu of land and are able to sell their excess wheat to earn about 500 RMB each year. Most families only have 3 mu of land, which produces only enough for the family to live off.

Herding
All of these villages are farming areas and the villagers generally do not keep animals.  Among all of the families only about 30% keep one cow, for milking, and one mule, for cultivating lands.

Problems
1) Most of the women lack a way to earn money
Since it is quite cold during the winter, it is difficult to leave the village to make money. So summer is the period of time for the villagers to work. But most of the women need to stay at home to weed and water the fields during the summer time. So they have no chance to leave the village to generate income. Additionally, since the village is located in the countryside and most of the available work involves manual labor, the women are not hired by the bosses because they are physically weaker than men. Therefore, for women in this area, it is very difficult to generate income by labor. Women dig caterpillar fungus, which is a medical herbal. However, since this is a farming area, women always need to watering and weeding during the summer time, when people go to dig caterpillar fungus.
Since the families spend a lot of money on tuition, and farming instruments, such as tractors and mules, they don’t have enough money to buy any cows. So there is a limited income for the families.
2) Low education is caused by low income
Since the families have low incoming from 3 or 4 mu of land and their physical labor work, the families encounter difficulties with their children’s tuition.
3) Low income causes malnutrition
Since the families lack money, they don’t spend any money on food. As a result, the problem of malnutrition is quite serious, especially for elders. In July when I was doing the research for the cow project, almost all (about 40) of the older people said milk is better than any other food. They think it is very helpful to them.

Benefits
1) If this project is funded, there will be a new way for women to earn income by selling products such as milk and cheese in Long bo Town.
2) If this project is funded, it will o=provide a way for women to help with their children’s tuition and make them more independent. They can make income by raising calves, selling milk, butter and cheese.
3) If this project is funded, the family members could drink milk, make butter and cheese. The living conditions would be better than before.

Project goals
The immediate goal of this project is to buy 15 cows for the 15 poorest households in Lha khang Village. The overarching goal of this project is to provide those 15 families a way to make extra income by selling the products. The 15 poorest families were chosen by the village leaders and the project manager, according to those families with the least income, such as families with less land, fewer people to make money, families who have patients with medical problems and more students who need to pay tuition.

Beneficiaries
This project will directly benefit at least 150 people of 15 families in Lha khang Village.

Gender equality
The project manager will choose 4 people – 2 women and 2 men – to go to Xunhua County to buy cows. Since before the women could not get any chance to deal with the village matters, this time the two women are given a chance to get involved, and it could show the villagers that women also have ability to deal with the matters. As a result, people might let the women be involved in the project in the future.  Additionally, as a young woman from this community, the fact that I will implement and manage the project that will improve villagers’ perceptions about educated girls. This will also change villagers’ views about sending girls to school. Furthermore, after implementing the project, selling cow products could raise the women’s income. This will help women be more independent in finance, since they willno longer need to depend on males in their families. In that way, women could feel confident and comfortable mentally.

Governmental Support
On August 19th, 2009 the project manger asked the township leader ‘Jigs med rdo rje whether we could do this project. The leader gave full permission to do this project.

Steps of the Project
1. Discussed with the villagers about the urgent needs of the village. (Completed)
2. Collected village background information. (Completed)
3. Talked about the benefits and problems with cows with several households that owned the cows in Rdzo nnga village. (Completed)
4. Calculated the price of the cow. (Complete)
5. Checked exact transportation fee with a driver. (Complete)
6. Write project proposal.
8. Receive funds.
9. Purchase the cows in one of cow selling factories in Xunhua (which is introduced by a villager called Rta rgyal) area.
10. Distribute the cows.
11. Take pictures and interview the project beneficiaries.
12. Write the final report.

Timeframe
The project will take 2 weeks to complete.
First week: purchase the cows in Xunhua County, distribute the cows and interview project beneficiaries.
Second week: write final report.

Project Finance

Management Expenses*: Phone calls, internet fee, photos and bus fare from Xining to project location
Donor Contribution: 34,100 RMB
Local Contribution: 5,100 RMB
Shem Contribution: 500 RMB
Total Cost: 39,700 RMB

Sustainability
This project is sustainable, because each of the 15 poorest families will get a cow, and those cows may have calves , which will increase the money they can earn. If the cows get diseases, the families need to take full responsibility. But if the cows get a disease within one month from when they are purchased from the factory, the factory will sign an agreement letter taking responsibility to cure the diseases or change the cow with another cow. Moreover, there is another agreement letter that will be signed with the families who are getting cows, saying that the families shouldn’t sell the cows. If they sell the cows secretly, they need to buy a cow for another family. If any family doesn’t want the cow for some reason, the village leader and the project manager will choose another family, depending on their economic level.

Additional Information
Klu mo skyid has completed four projects. Under the supervision of Charlotte (a teacher at Huangnan Nationalities School), in 2005, Klu mo skyid completed a second-hand clothes project. More than 30 poor people in Lha khang Village benefited from this project. In 2006, she implemented a solar cooker project that benefited more than 250 people in Lha khang Village and Yigar Monastery, Bao’an Township, and Rebgong County, a project funded by the ETWA Foundation. With the help of Shem Women’s Group,  she completed a second-hand clothes project in May of 2009 that benefited around 30 people. She completed a book project for Mapa Middle School, funded by TRA Fund, benefittingabout 300 students and teachers.

Map of the project location

This project is to purchase 25 plough machines for 50 households  in Hor Village in order to reduce the local people’s heavy workload and improve the villagers’ poor economic situation.

Funds needed: $1,890(12,904rmb)

G.yang mtso skyid is from Hor Village, Cuozhou Township, Jianzha County, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province. Currently, she is working towards a BA degree in English and Tibetan at Qinghai Normal University.

Project location
This project is located in Hor Village, Cuozhou Township, Jianzha County, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, PR China. Jianzha County is about 112 kilometers south of Xining, the capital city of Qinghai Province.

Population
There are around 51 households of 300 people in Hor Village, and all the villagers are Tibetan. Specifically, among 300 villagers, there are 94 women, 99 men, and 107 children.

Agriculture
In Hor Village most of the villagers are farmers. They grow crops, beans, potatoes and rapeseed on the farming lands. Most families don’t have excess products to sell,. only enough for them to eat. In summer time, when it rains, a flood comes from a valley at the north of Hor village and it carries stones into the some of families’fields which are below the valley and they have to abandon their fields. In summer time, there are also a lot of insects on the fields. The insects are very harmful for crops, but Hor villagers have no money to buy the pesticide. So, the crops don’t grow very well. Some rich families own 12 mu (one mu=0.067 hectares) and they also never sell out their grain, because they want to save the grain for next year in order to prevent some disasters like fire and drought. In Hor village, most of the families have at least 5 mu of land. On average, each mu of the land can produce 600~700 jin (one jin=0.5kg) wheat per year.

Herding
Most of the villagers in Hor village are farmers. Only eight families have cows and goats,because most villagers are busy earning money and they have no extra people to take care of the livestock..

Cash income
In Hor Village most of the villagers（except old people）usually dig caterpillar fungus which is a medicinal herb found at high altitudes and it is the basic way people earn money in this village. People must climb high mountains where horn bushes grow, and usually it is snowing and raining. People go there from the end of April and come back in the middle of June. Each caterpillar fungus can sell for12-15 RMB. On average, each household can earn 2,000-3,000 RMB. The other source of income is that both women and men leave their home to do road work and go to Xining City to do construction work. On average, each woman can earn about 40 RMB per day and each man can earn about 50 RMB per day. Usually, they stay one month and earn 1200-1500 RMB in one month. On average, each household earns about 4,000 RMB in a year. Money earned is spent on children’s school tuition. A student in university usually costs 10,000 RMB for two semesters, including the student’s tuition, food fee and other essentials in a year. The students from middle school and high school usually need 500 RMB for the yearly school tuition. Also, money is spent on New Year festivities, fertilizer, and electricity, building houses, water fees, food, clothes, and hiring cultivator machines and other essentials. In total, each family spends more than 4,000 RMB in a year. Most of the time there is no surplus from their income. If the family has students attending university, they have to borrow money from the bank and other families to pay the tuition.

Education
In Hor Village, there are 18 university students (8 girls and 10 boys); 23 middle school students (12 girls and 21 boys); 15 primary school students (8 boys and 7 girls). On average, two children from each family are receiving an education. Generally, the families’workload is heavy and the way of farming is traditional. For example, people weed by hand and use their livestock to plough the fields. Approximately 90 percent of the village people are illiterate.

The project goals
The immediate goal of this project is to purchase 25 plough machines for 50 households (not including the project manager’s family because her family has one) in Hor Village.
The overarching goal of this project is to reduce the local people’s heavy workload and improve the villagers’ poor economic situation.

The problems
1) Cost money
In Hor Village, there are no livestock and no plough machines to plough their fields, so they have to hire Hui people to plough their fields. It cost 60 RMB per mu to hire people to plough the fields. If the villagers don’t plough their fields, the crop will not grow very well and most families will not have food to eat. Because, people in Hor Village depend on farming。Usually, one family has to spend 300 RMB, because each household has at least five mu. If a family has 12 mu, they have to spend 720 RMB to hire a cultivator.

2) Heavy workload for the villagers
Hor Village is relatively a warm area compared to other areas in Qinghai Province. Thus some fruits and crops are ripe for harvesting earlier than in other places, so the weeds also grow quickly during the harvesting time, which is=usually around July and October. Right after the harvest, the villagers have to plough their fields in order to prevent a lot of weeds for the next year. But the villagers don’t have plough machines, so the villager’s women need to crawl on the fields to weed by hand for three and four days. They don’t want the weeds ripe seeds fall into the fields because it will mean more weeds in the next harvest year.

3) Reduce the production
In Hor Village, most families have no plough machines; only two or three families have machines. Those families who have machines will not receive the machines during the project implementation. The machines will be given to the poorest families in Hor Village and they will get their own machines while other families share one machine with two families. When the villagers begin to plough the fields, they have to hire Hui (both cultivator and owner) people to do plough their fields. They only can plough one time, because of the high cost, . which doesn’t make the soil very soft, and crops don’t grow well in hard soil… Usually, farmers get get around 230~270 jin lessgrain from each mu if they don’t plough twice.

4) Waste time
In the past, Hor villagers used their spades to plough the fields, which took more than five or six days. Now, all the Hor villagers usually hire the cultivator machine. They need one or two days to finish their fields. But, it is also hard to find Hui people to plough the fields. There are always delays, and sometimes they will not come if you have small fields. This wastes time for people who are ready to go do construction in other places, and it also creates a chance for weeds to ripen.

Project benefits
1) Save money
If this project is approved, Hor Villagers won’t need to spend money on hiring Hui people to plough their fields, and the villagers can use their money to buy pesticide and other essential things they need for farming. If this project is funded, Hor villagers can earn money hiring out the ploughs. They can earn 250-300 RMB in one day, although it is a heavy work. If most of the villagers use their own plough machines to plough fields for other people, each family can get 1,000 RMB (this number is based on an interview with a Hui person).

2) Reduce the villagers’ workload
If this project is funded, Hor villagers don’t need to crawl on their fields to weed by hand, and also it can prevent weeds from growing. If they have the cultivator machine to plough the fields, then they can save lots of time that they used to spend on weeding the fields, and the villagers can go outside to do construction work and earn some money for their families.

3) Increase the production
If this project is funded, Hor villagers can plough their fields twice, which will improve the crops next spring time. Usually, they will get an extra 230~270 jin of grain from each mu.

4) Save time
Once the villagers have the plough machinesthey won’t need to spend much time ploughing the fields. The cultivator takes only two days to plough the fields, even if a family has 12 mu of land. Also they won’t need to delay ploughing their fields, and instead they can plough their fields on time. Furthermore, the village women can do other things while their husbands and their sons are ploughing their fields. For example, they can do construction work or house work.

Project beneficiary
By implementing this project in Hor Village, around 300 local villagers will directly benefit.

Gender equality
Hor Village is like most rural villages in Qinghai: most villagers have traditional ideas towards women, and they think men are always better than women. The local women do not have much position in their community or their family. For example, women don’t have a chance to keep their own money and women don’t have a chance to talk when an important event is discussed in the family. But at the same time,the village women are the ones who have the heaviest workload on their shoulders. For example, most of work is done by women, such as weeding fields, doing housework, cooking, cleaning house, washing clothes, fetching water, collecting fire wood, reaping crops, taking care of children, feeding animals, and sewing clothes. So, if this project is funded, it will be good for local village women. They won’t need to weed in the fields and they can go do construction work in Xining or other places to earn some money and broaden their views about the outside world. Also, if this project is funded, it also can directly benefit the project manager, Gyang mtso skyid. It helps her to collect many experiences like how to write a proposal, how to interview the local villagers and how to communicate with people like village leaders or officers in the county town. And also it will give her a chance to show her ability to others, and show that she is able to contribute to her home village.

Governmental approve
The project manager, Gyang mtso skyid, called Hor village’s leader, Da zhou, and he contacted the government officer Zhuo guo in the county town and asked their permission to conduct this project. The government officer said they really appreciate this project and said they will support the project manger fully.

Time frame
This project will take around 12 days to complete.
1 day: Inform the villagers that the project is funded.
4 days: Purchase the plough machines in Jian Zha County.
3 days: Look for a truck to transport the plough machines to Hor Village.
1 day: Hold a meeting with the villagers to discuss how to take care of the plough machines.
3 days: To interview the villagers and take some photos.

Project Steps
1 Interviewed the villagers and discussed what they really need. (Done)
2. Decided to buy the plough machines. (Done)
3. Collected the information of the village for the project.
4. Got the government’s permission. (Done)
5 Find out the price of the plough machine
6. Wrote a proposal. (Done)
7. Received funds.
8. Inform villagers that project is funded and discuss how to implement the project.
9. Purchase high quality machines
10. Distribute the machines
11. Hold a meeting with some villagers to discuss how to use the plough machines and how to take care their machines.
12. Interview the local beneficiaries and take photos
13. Write a final report and send the report to the donor with all receipts

Project Budget

Project Sustainability
This plough machine project is sustainable. Firstly, the village leader and project manager chose a government factory that is considered the best factory in Jianzha County. And also the village leader and project manager compared many types of plough machines in the factory, and chose the best one with the highest quality.

Secondly, that factory manager guarantees that if the plough machine breaks it, Hor villagers can change it for a new plough machine within one year of their first time using it.

Thirdly, the villagers agreed to contribute 2,720 RMB to this project. And they also guaranteed they will use the new machines properly. Two families will share one machine and they will be responsible for any future costs, like repairing and purchasing the broken parts of the machine. Also the villager leader and project manager guaranteed that after each year, the villager leader will go to the families and check the plough machines to see if they are broken. If a family’s plough machine is broken, that family will be responsible for it and will repair it.

Map of the project location

]]> http://www.shemgroup.org/proposals/749/plough-machines-project-for-hor-village/feed/ 0 http://www.shemgroup.org/proposals/733/cow-project-for-xunwa-village/ http://www.shemgroup.org/proposals/733/cow-project-for-xunwa-village/#comments Wed, 28 Apr 2010 02:10:43 +0000 Ava http://www.shemgroup.org/proposals/?p=733

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/720/bridge-project-for-zhuang-guo-village/ http://www.shemgroup.org/proposals/720/bridge-project-for-zhuang-guo-village/#comments Fri, 09 Apr 2010 01:58:08 +0000 Charlene http://www.shemgroup.org/proposals/?p=720

This project is to build a stable bridge, for Zhuang Guo Village in order to improve the living conditions for Zhuang Guo villagers by providing a safe and convenient way for them to cross the river.

Funds needed: $4,276 (29,182rmb)

Tashi Hlamo is from Jialaxi Township, Xinlong County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province. She graduated from the Qinghai Normal University Nationalities Department English Training Program in January of 2008, and she is currently working for Shem Women’s Group in Xining City, Qinghai Province.

Project Location
The project is located in Zhuang Guo Village, Jialaxi Township, Xinlong (Nyarong) County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province. The village is about 11 km from Xinlong County Town; this is about 700 km from Chengdu City, the capital of Sichuan Province

Population
12 households make up Zhuang Guo Village. There are 87 people in the village: 36 men, 24 women and 27 children.

Education
Among the 60 elder people in Zhuang Guo Village, 54 are illiterate and 6 are monks; the monks can read well but they cannot write well. There are 15 school-aged children in the village, but only 7 children are going to Yinlong Primary school and one is a high school student in Sichuan Tibetan School in Kangding, which is about 400 km from Xinlong County Town. The other 7 children stay at home to help their parents herding livestock and fetching water. No one in the village has an official job. Some parents of the village also say that nowadays it is difficult for the children to get an official job and to send their children to school is just wasting their children’s lives and family money. Some parents cannot deal with all the work – such as fetching water, herding livestock and chores at their homes – without their children’s help. Therefore the children have no time to go to school.

Cash Income
Zhuang Guo Village is a farming village at the foot of a mountain. Four years ago, the villagers had three ways to get cash income:
1. Cutting trees and selling lumber to other cities. 2. Digging caterpillar fungus and selling it (caterpillar fungus is medicinal herb) 3. Construction work outside the village.
However, two years ago, the Xinlong government enacted a “No Cutting Trees” policy, and the villagers no longer can cut trees to earn cash. Therefore now the villagers have only two ways to earn cash income: Digging caterpillar fungus, and construction work. Each caterpillar fungus costs about 5-6 RMB. In total each family could earn about 4,000 RMB from digging caterpillar fungus. Another way to earn cash income is that villagers go out to do construction work in summer and spring. A man can earn 45 RMB per day and a woman can earn 40 RMB per day from construction work. On average each household can earn about 2,500 RMB per year from construction work. On average, each family can earn about 6,500 RMB in total from selling caterpillar fungus and construction work in one year.

Each family spends at least 65,000 RMB on clothes, food, medicine, and the celebrations such as New Year. In Jialaxi Township most of the villages are farming villages Also, selling caterpillar fungus is not a sustainable source of income, because caterpillar fungus grows only on high plateaus in summer and these days there is less of it to be found, and the price of caterpillar fungus is also going down. . The farmers are saying that they will be starving in a few years, because officials’ salaries are increasing, which means that market prices are also increasing.

Agriculture
On average, each household has about 8 mu (one mu = 667 square meters) of land, and each mu of land can produce about 100-150 kg of barley. In the village each household can produce on average about 400 kg of barley, 400 kg of wheat, 125 kg potatoes and 100 kg of beans per year from their land. That is enough for some smaller families to survive for a whole year, but it is not enough for most of the bigger families in the village. So they have to buy barley from Ganzi County Town every year, and 50 kg of barley cost 130 RMB in Ganzi County Town.

Herding
Zhuang Guo village is farming village and they also have some livestock. On average each household has 6 cows, 1 female yak and 1 bull. Each household can produce
about 25-30 kg of butter from cow and yak milk. People in the village just keep the butter to eat and they don’t sell it.

Weather
Zhunag Guo is about 3,080 meters above sea level, and is one of seven villages in Jialaxi Township that are spread along both sides of a river.. The river is a big problem for the seven villages because every year in midsummer and autumn there are lots of heavy rains. Therefore, the river rises and it floods the villages’ bridges, fields, roads and even sometimes houses (click to see photos).

Half of Zhuang Guo villagers are living on one side of the river and half of the villagers are living on the other side of the river. There is a wooden bridge in poor condition between them, which they frequently have to cross carrying things such as crops. However, the river floods the bridge during rainy days in summer and autumn, which puts the villagers in a difficult situation. In the winter it is very cold. Sometimes it snows heavily and the bridge is covered by snow. Therefore it is very dangerous for the villagers to go back and forth.

Project goals
The immediate goal of this project is to build a stable bridge, 6m long, 2.7m high and 3.3m wide for Zhuang Guo Village in Jialaxi Township, Xinlong County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province.

The overarching goal of the project is to improve the living conditions for Zhuang Guo villagers by providing a safe and convenient way for them to cross the river.

Problems

1. Time consuming and heavy workload
Zhuang Guo villagers are located on both sides of the river. In summer and autumn there are lots of heavy rains in the village, so the river rises up and floods the village’s bridges and fields ( Click to see photos ). The village has a narrow wooden bridge in poor condition, however it floods almost every year in the beginning of autumn.. This makes work difficult for the villagers.

During harvest time the villagers use the bridge to transport the crops by hand tractors. The villagers take about seven or eight days to finish the harvesting with the bridge. However, once the bridge is flooded, the villagers have to carry the crops on their backs to go around about 2 km to get home. So it makes hard work for the villagers and it wastes their time; instead of taking seven or eight days to finish the harvest, they have to take about 25 days without the bridge. Also, usually the whole village takes about two to three days to repair and rebuild the bridge at the end of autumn (when the river becomes small and the water goes down).

2. Dangerous for the village
The bridge is built out of tree logs, and its foundation is made from stones so it is not really durable and firm. Sometimes when the villagers transport heavy things such as firewood in trucks,it splits the wooden bridge and detaches the bridge’s tree logs because the foundation of the bridge is not solid. It is easily broken by rushing floodwater. Therefore it is very dangerous for the villagers and livestock to go back and forth.

In winter snowy days the bridge is covered by snow and when people cross the bridge it also becomes slippery and very dangerous..

3. Inconvenient for the village
When the bridge is washed away by the flood then the villagers have a difficult time reaching the fields on both sides of the river, and are forced to go a long way around to reach their fields.

4. Poor living conditions
The villagers wanted to build a stable bridge, since they need to repair and rebuild the bridge almost every year. However, due to their economic condition, they cannot afford to build a stable and good bridge.

When the village’s bridge is flooded by the river during autumn harvest time, the villagers have to spend about 25 days harvesting instead of seven or eight days. Therefore the villagers have less time to look for extra work to earn money.

Benefits

1) If there is a stable bridge for Zhuang Guo, villagers can transport the crops by hand tractors during harvest time, and they won’t need to carry things on their backs for a long distance. Therefore it lessens the villagers’ workload and saves lots of their time.
2) If the village has a good quality bridge, then the villagers will be safe going back and forth. The villagers also can transport anything by hand tractors and trucks to each side of the river and the bridge will not be broken because it will be made of mixed concrete, sand and gravel. So it will be very stable and the villagers will be safer.
3)If the village has a stable bridge then the villagers won’t need to go a long distance and they can just cross the bridge to reach both sides of the river easily, which will be much more convenient.
4)If there is a stable bridge then it will not be flooded in autumn and summer, and the villagers will not need to spend time rebuilding and repairing the bridge. They can go out to earn money from construction work and their living conditions will be improved.

Beneficiaries
This project will directly benefit 87 people from Zhuang Guo Village and the other five upper villages of Jialaxi, because every upper Jialaxi village has to cross the bridge to go to pray and offer sang for the mountain god every New Year. In total, about 280 people will benefit from the project.

Government support for the project
The project manager called the local government leader Banggeng Duoji in August 2008, and she got permission to do the project. The leader is also very happy about the project and he encouraged the project manager to do the project.

Gender equality
This project benefits both men and women equally but it also involves gender equality issues. Formerly in Jialaxi Township, people used to believe that women were powerless and they could not do meaningful things as men do. They also believed that sending girls to school was useless. However, in 2007, I did a barrier wall project and a solar panel project for two villages in Jialaxi Township. After that many people changed their ideas toward women and they believed that women could do as men can do and they respected women. Before I did these projects, nobody asked me to do projects such as solar electricity panels and potable water for them. But now many people believe that women also can do important things and they ask me to help write proposals for them. Some people tell my father to ask me to write proposals for them while I am not with my family.
If this project is funded, then in my hometown more and more people will believe that if women get an education, men and women have the same ability to do meaningful things. More parents will send their girls to school and they will have high expectations for girls. The girls will also have higher expectations for themselves to accomplish more meaningful things. Once, one of our village women named Wengzheng gave birth to a baby, and when she knew it was a girl she felt sad at first, but later she said “Giving birth to a boy or girl is the same, because Sangjia family’s Tashi Hlamo (project manager) is also a girl but she can do great things that the boys cannot do in our hometown.”

Project steps
1. Discussed with the villagers why the village needs the bridge and collected information for the project. (Done.)
2. Discussed the project’s needs with the village leader Tsering Tashi and decided what kinds of materials we need.( Done)
3. Checked the prices of the materials (Done.)
4. Took pictures for the project (Done)
5. Wrote proposal (Done.)
6. Receive funds.
7. Once the project gets funding then have a meeting with the village leader to assign tasks for the villagers.
8. Buy sand and cement and transport them to the village.
9. Start to build bridge
10. Interview the village men, women and children about the project and take photos.
11. Write detailed final report.
12. Send the final report with photos and receipts to donor.
Time frame
This project will take approximately 26 days.
1 day: Hold a meeting with the villagers
5 days: Transport stones from nearby village
2 days: Purchase sand and cement and transport from county town to the village
1 day: Purchase small materials and transport from our county town to the project location.
15 days: Build the bridge
1 day: Hold a meeting with all the villagers about the completion of the project
1 day: Interview the village men, women and children about the project and take photos

Detailed budget

Project Sustainability
This project is very sustainable because the foundation of the bridge will be built by mixed cement, gravel and sand. So it is very strong and stable, and the flood will not be able to damage it. The foundation of the bridge will be 2.7m high and the water will also not reach the wood logs on the foundation. The wood logs will be placed on the foundation tightly with strong and thick wires. The wood logs are very thick and they will last at least ten years; if the wood logs  become rotten or broken then the village will be responsible for changing them. Since all the villagers know how difficult it is without the bridge so the whole village will be responsible for repairing it.

Reference information
The project manager Tashi Hlamo successfully implemented two small-scale development projects in 2007. One was a barrier wall project for Yatong Village, which was funded by the German Embassy. Another project was a solar electricity panel project for Yinlong Village, which was funded by the British Embassy. In 2009 she also successfully completed a water project for three villages and a solar flashlights project for four villages in Jialaxi Township. The four projects are located in Jialaxi Township, Xinlong County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province. These four projects are mainly to improve the impoverished local people’s living conditions, reduce their workload and increase enrollment of school children.

The bridge project for Zhuang Guo Village is her fifth project. She has been working for Shem Women’s group in Xining City, Qinghai Province since March of 2008.

Pictures

The village’s bridge is endangered by the flood in this picture from September of 2008. An iron is still attaching one end of one log, and the other bridge logs have already been washed away.

The river rushes up to the village’s road and fields. The road is the whole township’s main route for going back and forth from Xinlong county town to the township. However, in this picture the road is flooded, and rock and mud are sliding on the road. The township people have to go on foot to buy necessities in the county town, which is about 15 kilometers from the township.

The road and field after the flood.

Project Diagram

Map of the project Location

]]> http://www.shemgroup.org/proposals/720/bridge-project-for-zhuang-guo-village/feed/ 0 http://www.shemgroup.org/proposals/707/harvest-machine-project-for-horgyal-village/ http://www.shemgroup.org/proposals/707/harvest-machine-project-for-horgyal-village/#comments Fri, 26 Mar 2010 04:30:02 +0000 Alison http://www.shemgroup.org/proposals/?p=707

The immediate goal of this project is to buy 1 harvest machine for 83 households in Horgyal Village to share. The overarching goal of this project is to solve the problems faced in Horjyal Vvillage during the harvest season and improve their productivity and increase their income.

Funds needed: $7,100(48,470rmb)

Dpalmo gyal (Alison) is from Horgyal Village, Rebgong County, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China. Currently, she is studying towards a BA degree in English and Tibetan at Qinghai Normal University.

Project Location
The project is located in Horgyal Village, Ronbo Township, Rebgong County, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China. Horgyal Village is 2 km from Rebgong County. Rebgong County is about 181 km from Xining, the capital city of Qinghai Province.

Population
There are 83 households with 447 people: 177 men, 163 women and 107 children. Most of the people in Horgyal Village are Tibetan, but there is one Chinese family.

Agriculture
All the people in Horgyal Village are farmers. Each family has an average of 6 mu (1 mu= 667 square meters) of land, used to plant barley, wheat, potatoes and rapeseed. They eat most of the crops, and sell any extra grain. Most of the land has access to irrigation.

Herding
In Horgyal Village, most of the families do not have livestock, though a few households keep cows. Those families can earn about 600-700 RMB per year selling milk and yogurt. This money is used to buy everyday essentials, such as medicine, salt and tea.

Cash Income
In Horgyal Vvillage, cash income mainly depends on digging caterpillar fungus, which is a medicinal herb. Every year after planting the fields in the spring, villagers are busy preparing to travel 100-800 km away from home to nomadic places to dig caterpillar fungus. Each family sends one or two people to participate. On average, they can earn 3,000-40,00 RMB per year, but the villagers think it is very uncertain to depend on caterpillar fungus for their livelihood because sometimes they can dig more and sometimes they can dig very little, and also the price of caterpillar fungus fluctuates.Another income source is construction work. Every year they have three months of free time to be a migrant laborer, and each family can earn 2,000-3,000 RMB per year. But some families don’t have extra men or women to work as migrant laborers, so their income is lower.
Through farming, they can produce 350-450 kg grain per year per mu. Thus villagers can sell 500-1,000 kg grain in exchange for other necessities.
They can make 900-1,200 RMB per year from farming. In total, villagers can earn 5,900-8,200 RMB. However, each family spends 6,000-7,000 RMB each year on children’s school fees, health care, buying seeds for the next year, and life essentials.

Education
In Horgyal Village, there are 97 students in total. There are 42 primary students (20 girls and 22 boys); 21middle school students (13 girls and 8 boys); 14 high school students (9 boys and 5 girls); 20 college students (12 girls and 8 boys). In the village,
60 percent of the men and women are illiterate. There are 105 children total in Horgyal Village. The rest are married out or staying at home to earn money. In the past, the education level in Horgyal Village has not been good, but nowadays people are aware the importance of knowledge, so the number of children who are attending school is increasing.

THE PROJECT GOALS
The immediate goal of this project is to buy 1 harvest machine for 83 households in Horgyal Village to share.
The overarching goal of this project is to solve the problems faced in Horjyal Vvillage during the harvest season and improve their productivity and increase their income.

Problems
1. Women’s burden: Women spend much more time in the fields than men do. Women need to do all the housework and also they are the main laborers in the fields.Men only help to plant, turn over the soil after harvest, and collect the wheat. But women need to spend their whole summer time in the fields to irrigate, weed, and get rid of the harmful insects. It increases women’s burden a lot.

2. Time consuming: Because of the climate, electricity problems, and lack of harvest machines, sometimes Horgyal villagers spread the crops out on the street to thresh the wheat; but that is unclean because small stones and dust get into the wheat. Also it is not safe for the villagers, because it is possible that they will be hit by cars in the street. There are only two harvest machine for 83 households, which were provided by the government. Villagers need to wait for a long time to thresh the crops, and if it rains, the crops will rot. It usually takes 20 days to one month. Also students need to waste their study time working in the field to help their parents. Sometimes students need to ask for leave from school to work in the field, and sometimes they don’t have time to finish their homework.
3. Waste a lot of money: Because the potential for rain is a serious challenge, sometimes villagers hire women from other villages to collect the crops as quickly as they can. They also hire harvest machines from inner Chinese places to collect wheat. But usually the cost is very expensive: 65-75 RMB for one mu for hiring women and 55-65 RMB for the modern machine. These extra costs can make the investment nearly as much as the income.
4. Lack of income: Villagers can’t make much money, because of the lack of harvest machines and electricity, and unpredictable nature disasters. Each family can only produce 350-450 kg per year per mu. Thus villagers can only sell 500-1,000 kg grain to change for other necessities.

Benefits

1. Reduce women’s labor: Women’s labor will be decreased if they have a harvest machine. According to their customs, women would not work with the huge machines. Men would manage the machine and collect the crops. Thus, the women’s burden is automatically reduced.
2. Save time: Villagers’ time would be saved if they had a harvest machine, because harvest machines work so quickly. The crops won’t rot in the fields anymore and villagers can use the time to work at construction sites to earn money. Before, they needed to spend 20-25 days collecting the crops, but if they have a harvest machine they can finish collecting the crops in just 3-5 days. Children will have more time to study, because they won’t need to spend a long time helping their families with the harvest.
3. Save money: Villagers will save money if they have a harvest machine, because they won’t need to hire people or machines any more. Villagers can invest less money in the harvest and won’t need to worry that their crops will rot. They spend 375-425 RMB per year on harvest. They can save extra money to purchase other needs.
4. Increase income: Villagers can use the extra time to do other work. For example, women could have a small business selling fruit to make a profit.

Beneficiaries
This project will directly benefit a total of 447 people: 163 women, 177 men and 107 children in Horgyal Village.

Gender Equality
In Horgyal Village, women are the main laborers in the fields, and men seldom help . If a man holds a sickle and works in the field, people think it is unusual and ridiculous, which is shameful for that man. So men would not work in the fields except to plant and plough. With a harvest machine, women’s labor would be reduced, because men would be the main workers during the harvest season.
In the past, girls did not have as much access to schools as boys, so most of the women in this village are illiterate. Therefore, they are not able to participate in social and economic life. For example, they can’t communicate with others during construction work or doing some basic business. But now, the importance of knowledge was introduced to the parents and they are sending girls and boys to school equally. With a harvest machine, mothers won’t need daughters’ help in the fields and girls are more likely to attend school.

Governmental Approval
The project manager Dpalmo gya met the leader of Horgyal Village, O rgyan Tse ring during the National Holiday in 2009. He offered full agreement on this project and he will be responsible for the project. And the township leader, ‘Brugthar gyal, gave full permission for this project. The village leader agreed to provide a house to put the machine in and collect money from the villagers to fix the machine if it has some problems.

Time Frame
This project will take one week to complete.
2 days: Purchasing the machine in Chaoynag Market in Xining City.
2 days: Transport the harvest machine from Xining to Horjyal Village, Rebgong County.
1 day: Train some men from the village to use the machine safely.
1 day: Arrange the harvest machine room.

Project Steps
1. Called village leader to find out about the biggest problem in Horgyal Village. (Done)
2. Held a meeting with villagers to figure out what they need most. (Done)
3. Got permission from village leader and township leader. (Done)
4. Found out the price of the harvest machine in Xining City, Qinghai Province.
5. Wrote proposal. (Done)
6. Receive funds.
7. Purchasing the harvest machine in Xining City.
8. Transport the harvest machine to the project location.
9. Hold a meeting with the villagers and arrange the house for the harvest machine.
10. Train some men from the village to use the machine safely.
11. Hold a meeting to set up the rules of using the machine and find a manager of the machine.
12. Take photos of the machine.
13. Write final report.

Project budget

Sustainability of the project
The project manager will buy a high quality harvest machine and set up rules for the villagers to take care and use the machine. The village leader said that he will be responsible for the machine and provided a house to put the machine in. Thus, the machine won’t be stolen or damaged by others. And also the villagers promised that they will fix the machine if it has some problems in the future and they will pay the cost of repairing it. So the project will be maintained for a long time and Horgyal villagers will continue to benefit from the machine.

The map of the project location

Photo of the harvest machine

This is the modern harvest machine; it can collect the crops in the field and thresh the crops at the same time. It divides straw and wheat separately and it works quickly. It also can collect rapeseed.

]]> http://www.shemgroup.org/proposals/707/harvest-machine-project-for-horgyal-village/feed/ 0 http://www.shemgroup.org/proposals/656/harvest-machine-project-for-rixiuma-village/ http://www.shemgroup.org/proposals/656/harvest-machine-project-for-rixiuma-village/#comments Tue, 23 Mar 2010 07:32:30 +0000 Beth http://www.shemgroup.org/proposals/?p=656

The immediate goal of this project is to buy 1 harvest machine for Rexiuma Village and the overarching goal of this project is to save villagers time, money and energy, thus improving their living conditions.

Dining for Women from US funded this project

Lhamo Tsering is from Rixiuma Village, Baoan Township, Rebgong County, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province. Currently, she is working toward her BA degree at Qinghai Normal University.

Project location
Langjia Village is located in Baoan Township, Rebgong County, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai Province. Langjia Village consists of seven small villages and the project is located in one of those small villages, Rexiuma Village, about 180 kilometers from Xining City, the capital city of Qinghai Province.

Population
There are 223 people in 53 households in the village: 84 women, 81 men and 58 children. All the people in Rexiuma Village are Tibetan.

Education
There are 165 adults in Rexiuma Village, and two-thirds of them are illiterate. Of the 58 children in the village, 40 of them are school-aged children, but only 29 are going to school: 15 (9 boys and 6 girls) in primary school; 5 (3 boys and 2 girls) in middle school; 3 (2 girls and 1 boy) in high school, 6 (4 boys and 2 girls) in college. In primary school, students don’t need to pay school fees.

Cash income
Villagers from Rexiuma Village are farmers, and on average each family owns ten mu (1 mu= 666.6m2 ) of land. There are at least five people in each household. The villagers earn cash income through selling surplus grain, and on average, each family can earn 600-800 RMB per year.
The villagers also do temporary work. Almost every adult who is able to work leaves the village in May and June to dig caterpillar fungus, a medicinal herb found at high altitudes. In the past, each caterpillar fungus has sold for 8-10 RMB, and each person could earn 3,000-3,500 RMB during a good season. However, since last year the price of caterpillar fungus suddenly went down and each family can only earn around 2,000-2,500 RMB.
Another way to make money is to work in construction, and each person earns 500-800 RMB. In total, each family earns around 3,350 RMB per year.
Money that the family earns is mostly spent on children who attend school, the New Year festival, Naga festival, buying fertilizers, electricity, and other essentials. Each year they must spend approximately 3,500 RMB. So usually there is only about 50 RMB left each year. If the family has students attending university they borrow money from others, usually from relatives and friends, but some families also borrow from the bank to pay the school fees.

Agricultural
Rexiuma Village is an agricultural village. People grow wheat, rapeseed, and potatoes in their fields. Usually, one mu of land produces 1,000 jin of wheat, because the land is irrigated at least three times in a year. Rexiuma villagers own 600 mu of land in total. Wealthy families own at least 13 mu of land. However, some poor families have little land, so two or three households share about 8 mu of land on which they can grow enough wheat for subsistence.

Herding
All of the people in Rexiuma Village are farmers, and most of the families have three animals: a mule, a donkey and a cow. Mules and donkeys are used for farming, and cows are used for collecting fuel and for milking. Because Rexiuma Village is located 14 km away from Rebgong County, people cannot make extra money by selling the milk in the County town.

Project goals
The immediate goal of this project is to buy 1 harvest machine for Rexiuma Village and the overarching goal of this project is to save villagers time, money and energy, thus improving their living conditions.

Problems
1> Hardship without the machines
Rexiuma Village is an agricultural village, and the villagers use animals such as donkeys and mules to help harvest and transport the crops from the field to a place where the villagers thresh it, which takes about one month. However, the villagers have fewer and fewer animals to help with the harvest, because most of families’ mules and donkeys have been stolen. Now there are only four mules for the whole village and no one in the village has a harvest machine. Villagers get into groups of three families and buy a small tractor that they can use to transport the crops instead of the animals. It puts a big burden on the villagers, because losing donkeys and mules makes harvest very difficult.

2> Time consuming
In Rexiuma Village, each family owns an average of 10 mu of land, and for this much land, the villagers need to spend almost one month harvesting with a sickle. This takes up time that could be spent earning money elsewhere. For example, currently it is popular in the village for young people to go out to earn money, not even coming home for the New Year, because they can earn much more by staying at the work site during that time. However, they have to come back home for harvest to help their families, so it takes about one month away from their work.

3> Decrease village income
Harvest time is the busiest time of year for farmers. To stay healthy and productive during this time, they need to buy nutritious foods that give them more energy and strength to deal with the hard work. So they need to buy a lot of meat, vegetables, eggs, fruits and drinks during the harvest time, which cost about 500 RMB.

Also, the villagers need to employ other people to help them reap the crops, because if they can finish the harvest quickly then they can continue their temporary work earning extra money elsewhere. They also want to finish the harvest fast, because it is considered shameful for a family to be the last one to finish. So each year during harvest, villagers spend about 300 RMB hiring women from other villages to help them reap the crops. In additional, villagers need to hire machines from Chinese drivers for the harvest, and for one mu of land it costs 50 RMB. So on average each family needs to spend about 150 RMB for three mu of land.

4>Consume energy
Harvest is really heavy work for farmers. They need to work hard for one month. At the end of that time people felt really tired, and most people lose weight. After they finish harvesting, they need to rest for half a month. So it not only affects people’s health, but also stops people from doing the work they need to do.

Benefits of the project
1)If the villagers have a harvest machine, then they can easily finish the harvest without a hand tractor, donkeys or mules.
2)If they have a harvest machine, people can finish the harvest in five days instead of one month. Then they will have extra time to make money and thus improve their living conditions. Also, the other temporary workers who have left the village to earn money won’t need to come back to help with the harvest.
3)If they have harvest machines then the villagers won’t need to buy lots of food for harvest, and also they won’t need to employ other people to help them reap the crops. In addition to that, they won’t need to rent harvest machine from Chinese drivers. So they can save a lot of money. Every year each family needs to spend 500 RMB for harvest, but if they have a harvest machine, they won’t need to spend money on all of this.
4)If they have a harvest machine, then people won’t need to work so hard and they can store their energy to do other things like temporary work to earn cash.

Beneficiaries
All the villagers from Rexiuma Village are the beneficiaries of this project. In total there are 223 people, and all of them get direct benefits from this project.

Gender equality
Every year in Rexiuma Village, during the harvest time, women are the main laborers. They need to reap the crops every day by sickle, and no matter whether the weather is hot or rainy, the women have no time to rest. Men don’t help women with reaping, because traditionally it is shameful for men in the village to reap the fields. So the women shoulder this burden. If this project funded, it will reduce women’s work a lot, because women no longer need to reap the crops for months and the work can be done in three to five days. Also, since men are mostly in charge of machines in the village, they could help with the harvest without needing to worry about whether it is shameful. Also, the project manager is a woman who designed, and will implement and manage the entire project. At this point, she sends an important message to the other people that women can also accomplish great things. So this might change villagers’ attitudes towards women, because formerly they haven’t believed women possess the ability to do things like this project.

Government support
On June 10th 2009, the project manager talked with the village leader, Huadan, about getting permission from the government. The village leader was so impressed with the project that he volunteered to talk to the township leader about the permission. The village leader told the project manager that the official leaders also think it is a great project and gave the full permission for going forward with the project.

Time frame
It will take total of 10 days to complete this project:

1. Two days to hold a meeting and discuss the starting date of the project.

2. Two days to go to Gansu province to prepare purchasing the materials.

3. Two days to purchase the material.

4. Two days to transport the machines to the village.

5. Two days to hold meeting and distribute the material.

Project steps
1. Contact the villagers to find out their biggest need. (done)

2. Hold a meeting with the villagers and collect the information about the project. (done)

3. Set up a project committee to be responsible for the project. The members are the villager leader Mkha `bum, group leader `Bum `aba, Sha Bo Rgyal and Bu Mo Mchog. (done)

4. Find out the price of materials. (done)

5. Ask permission from the government. (done)

6. Write proposal. (done)

7. Secure the funds.

8. Discuss with the villager about how to purchase the materials.

9. Purchase the material from Gansu Province and distribute the machines to the villagers.

10. Take pictures of the project after it is completed.

11. Interview the villagers to see the impact of project

12. Send final report to donor.

Project Budget

Total cost: 70,700RMB

Donor contribution: 47,900RMB

Local contribution: 22,300RMB

Shem Women’s Group: 500RMB

Sustainability
First, the project manager is going to buy the best quality of harvest machine and will require the receipts of return and replacement policies. Second, when the project manager purchases the harvest machine, she will ask the factory workers to teach her and the villager leaders how to use the harvest machine properly and safely. After the harvest machine is distributed, the village leaders and the project manger will teach the other villagers how to use it correctly.

Third, the villagers will contribute an adobe house to shelter the harvest machine and protect it from sun, rain and snow. In addition, the harvest machine company will guarantee the quality of the machine for a year; during that time, they will repair the machine for free if it is broken. After the year warranty expires, the families will take responsibility for repairing the machine. For the above reasons, this harvest machine will be very sustainable

Photos of the project

This is the project location and women are reaping the field during the harvest time with the sickle. Usually, the weather is very hot during the harvest time, which makes the harvest even more difficult.

This is the machine I want to buy. This machine has many functions: It can reap and thresh the crops at the same time. So the villagers don’t need to first reap the crops and transports the crops to the threshing ground and it will save lots of time and energy.

Map of project location

This project is to buy 20 threshing machines for six villages in Jialaxi Township to alleviate the village women’s workload and furthermore to improve family living condition.

Funds needed: $7,863 (53,700rmb)

Tashi Hlamo is from Jialaxi Township, Xinlong County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan province. She graduated from Qinghai Normal University Nationalities Department English Training Program in January 2008. Now she is one of the program officers of Shem Women’s Group in Xining City, Qinghai Province.

Project Location
This project is located in Gere Village, Rala Village, Regan Village, Gagandi Village, Walo Village and Niuri Village in Jialaxi Township, Xinlong County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, PRC. The six villages are perched on high slopes of two big mountains. Niuri and Walo villages are on a same mountain slope and the distance between the two villages is about 3 km. The other four villages are perched on another mountain slope that is opposite of the mountain where Niuri and Walo village locate. The villagers sometimes can call each other when they lose their livestock. The villages are about 18 km from Xinlong county town and about
700 km away from Chengdu City, the capital of Sichuan Province.

Back ground
The project is located in a very rural township called Jialaxi Township. There are about 35 villages in Jialaxi Township; about 7 villages are located at the foot of the mountains and other 28 villages are perched separately on high mountain slopes. There is no road, even for motorcycles, for all the villages on the mountain slopes. There is a hand tractor road for only Walo Village and another village called Gere. The other villages on the mountain slopes don’t have a road for vehicles. Therefore, the villagers have to carry every thing on their backs to transport goods (e.g. crops, water, supplies) to their homes.
Also the land on the mountain slopes is not arable to grow barley and wheat well. The villagers can not grow vegetables on their unfertilized field lands without water. The villagers have difficulties with water and electricity. In the Jialaxi Township, the biggest village has 17 households and the smallest village only has 3 to 4 households. According the education level of Jialaxi Township, there were only 6 people who received government jobs in the whole township. Only about 40 children are going to school among 480 school-aged children in the Township. Most parents keep their children at home so they can help do works such as herding and fetching water. Some villages are very far away from the school and their children can not go to school on time and they can not return home before dark.

Population
61 households make up 6 villages in Jialaxi Township. There are approximately 453 people in the six villages and they are 165 men, 151 women and 137 children.

Education
Besides the monks almost all the elderly people are illiterate in the six villages. There is only one man who has a government job and his name is Zeweng Rizi. He is a Tibetan teacher in Jialaxi Primary School. There are about 65 school-aged children in the six villages, but only 11 children are going to Jialaxi Primary School and 2 children are in Xilong Middle School in Xilong County Town. The other 42 children stay at their home to help their parents herding livestock and fetching water. Some parents of the villages also say that nowadays it is difficult for the children to get an official job. They believe that to send their children to school just wastes their children’s lives and family’s money. Some parents cannot deal with outside and indoor works, such as fetching water, household chores, herding livestock, threshing barley and wheat, without their children’s help. Therefore, the children have no time to go to school. Girls are especially asked to stay home to thresh barley and wheat. In this area, threshing barley and wheat is traditionally only done by women and girls. The few girls who are going to school take days off from school to help their mothers to thresh barley in autumn.

Cash Income
The six villages are farming villages and they are perched separately on slopes of mountains. On average each household has 10 acres of land.The other 7 villages are at the foot of the mountains (in the valley), where the land is very fertile. Each acre of land can produces about 200-300 jin (1jin=0.5 kg) of barley. But the six villages are very different from the villages in the valley. Each acre of land can only produce about 100 and 90 jin of harvest. Because they are perched on the mountain slopes, the land is not as arable as the land in the valley. The villagers can not grow vegetables on their unfertilized land without water. The fields on the mountains slopes are arid and they cannot produce a lot of barley and wheat. Therefore the barley and wheat that produce from the villagers’ lands is not enough for them to eat during the year. Villagers from these places need to buy barley and wheat from other places such as Ganzi County which is 100 km from Xinlong county town.
Four years ago, the villagers had three ways to get cash income; one way was to sell lumber to other cities, another way was to dig caterpillar fungus and sell them, the third was that the villagers went outside their village to do construction work to earn money. At that time, the villagers survived well by those three ways.
However, two years ago, Xinlong government enacted a policy “No cutting trees”（”禁止伐木”) and the villagers no longer can cut trees for earning cash. Therefore now the villagers have only two ways to earn cash income.
One way is that the villagers dig caterpillar fungus (medicinal herb) and each caterpillar fungus costs about 12 rmb. In total each family can earn about 3,000 rmb..  Another way to earn cash income is that villagers go out to do construction work in summer and spring.  A man can earn 35 rmb and a woman can earn 30 rmb per day from construction work. On average each household can earn about 1,500 rmb per year. Each family spends at least 6,000 rmb on their clothes, food, medicine, and the celebrations such as New Year. Sometimes the villagers have no money to celebrate New Year and they have to borrow some money from other people for the New Year’s celebration and could not pay the debt back until they earn cash from digging caterpillar fungus.

Agriculture
The six villages are agricultural villages, and the villagers grow barley, wheat and potatoes. Each household averagely has about 10 acres of field land. The fields are on the mountain slopes and they are terraced fields. They can not grow vegetables without water in their fields, and the fields can not produce the barley well in the villages on the mountain slopes because of dried land. In the mountain side villages each household can produce about 500 jin of barley, 300 jin of wheat, 150 jin potatoes and 100 jins of beans for per year from their land and that is not enough for them to survive for a whole year. So they have to buy barley from Ganzi county town for every year and l00 jin of barley cost 130 rmb in Ganzi county town.

Herding
The villages are farming villages, but they also have some livestock. On average each household has five cows, two female yaks and one bull. Each household can produce about 30 to 40 jin butter from their milk cows and milk yaks. People in the villages just keep the butter for themselves to eat and they do not produce enough dairy to sell.

Project goals
The immediate goal of this project is to buy 20 threshing machines for six villages in Jialaxi Township, Xilong County, Ganzi Prefecture, Sichuan Province. The overarching goal of this project is to alleviate the village women’s workload and furthermore, to improve family living condition.

Beneficiaries
This project will directly benefit 453 people of six villages including Gere Village, Rala Village, Regan Village, Gagandi Village, Walo Village and Niuri Village.

Problems
Heavy burden and time consuming: Once grain has been harvested it has to be threshed to remove the kernels from their stalks, and then winnowed to remove the chaff and dirt. Women do all of this work by hand. Hand-threshing and hand-winnowing can take almost one and half months. Traditionally, in this area threshing and winnowing are considered tasks for women. During the day time, the villages’ women sit on clay-made floors on top of the houses. They spend the whole day using small sticks and sickles to cut the edible kernels of grain off from the dry stalks. At night they use a tool called a flail – a long stick with a small club-like piece of wood attached by a leather thong at the end -to knock the kernels off the sheaves of grain and loosen the husks. Then they stand on top of the houses to winnow threshed barley and wheat lightly into the air so that the wind could blow through it. Since the inedible husks are lighter than the kernels, they would blow away while the grain would fall close by. However, sometimes there is no wind at night and they have to wait for wind until 12 pm or 1 am. During these times they eat dinner very late and they cannot eat regularly. During the time of threshing barley and wheat in autumn, the village’s women get up at 5 am and go to sleep at 1 am for most of the days. The village women’s work is long and hard, it takes weeks or months at a time just to thresh and winnow their grain crops by hand. If they don’t thresh the barley and wheat quickly, then birds and mice will eat the kernels.
Poor living condition: The villagers know that if they have threshing machines then they can finish threshing barley and wheat soon, but due to their poor living condition they cannot afford a threshing machine. During the time of threshing barley and wheat the women don’t have time to go out to work to do construction work to earn money. Some women say, “It is better to use the time of threshing barley and wheat to go out to do construction work to earn money and use that money to buy barley.” There are some richer families who live in the valley in Jialaxi Township and they have threshing machines. They use two or three days to thresh the barley and wheat. Women who are from richer families have time to go to earn money from construction work while other poorer villagers must thresh barley by hand. Hereby the rich families become richer and the poor families become poorer.

Health problems:The villages’ women and girls get many kinds of illnesses from sitting on the clay-made floors for long time to thresh the barley and wheat and standing up in the wind to winnow the barley. Therefore, most women over 35 years-old get joint problems and backaches in these villages. Also, some women who already have poor immune systems get serious sicknesses from heavy threshing work, long working hours, and eating irregularly during the threshing time. For example, there is a woman named Songlong Drolma whose health is not good and she always gets seriously sick during threshing time; sometimes she has to go to the hospital. She becomes sick during the threshing time due to the heavy workload and eating irregularly.

Prevent students from focusing on education:During the time of threshing barley and wheat in autumn, the village children’s parents consider their work of threshing barley as very important and they take children’s education as a small thing. During this time parents often take their children, especially girls, out of school so they can help their mothers to thresh the barley. As stated earlier, to thresh barley and wheat by hand can take a month and a half or more. So, it is very difficult for female students who are taken out of school to catch up with their classmates. During the threshing time, students miss valuable knowledge they need in order to score well on their examinations.

Benefits
1. If the villagers have threshing machines then the women can finish threshing barley and wheat in two or three days while without the machines it takes one and half months to finish the work. The women will not need to stand and wait for wind at night and they can go sleep on time. They also will have plenty of time to rest. Also as all the villagers finish threshing barley and wheat in a very short time, there will be fewer chances for the crops to be eaten by mice or birds.
2. The women will not need to spend time threshing barley and wheat for one and half months as before. So, they can leave their village to earn money from construction work; they also can do weaving and spinning at their homes. Also the women will have fewer causes to get seriously sick and have to go to hospital. Overall the villagers’ living conditions will be improved.

3. The women will not suffer from as many joint pains and backaches as before, for they will not need to sit on clay-made floors for a long time or stand on the roof to winnow the grains. This will especially help women who have poor immune systems and prevent them from getting very sick during the threshing time.

4. The parents will not need help from their girls to thresh barley and wheat. Therefore the girl students will not need to take days off from the school. They will not need to worry about making up all of the knowledge they missed, and their chances of getting higher scores on their examinations will improve.

Gender equality
In these villages house chores like fetching water, threshing barley and wheat and other field works are mainly done by the women; women become very tired from this work. Therefore if the villages have threshing machines then the women will have less work to do and they can have time for leisure activities or earning extra income.
Formerly in Jialaxi Township, people used to believe that women were powerless and they could not do meaningful things as men did. They also believed that sending girls to school was useless. However last year in 2007, I did a barrier wall project and a solar panel project for two villages in Jialaxi Township. After that many people changed their ideas toward women and they believed that women could accomplish as men could. The villagers began to respect women. Before I implemented these projects, nobody asked me to do projects such as solar power and water for them. But now many people believe that women also can accomplish important things and they asked me to help write proposals for them. Some people have even asked my father to ask me to write proposals for them while I was not in my hometown.
If this project is funded, then in my hometown more and more people will believe that if women get education, men and women will have the same ability to do meaningful things. More parents will send their girls to school and they will have higher expectations for girls. The girls will also have higher expectations to accomplish more meaningful things.

Government support for the project
The project manager called the local government leader Banggeng Duoji on July 5th, 2008. He was very happy about the project and he said that if the project manager can do something to help their community he surely would give permission to do the project. The local government leader is very happy to give permission to complete the project.

Project Steps:

1. Discussed with the villages’ leaders and villagers why they need threshing machines and how threshing machines can help them to thresh barley. (Done)
2. Chose two men (Walo village leader, Kala and Gere village leader, Songlong Renzend) and two women (Zezong and A sima) to manage the project with the project manager. (Done)
3. Discussed with the villagers that three households will share one threshing machine. (Done)
4. Figure out where to buy the threshing machines and the price in Letang Company in Chengdu City. (Done)
5. Figure out how to transport the machines to the villages and the transportation fee.     (Done)
6. Write the project proposal. (Done)
7. Receive the funding.
8. Purchase the machines from Letang Company in Chengdu.
9. Deliver the machines to the project site and teach the villagers how to use the machines.
10. Take pictures of the machines and how people are using them.
11. Interview local people. (Include men, women and children)
12. Write final reports.
13. Send the final report with pictures and receipts.

Time frame:
(It will take 17 days to carry out the project.)
1 day: Hold a meeting with the villages’ leaders and villagers to tell them to give the local contribution and who should transport the machines to villages.
2 days: Collect local contribution from the villagers for the project.
10 days: Transport the threshing machines from Chengdu to the project location.
2 days: Teach the villagers how to use the threshing machines.
2 days: Interview the beneficiaries and take pictures of the project beneficiaries.

Detailed Budget

Three families will share one threshing machine and they will contribute 510 rmb per threshing machine includes transportation fee from county town to the township, so the total local contribution is 10,200

Sustainability
The threshing machine company offers a one-year warrantee on the machines.  If any part in the machine is broken, the company will replace the part for free. The company offers a three year warrantee to repair any broken part of the machine for three years. All the damages or problems occur after warranty date will be solved by the villagers. For instance, each family will take turns to use the machines in the villages and if the machine breaks down from standard use in a family, then the family will pay for anuy repair fees. If anyone breaks the machine when they carry machines from family to family, he/she has to pay for the repair fee immediately. The villages’ leaders will supervise all the villagers and train them how they keep the machines while they are not using and how to take care of them.

Reference information
The project manager Tashi Hlamo successfully implemented two small-scale development projects in 2007. One was a barrier wall project for Yatong village, which was funded by the German Embassy. Another project was a solar electricity panel project for Yinlong village, which was funded by the British Embassy. The two projects are located in Jialaxi Township, Xinlong County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province. These two projects are mainly to improve the impoverished local people’s living conditions, reduce their workload and improve enrollment of school children. The Threshing Machines Project for Six Poorest Villages in Jialaxi Township will be her third project.

Pictures:

Two Ya Jiong village women are cutting the edible kernels of grain off from the dry stalks by using small sticks. Without a threshing machine, the village women do this work for a month and a half every autumn.

This is the place where the villagers put the barley and wheat before they thresh and it is located on top of the house.

Sometimes the villagers put their barley and wheat in the open yard in order to dry but the birds eat barley and the mice take the barley while the people are not present.

This is a pile of big beans with bean stalks. The women finished threshing the beans but there is no wind so the beans are covered so they can wait for a wind to winnow. On top of the beans is a flail (a tool of a long stick with a small club-like piece of wood attached by a leather thong at the end), one of the tools used for threshing.

Two Walo Village women pull out sundries in their barley field on the high mountain slope. As you can see, the barley grows sparsely in the field because the land is dry and not fertilized on the mountains. All the villages’ fields are like this in picture. The villagers have a lot of straw in autumn but little grain. (Life Style)

The map of the project location

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

The German Embassy funded this project

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Detailed Budget

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

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

A map of the project location

Photos

The villagers are harvesting in the fields.

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

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

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

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

This project is to purchase 18 threshing machines for 147 households in Heluoshi Xuma village to lessen the villagers’ work load, save time and improve the villagers living condition.

Funds needed: $8,467.9 (57,750rmb)

Lhamotso is from Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China. She graduated with an Associate’s degree in English from the Qinghai Normal University Nationalities Department’s English Training Program in 2005. Currently she is working in Shem Women’s Group as a Program Director and Financial Officer.

Project Location
This project is located in Heluoshi Xuma Village, Tiegai Township, Gonghe County, Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province. Heluoshi Xuma Village is in the southeastern part of Gonghe County, and it is approximately 170 miles from the capital city of Qinghai Province, Xining City.

Heluoshi Village Background
Heluoshi Xuma Village is historically an agricultural village. The village used to be located opposite of Longyangxia town, but during 1987 and 1988, the whole Heluoshi village transferred to Mahantai area because the government planned to build a hydroelectric station there. Therefore the village had to move. In Heluoshi Xuma Village there are four small groups and these four small groups consist of four different ethnic groups: Tibetan, Chinese, Hui (Muslim) and Mongour.

Population
There are 148 households with 785 people in Heluoshi Xuma Village, and among these 249 are men, 286 are women and 250 are children.

Education
In total, there are approximately 156 school-aged children currently attending school: about 95 are in primary school and kindergarten (39 male students and 56 female students), 27 in middle school (13 male students and 14 female students), 25 in high school (14 male students and 11 female students), and 9 in college, (4 female and 5 male).
A number of children have attended primary school and dropped out because their families could not afford to pay the expensive middle school tuition fees before the government set Free Tuition of The Nine-Year Compensation Education Act. At the present, the kindergarten’s tuition is about 500 rmb, which covers living expenses for each semester. Because of The Nine- Year Compensation Education Act, the students who are in the primary and middle school do not need to pay for the school tuition fees or living expenses.  Students still need to pay for some necessary study needs such as pens, notebooks and reviewing books. After middle school, the students need to pay around 1,500 rmb for school tuition fee each semester. Therefore, fewer and fewer students go to high school because of the expensive school fee. As a result, there are only very few college students who are able to go to school continually in Heluoshi Xuma Village. A few years ago, one boy and one girl earned high marks on the college entrance examination. They received the invitation letters from universities outside the province. Unfortunately, they did not go to college because their families were too poor to pay for the university fees. So now both of them stay at home and help their families to work.  Generally, most villagers who are older than 30 years old haven’t attended primary school.

Cash income
Many families in Heluoshi Xuma village try to earn money as migrant construction workers or dig caterpillar fungus every spring in other places as far as 200 kilometers away. Generally, the price they receive for each large, good quality caterpillar fungus is 10 to 15 rmb and 5 to 10 rmb for each smaller caterpillar fungus. There are not many other opportunities to earn cash income.
Recently, to protect the ecological balance, a new law was passed that forbids people to dig for caterpillar fungus. Still, the villagers secretly dig caterpillar fungus in spring and they can earn about 2,000 rmb over one month after paying a 500 rmb tax for use of the pastureland. Construction workers are often cheated out of their pay: the construction manager promises to pay the workers one month after they finish construction, but when they go to collect their wages, the construction manager cannot be found, and they end up getting paid absolutely nothing for their work. However, some villagers can earn 700-800 rmb in one month by doing construction work if they are not cheated. On average, each family can earn aroun 3,000 rmb per year. A very limited number of families can earn around 5,000 rmb per year by selling surplus grain and the goats’ wool.
Each household’s expenses run about 2,500 rmb per year for purchasing tea, salt, gas and other daily necessities such as water, electricity, fertilizer and clothes. People spend about 900 rmb per year buying fertilizer in the form of urea and amino acids. Each 100 g bag of urea is 95 rmb and each 100 g bag of amino acid is 150 rmb. In addition, school fees cost an average of 1,000 rmb per semester per student. At this point almost all the families have to take out loans because they need to buy fertilizer in spring at the same time the families need to prepare the school fees for their children for attending a new semester.When the loans are due, many villagers borrow money from relatives and friends because they have no money to pay back the loans. Also, some families have to buy flour at the end of the year because their fields do not produce enough food.

Agriculture
Local people usually grow wheat, potatoes, beans and rapeseed. Generally, the climate in Heluoshi Xuma Village is not bad. Barring natural disasters, it may be possible to have a very fruitful harvest each year. However, there is a serious problem with the farmlands, which makes it nearly impossible to have a good harvest. Forty percent of the fields are covered with stones and sand and therefore cannot be used. In addition, the irrigation water is hard to access and use because water is pumped by electricity from a place that is located about 7 or 8 km from the village. The water pump is of inferior quality, and almost never works, so the fields can be irrigated only two or three times every year.
Finally, the amount of land that each person owns is not sufficient to produce any substantial harvest. In addition, due to the lack of rain recently the crops grow very short and it is hard to harvest. All of the above problems result in very poor harvests. Usually, 1 mu of land can only produce between 300 to 400 jin of wheat.
As a result, some families do not produce enough food even for self-consumption, and they must buy wheat, barley, and vegetables from outside. Since Heluoshi Xuma Village is an agricultural village, the villagers mostly eat flour based foods (made from the wheat they grow in the field) and vegetables (some vegetables are grown for self consumption such as carrots, and onions, but most vegetables are bought from Gonghe County). People seldom eat meat because they cannot afford it. They can eat meat (pork) only during festivals. Local villagers mostly eat only one kind of vegetable, the potato, during all the year.

Herding
Most households do not have livestock such as yaks, cows, sheep, and goats in Heluoshi Xuma Village. Only a few of the households have small amounts of sheep, goats and cows. The total number of sheep in Heluoshi Xuma village is around 500-600. There are about 450-550 goats and sheep which are owned by only ten families.  The rest of the livestock are cows. The villagers usually do not sell their livestock, but use them to produce milk and meat. If the villagers need money to pay their children’s school tuition or if a family member gets a serious illness, they will sell livestock to raise cash.

Problems
1. Heavy labor for the local villagers and time consuming on threshing crops
In Heluoshi Xuma Village, five to seven village people usually need to thresh all kinds of grains like wheat, barley, rapeseed and beans from August to middle of September every year. Threshing is very heavy work and it needs to be done very carefully, so usually the local people get up around 4:00 am and display all the bundles of crops on the threshing floor for a while. After that the villagers have to spend the entire day to carry out the different processes until 8:00 pm. So during this period of time the local people usually have dinner at 10:00 pm which is very late. If the weather is nice with not very strong wind, then only one entire day is enough to finish threshing one small portion of the threshing grains and usually each family needs to thresh grains around three or four times. But if it rains or there is no wind at all then the villagers need to continue the unfinished work in the following days. In this case it not only wastes time but also people’s energy. In addition, due to limited threshing floor and labors, one household needs to do threshing several times. Even though threshing grains often takes one day, due to the very intensive work force people still become extremely fatigued.

2. Spend more money on threshing grains
In Heluoshi Xuma, people do not use livestock to thresh crops. Local villagers use the hand tractor to thresh the crops for three to four hours for per time. Using the hand tractor, people need to buy gas for it. Recently the price of gas has largely increased, each liter costs 6.7 rmb and to thresh the crops for one day costs around 47 rmb. Some households rent the threshing machines from other villages and families to thresh and rental fee is around 30 rmb for per hour. On average, each family needs to spend around 280 rmb on threshing crops if they use a hand tractor.

3. Grains easily go bad due to frequent rain
In Heluoshi Xuma Village, people do threshing from August to middle September, the rainiest season of the year. The bundles of crops are usually dried on the threshing floor for two or three weeks after heavy rains. Sometimes if there are lots of rains the grains can easily become spoiled such that they become useless, even for feeding the livestock like cows and pigs.

Benefits
1) If this project is implemented, the villagers will not need to spend time and lots of effort threshing crops. For example one household can finish threshing all their grain within one or two days.  In addition, the workload will be much easier since most of the threshing process can be done by the machine. Having a threshing machine, the villagers can finish the threshing in a short time.  This will free up more time to do  other things like plowing the fields before the land becomes too harsh.
2) If this project provides threshing machines to the villagers in Heluoshi Xuma Village, the villagers can save some money from threshing because the local people will not need to buy gas for hand tractors for this specific use. Instead the villagers can rent out the threshing machines to other villages to earn money for keeping the threshing machines in good condition.
3) If the Heluoshi Xuma villagers have threshing machines, there would be a smaller chance that the grains would become spoiled due to rainy weather.  Since there is no threshing machine for the local villagers to use, they need to transport the gains to the threshing ground for a while and then the families start to thresh the grain which takes time and the other families need to wait. In this case if there is heavy rain then the grains will go bad.  For example if the weather seems not good then the villagers are afraid to start to thresh the grain because they think it will rain, so they will delay the time of threshing. If there are threshing machines, the villagers can definitely thresh the grains so there is a very low chance the grains will become ruined.

Project Goals and beneficiaries
The immediate goal of the project is to purchase 18 threshing machines for 147 households in Heluoshi Xuma village. The overarching goal of this project is to lessen the villagers’ work load, save time and improve the villagers living condition in Heluoshi Xuma Village. This project will directly benefit 147 households of 781 villagers in Heluoshi Xuma village. (One household already has a threshing machine, so this project directly benefits 147 out of the 148 households in Heluoshi).

Gender Equality
It is a custom in most villages that men are good at handling the machines and women do not know anything about machines. Even in some families there are some machines like hand tractors, motorcycles and so on, but the village women do not have any idea how to use them. However, this project can help the village women to know how to use threshing machines because in Heluoshi Xuma Village both men and women do threshing together no matter if they use machines or not. Providing threshing machines can not only greatly benefit both local men and women by making the threshing process more efficient, but it can also provide an opportunity for village women to learn how to use the machines.
Moreover, this project addresses some gender concepts from the project manager. This project is being designed by a woman and this project will be managed and implemented by women. By doing this, the project manager sends an important message to the local women and girls that woman and girls also can make useful contributions to their communities. As a female project manager Lhamotso sets a very positive example for the local villagers. She will serve as an example that sending female children to school is not a waste and will be an important role model for young girls who are currently in school.

Governmental Approval 
The project manager, Lhamotso, had a talk with the local village leader, Qihaiqing. He has been very supportive towards the project and he mentioned it would be very helpful to do this project regarding the development of the local area. Moreover, he said that the government can not provide some threshing machines in order to help the local people to lighten their workload. Therefore, it would be great to implement this project and get some helps from others.

The steps of the project Activities
1. Researched general information about Heluoshi Xuma village in details (Done).
2. Talked to the village leader and local people to discuss whether this project is needed and what kind of benefits they will get from this project (Done).
3. Held a meeting with villagers to decide how to share the threshing machines among several households; explained the local contribution and decided how much they could contribute to this project (Done).
4. Checked out the price of each threshing machine in Hainan Agricultural Machine Company (Done).
5. Receive permission from local government (Done).
6. Write well organized project proposal (Done).
7. Secure the funds for the project.
8. Receive the funding.
9. Collect local contribution with the village leaders.
10. Purchase the threshing machines from Hainan Agricultural Machine Company.
11. Distribute the threshing machines to the villagers.
12. Interview the local beneficiaries.
13. Send final report with pictures and receipts to the donor.

Timeframe
This project will take 10 days to complete from the day it is funded.
2 days: Collect the local contribution.
1 day: Hold a meeting with the villagers and choose 3-5 villagers to purchase the threshing machines.
2 days: Purchase threshing machines from the company and transport to the project site.
2 days: Distribute the threshing machines to the villagers.
3 days: Interview the local beneficiaries and take pictures.

Detailed Budget

Notes:
There are 148 households in Heluoshi Xuma Village in total and one household has already purchased a threshing machine. So we need to purchase 18 threshing machines and eight or nine households will share one. In this case, it is convenient to manage the threshing machines within small groups.

Sustainability
This project is very sustainable for the following reasons. Firstly, Hainan Agricultural Machine Company is a well known company for selling agricultural products in Hainan. Most people purchase the goods from this company because the quality of the products is good and the price is reasonable. Secondly, among different brands of threshing machines, Gansu Weishengta 90 brand (甘肃威圣塔90型) is the best one because of the good quality and is strongly recommended by the other villagers. Thirdly, the company guarantees to repair the machines freely within one year. Finally, the villagers themselves will be responsible for any costs after the company’s warrantee duration. If the threshing machines get problems after the warrantee, villagers can easily get them fixed because of the short distance to Gonghe County, Hainan Prefecture.

Past experiences
Lhamotso (Lily), the project manager, has already successfully completed five small-scale development projects.
The first was a solar cooker project, funded by the Canada Fund in the summer of 2004, which provided 20 solar cookers for the village where the village clinic project is located. During the same year, in the winter Lhamotso managed another solar cooker project funded by the Canada Fund, which provided 30 solar cookers for Heluoshi Xuma village.
Lhamotso also successfully completed two second-hand clothes projects in 2004 and 2005. These clothes were provided by the British Consulate in Shanghai. There were two boxes of second-hand clothes that included shirts, trousers, bags, shoes, hats, toys, sweaters and other things.
Lhamotso completed a greenhouse project in October 2006, funded by the Australian Embassy. Now the project is complete and successfully finished. The whole project cost about 60,000 rmb, not including the local contribution.
In addition, Lhamotso completed a solar cooker project in December of 2006, funded by The Shambala Connection. The whole project cost about 14,300 rmb, not including the local contribution.
Lastly, Lhamotso completed a village clinic project in June 2008, funded by Shem Women’s group’s private donors. The whole project cost about 83,000 rmb.
She is currently in the process of managing the Waku Rarma Village Water and Environment Initiative project for Waku Rarma Village in Xunhua County, Haidong Region, Qinghai Province. This project was funded by the Canada Fund in 2008 and will cost 505,273 rmb in total.

Map of the project location

In the map it shows Heluoshi Village; Heluoshi Xuma Village and Heluoshi Village is the same village.

This project is to buy 42 harvest machines for 42 households in Nor’ ur Village to decrease people’s labor, and save their grain from insect and weather, so the villagers will have more gain to eat. Also with machine helping the parents deal with the harvest, school children can attend school as normal and it will help the students improve the their learning.

Funds needed: $8,744(59,725rmb)

Tshe Skyid Lha Mo is from Nor’ur village, Laojei Township, Luhuo County, Gazi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, and PRChina. She is currently working towards an associated degree in English at the Qinghai Normal Universities Department English Training Program.

Project Location
This project is located in Nor’ ur Village which is in the south of Luhuo County in Ganzi and it is 630 kilometers away from Chengdu City, the capital of Sichuan Province. From Chengdu to Xining, there are about 1388 kilometers.

Population
There are 42 households with 202 people in Nor’ ur Village. There are 60 women, 72 men, and 70 children. All of them are Tibetans, except two Chinese people who married with two Tibetan women.

Education
In Nor ‘ur Village fifty percent of the people are literate. Forty percent of the villagers are adults. These adults attended primary school when they were young but three people have government jobs now in the village. In the village there is one University student, but no high school students. There are three reasons that there are so few college and high school students in No’ur Village. First, many children think it is better to earn money than to study. Second, some children have no chance to attend school, because their families have only one child, and they need to stay at home to help their parents. Third, some families are very poor and do not have money to pay the school fee for their children.

There are 23 school aged children in Nor ‘ur Village. Eleven boys and six girls are attending primary school and another 6 children stay at home because their parents think that their children are too small to attend school. A final reason that some children do not attend primary school, is that their parents are uneducated, and think that their children can survive well without an education. Right now many families think that education is a very useful thing, both in order to get a job and in general for life.

Cash Income
All of the villagers in Nor ‘ur Village are farmers who grow barley, potatoes, beans and rape plants on their land. Families also have one or two domestic livestock. In average the villagers have about 4 mu (one mu=0.006 hectares) of lands. The average crop yield from the land is roughly 1100-1200 jin(one jin=one k) of grain during the harvest season (August to October).  People eat this grain during the year (they usual eat barley flour, but sometimes eat rice, noodles, bread) and also recycle seeds for use during next year’s planting season. Most families only grow enough for them to live off of.  A few families do not own their own land because they lived in another village before moving to No’ur Village. These families borrow other families’ land to plant. These families are only able to grow limited crops and must buy food in order to supplement what they themselves can grow.

Villagers also earn money from livestock, with the exception of a few households. Some families make butter and cheese and sell them for little money rather than eating them themselves. Some families sell livestock to others (not for slaughter, but for work or for produce). Each family can earn 300-400 RMB each year by selling butter and cheese. Families who sell animals can earn 1000-1200 RMB from one yak.

A third source of income, is to do construction work during the summer (from May to August) and during the fall from October to November.  During these periods, all the young men (15-50 years old) and some young women (15-35 years old) go to other places to find construction work and to make money. Only a few women go, because, otherwise, their wouldn’t be anyone to care for their children. Also, although, other men and women do the same construction work and spend the same time. Even though the work performed is the same, the payment is unequal with males earning more than females. When they go to work construction, they are responsible for paying for their food and other things, such as clothes. Through this work, each family can earn about 4000-5000 RMB.

During summer, some people climb mountains and dig for caterpillar fungus (a medical herb) which is very difficult to find. There is no longer any caterpillar fungus to dig around that village, so they need to go other counties. Each caterpillar fungus can sell for around 10 to 30 RMB. People usually dig for the fungus at the beginning of the May and return home in the middle of June. In good years they can earn about 1,000-2,000 RMB for each person including costs for their food, clothes etc. In one month a household needs to spend another 50 RMB on electricity and other essentials such as medicines. In the summer, villagers need to buy fertilizer, a cost of about 200-300 RMB, because the land will not have a high yield without these nutrients.

In total, the average family can earn 7000-8000 RMB in each year. For food they need to spend about 3500 RMB, for clothes they need to pay about 2000 RMB and for electricity they need to pay about 500 RMB. So they have no much money left after they used.

Agriculture
Nor’ ur Village is located at an elevation of about 4834m. At this altitude it is difficult to produce crops. For several years the weather was very dry and resulted in poor agricultural yield. On average the villagers own about 4mu of land. The average yield from the land is roughly 550-600kg of grain. This is used to sustain the family and as seed for next year’s crops. Usually one acre of land can produce around 150-200kg, but there are two types of land; one type of land is fertilized and irrigated, while the other is located high up in the mountains without access to fertilizer or water resulting in poor production.

Herding
Nor ‘ur villagers are farmers and most of the families have two male yaks to plough fields. But many villagers own more; sometimes they also own female cows to produce butter cheese and milk. Some of them also own horses to carry grain from the fields to home. At the summer time they hire a person to herd the livestock. To rent an animal it costs 5 RMB for herding and 25kg of grain. Some of the families don’t own animals because they married Chinese people in Chinese places, and after several years they couldn’t support their life in Chinese places, so they returned to their home towns to spend the rest of their life. On average, each household has two livestock.

Weather
In recent years it has been very dry during the summer, resulting in little produce. In the winter it’s cold and snows a lot, preventing the livestock from getting food for several days. In the spring time it rains, but during that time plowing the seeds in the fields, the land needs rain, unfortunately it is very less rain there and it makes farmers panic a lot. So they have to wait until the rain comes. In the autumn during the harvest time they need to have clear days to harvest but it usually rains a lot causing the grains to get wet and even rot. So people need to harvest as soon as possible.

The project goals
The immediate goal of this project is to buy 42 harvest machines for 42 households in Nor’ ur Village. The overarching goal of this project is to decrease people’s labor, and save their grain from insect and weather.

Project beneficiaries
Around 202 people from Nor ‘ur Village will benefit directly from the project.

Problems
1.        Not enough people to harvest
Autumn time all people are very busy with the harvest and construction work. The construction bosses increase payment for their workers because they are afraid their workers will go home to harvest. The village men would not go home during the harvest time because they can earn more money from their construction work, which has also become their main income. Therefore only the women and older men are able to participate in the harvest. If the men don’t come home to harvest then the women and the older people need to do it even though they are very old. Hiring additional help is also too expensive for the villagers.
2.        Heavy burden 
The harvesting time has changed in the village, and the villagers can not harvest whenever they want without the government’s permission. The government gives permission to harvest when all the barley and wheat is ready to harvest. Therefore all the villagers have to harvest hurriedly at that time. Otherwise the barley will fall on the ground while they are harvesting. If the villagers do it without permission, the government will take 100 RMB from each family as a punishment. Also when the men are not in the home, the wives and the old people suffer a lot, because using their hands to harvest for more 20 days is very difficult, even if it is hot or raining. Harvest time also requires early rising and late sleeping to accomplish all the tasks. The other villagers who use harvest machine easily accomplish the task, and for them it only takes a few days to finish.
3.        Wasting the villagers’ grain
When the barley and wheat are ready to harvest, people need to do it soon. If the time is late the grain will fall on the ground and rot or insects will destroy them.
4.        The weather
When it is time to harvest it rains a lot. When there is a clear day the villagers should try their best to finish works as soon as they can. If it rains a lot then the grain may rot. The villagers also need to be careful to keep the grain dry and if it becomes wet then it is easy to rot.
5.        Waste time
In the village the villagers’ main food is barley, so if the harvest is not good then they will suffer for one year from the lack of food. It is women’s job to help weed and irrigate during the whole summer. Women are relegated to this task and can not go earn money. So they always hope the harvest would be good. If the harvest does give a lot of produce, then the women’s time is lost and wasted.
6.        Waist sickness
When they use hands to harvest, many people get waist sickness because when they harvest they have to bend their waists to harvest without machines. Therefore it is hard for the villagers to bend down to do it for long time and then they get waist pains.
7.        Children are absent from their class
When there are not enough people to harvest, then the parents let their school children take days off from school to harvest for them. If a family can not finish harvesting quickly, then the children need to be absent that much more time from the school, severely impeding their ability to learn.

Benefits
1. If each household has a machine then the women and the old people don’t need to worry about not having enough people and don’t need to suffer as much as before. Also the men are able to earn money for their family.
2. If they have harvest machines then they don’t need to worry about the mandatory harvest time prescribed by the government. They don’t need to suffer in the rain, withstand hot days, and they can rest early in the afternoon and wake up later. Also they will be able to finish the work in a few days.
3. If there are harvesting machines to use then the grain won’t fall to the ground and the insects have no time to destroy the crop because the machines can help people to do it very quickly.
4. If they have harvest machines then they don’t need to harvest in the rain, so they can wait the good weather to do it.
5. The harvest machine can help women a lot; if the grain yield is good then it will not waste their time doing irrigation and weeding.
6. If the villagers have machines then they don’t need to bend their waists to harvest and they don’t need to suffer from waist pain.
7. If there are harvest machines then the parents deal with the harvest with the aid of machines while the school children can attend school as normal. The students’ score on the exams will improve.

Gender equality
Harvest machines equally benefit both men and women and it is both men and women’s work that is reduced. If they have the machines it helps both to decrease their heavy work and decrease their sickness. In the village all the men and the women help with work, so it’s very equal for them to have harvest machine. If once I finish this kind of project in my home town the villagers would think education is very important and they would let their children go to school to get an education. And they will also be impressed that a girl can do this kind of project and will admire me. Also the females will get more confidence from me as a role model and they would think they also can do these kinds of things as I do.

Government Approval
I called the villager leader whose name is Hang Ni and he asked permission from the township government for the project. In the 2008 May 7^th, he said the government leader Jian Ying is very happy about my project. She also thinks that helping people in this manner is very good.

The Steps of Project
1.      Called the village leaders and let them hold a meeting with both men and women to ask about local needs. (Done)
2.      Let the village leaders assess out the price of harvest machine. (Done)
3.      Found out the transportation fee. (Done)
4.      Write proposal. (Done)
5.      Send proposal to donor
6.      Receive Funds
7.      Purchase harvest machines in the Luhuo county, Gazi prefecture, Sichuan province. (In local county)
8.      Hire a truck to transport the harvest machines to Nor ‘ur Village
9.      Distribute the harvest machines to 42 households in the village
10.    Take pictures of the project after completion.
11.    Write final report
12.    Send the final report to donor.

Time frame
This project will take a total 20 days from the time it is funded.
1 day: Call the factory leader and let him prepare the 42 machines.
15 days: Await machine preparation
1 day: Let village leader hold a meeting with villagers to discuss who will transport the machines.
1 day: Transport the machines to village and distribute them.
2 days: Take pictures, write final report, and send it

Note: Each family will contribute 322 Rmb as local contribution to this project.

Donor Contribution: 59,725RMB
Local Contribution: 13,525RMB
Shem Contribution: 500RMB
Total Cost: 73,750RMB

Sustainability
Each family will have one machine and they use it for once each year. After they use it they can put it in a safe place for storage. People in the village skilled with using the machines will operate them. The company will exchange machines within seven days in the case of failure and it guarantees two years of service free of charge. After two years the villagers will pay for the fee if the machines break or have problems. The villagers will never lend their machines to others.

The map of project location