Reports

To build a running water system for Walo Village and Yajiong Village, in order to supply clean water for Walo and Yajiong Villages to reduce the villager’s burden, and increase enrollment of school children and improve their living condition.

Youth Group from Vienna funded this project

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 of 2008, and currently she is working for Shem Women’s Group in Xining City, Qinghai Province.

What? Build a running water system for Walo Village, Yajiong Village and Nuri Village to supply clean water for the villagers, to reduce their burden, increase enrollment of school children and improve their living conditions.

Where? Walo, Yajiong and Nuri villages are located in Jialaxi Township, Xinlong County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province

Photos of project implementation

The villagers are loading the water pipes into the tractor; the villagers transported five full tractors of water pipes to the villages.

In this picture, the village men are carrying cement bags on their backs to one of the families for keeping and the women are using wooden baskets to carry the cement. During the daytime, all the villagers dig ditches and during nighttime they transport materials such as cement. They work hard and fast because the winter is coming soon.

This is a part of a ditch the villagers dug.

The project manager is visiting the ditches with the villagers. This picture shows the bags of bread and tea the villagers carry on their backs to save time when they dig ditches. They work hard, and only return home at night.

The village women dug the water box for storing water for Walo Village while the village men transported the water pipes. In this photo, the project committee Chele is measuring the hole with a stick and telling the villagers that they still need to make it much bigger and deeper.

Each household in Walo and Yajiong villages has water taps in their yard. The woman in the picture is from Walo village and she is fetching water.

The woman in the picture is from Yajiong Village and she is happily washing clothes under the convenient water tap in winter. The villagers use pieces of warm cloth to cover the spigots to keeping it warm to prevent it from freezing at night.

Project summary

Project title: Water Project for Walo,Yajiong and Nuri villages

Project goals: The immediate goal of the project is to build a running water system for Walo, Yajiong and Nuri villages, in Jialaxi Township, Xinlong County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province. The overarching goal of the project is to supply clean water for Walo and Yajiong villages to reduce the villagers’ burdens, increase enrollment of school children and improve their living conditions.

Project location: The project is located in Walo and Yajiong and Nuri Villages. Walo Village is about 1 km away from Yajiong Village on the same mountain slope, and the three villages are in Jialaxi Township, Xinlong (Nyarong) County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province. The villages are about 18 km from Xinlong county town; this is about 700 km from Chengdu City, the capital of Sichuan Province.

Total project beneficiaries: This project directly benefits 56 people from Walo Village, 13 people from Yajiong Village and 31 people from Nuri Village. In total, about 100 people benefit from the project.

Implementing organization/individual: Tashi Hlamo (project manager), Chele and Duoke (the village leaders for this year in Walo and Yajiong villages), A qu (from Nuri village), and Shem Women’s Group.

Contact Group: Shem Women’s Group

Funding ¾ source, amount, and date received:

Tashi Hlamo received 51,244.40 RMB from Shem Women’s Group on October 21^st, 2009, and will receive 12,811.10 RMB after the project manager implements the project successfully.

Details of project activities

1.      Discussed with the villagers why the village needs water and collected information for the project.

2.      Visited the water spring to see whether it is big enough for all the villages.

3.      Discussed the project’s needs with Sangjia (who is more knowledgeable about the water project than other people in the villages) and determined what kinds of materials we need.

4.      Contacted the firm’s leader to get specifications and prices for the water pipe.

5.      Asked the local government leader, Banggeng Duoji, to get permission for the project.

6.      Decided what labor the villagers could complete, i.e. digging ditches and burying pipes.

7.      Took pictures for the project.

8.      Wrote proposal.

9.      Received funds.

10.  Met with the villagers to decide the starting date of the project.

11.  Invited a skilled worker from the hydroelectric board in the county town to measure the distances from the villages to the springs and designed it     again.

12.  Bought the water pipes, cement, sand and gravel and transported them to the village.

13.  Dug the ditches and buried the pipes in the ditch.

14.  The neighbor five families of Walo and Yajiong villages had a meeting and started the water project.

15.  Purchased the water pipes and dug ditches together.

16.  Had meeting with the villagers and interviewed the village men, women and children about the project and took photos.

17.  Completed the final report with all pictures and receipts for implementing the project.

Project finance

	Original Budget				Actual Cost
Rece ipt	Item	Donor Contri bution in rmb	Local Contri bution inrmb	Total Cost in rmb	Donor Contri bution in rmb	Local Contri bution inrmb	Ttal Cost in rmb	Differ ence in rmb
#2	Cement	3,850	0	3,850	4,000	0	4,000	-150
	Plastic pipe #50	23,250	0	23,250	0	0	0	+23,2 50
	Plastic pipe#101	3,520	0	3,520	0	0	0	+3,520
#2	Plastic pipe#30	16,250	0	16,250	30,875	0	30,875	-14,6 25
#2	Plastic pipe#25	0	0	0	20,100	0	20,100	-20,1 00
	Valves#75mm	210	0	210	0	0	0	+210
	Valves#50mm	155	0	155	0	0	0	+155
	Valves#32mm	345	0	345	0	0	0	+345
	Valves#32mm	67.5	0	67.5	0	0	0	+67.5
	Iron bar #12	3,375	0	3,375	0	0	0	+3,375
	Iron bar #14	1,800	0	1,800	0	0	0	+1,800
	Iron bar #6.5	408	0	408	0	0	0	+408
	Bricks	3,850	0	3,850	0	0	0	+3,850
#2	Connections (metal wire, screw) pipes, spigots, valves, connections,	1,125	0	1,125	2070	0	2,070	-945
	Unskilled Workers	0	46,800	46,800	0	46,800	46,800	0
#1	Skilled Worker	700	0	700	600	0	600	+100
#1	Gravel	0	0	0	510	0	510	-510
#1	Sand	900	0	900	510	0	510	+390
	Transportation fee for materials	3,300	0	3,300	0	0	0	+3,300
	Transportation fee for sand and cement and bricks	0	2,160	2,160	0	2,160	2,160	0
#3	Management expenses	950	500	1,450	2,376	500	2,876	-1,426
	Tax fee	0	0	0	3,014.5	0	3,014.5	-3,01 4.5
	Total	64,05 5.5	49,460	113,51 5.5	64,05 5.5	49,460	113,51 5.5	0

*: Explanation: 8,848.75 RMB was left from the donor contribution of the project. We originally planned to build water boxes for each household besides the water taps in Walo and Yajiong villages for winter time, but the skilled worker from the hydroelectric board said it is not necessary to build water boxes for the villages because the water is from a steep mountain, in addition, the villages and the spring are located on the sunny side. Ultimately, the villagers did not need to build water boxes for each family, so we saved 8,848.75 RMB.

Helped another five households with the rest money from the project:Originally we planned to do a water project for only Walo and Yajiong village but as we mentioned above, we had 8,848.75 RMB left from the project. Therefore the project manager decided to add five more families to the project. The five households are also living on the same mountain slope as Walo and Yajiong and their life style and living condition are exactly the same as Walo and Yajiong’s. The five households are in Nuri Village and they also had the same water problem as the two villages. Six bags of cement were left from the project of Walo and Yajoing. So the project manager used the rest of the money and also collected 1,650 RMB from the local people to buy water pipes for the five households and also used the six bags of cement for building a water box. You can see the implementation of project for the five households follow:

Two women and one old man are cooking food for the villagers who are digging the ditch.

The five families finished digging the ditch and they are putting the water pipe in the ditch.

Water was brought into the middle of the village from a spring above them. At the moment, the villagers are using two big gas cans like in the picture instead of the water box till this spring.

The project manager is checking the water. Behind her is the water box which was built in middle of the village with the six bags of cement which were left from the project of Walo and Yajiong villages. The villagers did not take wooden boards yet because winter was coming soon when they finished building it and they are going to take wooden boards to use the water box starting this spring.

Delays, Difficulties and Lessons Learnt
Delays
After implementing the project, the project manager needed to see the project and interview the local beneficiaries. However, the project manager decided to delay that phase for about a month so she could use one stone to kill two birds and interview the villagers when she went home for the Tibetan New Year. Otherwise, the project site is very far from the where project manager works and it takes at least ten days to get there. Also, the project manager would need to take days off work. Therefore, the project manager delayed the project for about one month. 

Difficulties
During the process of implementing the project, the project manager encountered a few little problems, but no serious problems. One small problem was that first all the villagers( except very old people and very small children) dug the ditches together for two days, but the villagers soon discovered that it was impossible for them to finish digging the ditches within warm whether (in autumn) without the other villagers’ help. Therefore, the villagers got together to discuss how to dig it faster, and finally agreed to divide the ditch length to dig and divide it up between the families. Then each family called their relatives to dig the ditches from dawn to dark.

Another small problem was that the villagers needed to dig very long and deep ditches for burying the water pipes from the spring to the village, so at that time the villagers had to divide the labor to work hard and fast because the winter was coming soon. Unfortunately, one family got a hard and difficult place to dig, then that family refused to dig it and asked the project manager to divide the labors again. It was really hard for the project manager, but finally she convinced the family and they all agreed and the project continued successfully.

Lessons learnt
Through implementing the water project, the project manager Tashi Hlamo had learnt two important things that were different from other projects that she has done so far. One is that she realized that making the community have a harmonious relationship is very important to making the project go successfully and it is also the first step for doing a project. For instance, during digging the long and hard ditch the villagers worked very hard from dawn to dark and they took everything very seriously. That made it easier for the project manager complete the project and she was impressed by the villagers’ endeavors and the harmonious cooperation for the project.

The project manager had done several projects but not water project. So during implementing this water project, she learnt what materials are needed for a water project and also the prices of water pipes. She also discovered that there are many kinds of water pipes (small, big, thin and thick) with different prices. She got experience in buying water pipes; for instance, she now knows which type of water pipes are needed if she wants to do a water project for ten households. Thus the project manager got good experiences and more confidence for doing water projects.

Interviews

A Duo: The project manager Tashi Hlamo interviewed the girl in the picture during the Tibetan New Year. A Duo is 25 years old and she is from Nuri Village. There are ten people in her family: her parents, four younger sisters, two younger brothers, an uncle and herself. During the interview, she said before the project the villagers needed to fetch water from down valley, which is more than one kilometer from the village. One of her sisters was in charge of fetching water for her family, and if her family asked some monks to chant then she needed to spend the whole day carrying water for her family. Also, before the project their livestock could only drink water in the pastures, not the village. However, with our help, they now have water; since her sister doesn’t need to fetch water anymore, she went to a nunnery to become a nun. She said what a great help it is for the people and the livestock, and she thanked the project manager and donor very much.

A Nuo: He is the old man who is wearing red hat in the picture. He is from Walo Village. The project manager also interviewed A Nuo during their Tibetan New Year, so each person has a bottle of sweet drink and a plate of seeds in front of them in the picture. A Nuo is 67 years old and there are eight people in his family: his wife, two sons, sister-in-law and three grandchildren. He says: “The project incredibly helps us and I have no words to describe the thankfulness to you and the donor who gave the money for the project.” Before the water arrived in the village, his sister-in-law was the only one who could fetch water for them because one son is a monk in the monastery, another is not always at home, and he became disabled when he was 12 years ago. So fetching water is very hard task for his sister-in-law. When his sister needed to go somewhere, then she stored water for them before she goes. However, with the project manager and donor’s’ help every family has water taps in their yard. Even though he is disabled, he can still fetch water for his family when other members are busy now. He said they reached the happy days and he thanks and wishes to thank the project helpers and donor cordially again.

Thank you letter

Translation of thank you letter

Thank you letter

Dear kind and generous donor, Shem women’s Group and the project manager,

This year some incredible thing happened to us, and that is your generous and kind help which solved our serious water problem. From the time of our ancestors until this year, we could not do the project even though we always faced the same water problem for years and years. Before the project, the water was a very serious problem for both our livestock and us. There is a saying: “If girls don’t obey their parents then send the girls to Jiara Township (our villages is included in this Township)” This means if the girls go to to Jiara Township, then they need to fetch water and it is a very heavy work. Since fetching water was a very heavy burden for the villagers, it also made it hard to get wives from other villages and townships.

However, with all of your kind help, we have water taps in each family’s yard and there is enough for both our livestock and us. From now on, we are released from the burdens of fetching water by your compassion and we really appreciate your great help. Your generosity and kindness has erased our hellish history and led us into heaven. Therefore on behalf of all three villages – Walo, Yajiong and Nuri – I would like to say thank you so much for your kind support from the bottom of my heart.

From all of us, we send the best wishes for your following days and future work.

From Walo villager Tsering

December 10^th2009

The list of receiptsReceipt #1

It is 510 RMB for sand, 510 RMB for gravel and 600 RMB for the skilled worker. So it is 1,620 RMB in total.

Receipt #2

It is 58,695 RMB in total for cement, different types of water pipes and collections:

Cement: 100bags×40=4,000 RMB Plastic pipe#30: 3250m×9.5=30,875 RMB

Plastic pipe#25: 2900m×7.5=21,750 RMB （ 1,650 RMB is local contribution for the five households’ project. Connections (metal wire, screw spigots, nails and valves): 2,070 RMB 

Receipt #3: The project management expenses:

It is 10 RMB for taxi fee from Shem office to Xining train station.

It is179 RMB for the train ticket from Xining to Chengdu

It is 20 RMB for taxi fee from Chengdu train station to Wuhouci bus station.

It is 10×3=30 RMB for the hotel fee for one night in Chengdu.

It is 300 RMB for each person from Chengdu City to Xinlong county town by small car.

It is 10×3=30 RMB for the hotel fee for one night in Kangding.

It is 100 RMB for phone call fee for during the implementing the project.

Detailed explanation: As shown above, the expenses are for a one-way trip from Xining (Qinghai) to the project site (Sichuan), totaling 569 RMB, including transportation and hotel costs. The project manager went to see the project two times so then 569 RMB×4=2,276 RMB plus phone call fee100 RMB. In total it is 2,376 RMB for the project management expenses.

Original Proposal
Project Location
The project is located in Walo Village and Yajiong Village. Walo village is about1 km away from Yajiong Village and they are on the same mountain slope, and both villages are in Jialaxi Township, Xinlong (Nyarong) County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province. These two villages are about 18 km from Xinlong county town, this is about 700 km from Chengdu City, the capital of Sichuan Province.

Back ground
The project is located in a very rural township which is called Jialaxi Township. There are about 35 villages in Jialaxi Township; about 7 villages are located at foot of the mountains and other 28 villages are perched seperately on high mountain slopes. There is no road, even for motorcycles, for the villages on the mountain slope. There is a hand tractor road for only Walo Village and another village called Gere and the other villages on the mountain slopes don’t have traffic road. Therefore, the villagers have to carry every thing on their backs to transport goods (e.g. crops, water, supplies) to their homes.

Also the land on the mountain slopes is not arable to grow barley and wheat well. The villagers can not grow vegetables on their unfertilized field lands without water. The villagers have difficulties with water and electricity. In the Jialaxi Township, the biggest village has 17 households and the smallest village only has three to four households. According the education level of Jialaxi Township, there were only six people who received government jobs in the whole township. Only about 40 children are going to school among 480 children in the Township. Most parents keep their children at home so they can help do works such as herding and fetching water. Some villages are very far away from the school and their children can not get to school on time and they can not return home before dark.

Population
Nine households made up Walo Village and two households made up Yajiong Village. There are 69 people in the Walo Village and Yajiong Village, and among these people there are 25 men, 21 women and 23 children.

Education
Among the 69 people in Walo Village and Yajiong Village 57 people are illiterate and only 12 people are can read and write. These 12 literate people in the village are 11 monks and 1 college graduate. There are 16 school-aged children in Walo Village and Yajiong Village, but only 4 children are going to Yinlong Primary school and the other 12 children stay at their home to help their parents herding livestock and fetching water. No one in either village has an official job. Some parents of the villages also say that nowadays it is difficult for the children to get an official job and to send their children to school it just wastes their children’s lives and family’s money. Some parents cannot deal with outside and indoor works such as fetching water, herding livestock and chores at their homes, without their children’s help. Therefore the children have no time to go to school and they have to help their parents to fetch water and herd livestock.

Cash Income
Walo Village and Yajiong Village are farming villages. Both villages are perched on a slope of a mountain separately. On average each household has 10 acres of land.
The other 7 villages who are living at foot of the mountains (in valley), where the land is very good and each acre of land can produces about 200-300 jin (1jin=o.5kg) of barley. But Walo Village and Yajiong Village are very different from the villages at mountain foot and each acre of land can only produce about 80 jin of crop. Because Walo Village and Yajiong Village are perched on a mountain slope, the land is not as arable as the land in the valley. The villagers can not grow vegetables on their unfertilized land without water. In the villages each household can produce about 500 jin of barley, 300jin of wheat,150 jin potatoes and 100 jins of beans for per year from their land and that is not enough for them to survive for a whole year. So they have to buy barley from Ganzi county town for every year and l00 jin of barley cost 130 rmb in Ganzi county town.

Four years ago, the villagers had three ways to get cash income; one way was to sell lumber to other cities, another way was to dig caterpillar fungus and sell them out and the third was that the villagers went out to do construction work to earn money. At that time, the villagers survived well by those three ways.

However, two years ago, Xinlong government enacted a policy “No cutting trees” and the villagers no longer can cut trees for earning cash. Therefore now the villagers have only two ways to earn cash income.

One way is that the villagers dig caterpillar fungus (medicinal herb) and each caterpillar fungus costs about 12 rmb. In total each family can earn about 3,000 rmb from digging caterpillar fungus. Another way to earn cash income is that villagers go out to do construction work in summer and spring. A man can earn 35 rmb and a woman can earn 30 rmb per day from construction work. On average each household can earn about 1,500 rmb per year from construction work. On average, each family can earn about 4,500 rmb in one year. Each family spends at least 6,000 rmb for their clothes, food,, medicine, and the celebrations such as New Year. Sometimes the villagers have no money to celebrate New Year and they have to borrow some money from other people for the New Year’s celebration and could not pay the debt back until they earn cash from digging caterpillar fungus.

Agriculture
Both Walo Village and Yajiong are agricultural villages, and the villagers grow barley, wheat and potatoes. Each household average has about 10 acres of field land. The fields are on the mountain slope and they are terrace fields. They can not grow vegetables without water in their fields, and the fields can not produce the barley well in that village on the mountain slope because of dried land.

Herding
Walo Village and Yajiong Village are farming village and they also have some live stock. On average each household has 5 cows, 2 female yaks and 1 bull. Each household can produce about 30 to 40 jin butter from their milk cows and milk yaks. People in the village just keep the butter for themselves to eat and they don’t sell it out.

Weather
In the villages the altitude is about 3080 meters above the sea level and the climate is very changeable there. Especially in recent years there were few rains in the summer, thus their barley and wheat can not grow well. The villagers can never grow vegetables in their field.

In the winter it is very cold. Sometimes it snows heavily and the road which the villagers use for fetching water is covered by snow. Therefore it is very dangerous for the village women and children to fetch water and they sometimes slip on the snow with their water buckets. Instead of risking the dangerous snow-covered roads village women and children collect snow and melt them into pots for cooking and washing..

Project goals
The immediate goal of the project is to build a running water system for Walo Village and Yajiong Village, in Jialaxi Township, Xinlong County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan province.

The overarching goal of the project is to supply clean water for Walo and Yajiong Villages to reduce the villager’s burden, increase enrollment of school children and improve their living condition.

Beneficiaries
This project will directly benefit 56 people from Walo Village and 13 people from Yajiong Village. In total 69 people will get benefit from the project.
Problems
1. No water to drink
In May and June, the villages’ young people and children go far places to dig caterpillar fungus and they can not return homes until 7 or 8 days from the mountain or high altitude grassland where they dig caterpillar fungus. So they have to stay on the mountains. At that time, only older people and small children stay at home for those 4 or 5 months. They can not fetch water and drink water without the young people’s help. So every two and three days the young people who go to dig caterpillar fungus have to come back home to save water for the older people. The digging caterpillar fungus is their main income and time for digging caterpillar fungus is very important. .

2. Time consuming
The distance between the villages and the water source is about 1.5 kilometers. Fetching water is customarily women and children’s work in the whole Jialaxi Township. Therefore, when the women and children of the village go to fetch water it takes at least one and half hour for one time. If a family invites some monks to chat in its home then one of the family members has to spend her or his whole day to fetch water. Some times one person can not catch up fetching water for the monks’ and the family members’ drinking and two people should fetch water for the family. The children have no time to go to school and the women have no time to do other works like weaving and spinning.

3. Dangerous path for fetching water
The path which the villagers use for fetching water is located on a mountain slope. Its sharp zigzag turns makes it very hard to fetch water. (You can see the picture on the last page) Especially in winter, the path becomes covered with thick snow and it fetching water becomes a more difficult task for the village children and women. Sometimes they cannot see the path clearly and they lose their way. Sometimes they slip on the snowy road with their water buckets and the water buckets break. Two years ago, Songlong Qingcuo fell on the fetching water path and her water bucket rolled down to a valley. At that time some other village people were herding in the valley and they thought a tree log was rolling down to them and they ran once when they heard the sound and it scared them badly; luckily no one got hurt.

4. Health problems
The distance from Walo and Yajiong Village to the water source is very long as I mentioned above. Therefore the village women always have to carry water buckets on their backs for long time, which leads to back problems. . The location of the water source is a windy and cold valley. The women and children often get colds again and again from fetching water in winter. They think that medicines can cure their colds and they always eat medicines, but the medicines can not help them a lot because they always have to go to the windy place. Last year in winter, one woman from Yajiong Village went to fetch water two weeks after she gave birth to a child. Then her breasts got swollen from the fetching water and she could not nurse her child well. Finally she went to see a doctor and the doctor said that she must not fetch water in cold, windy conditions.

5 Increased deaths of baby cows
At end of winter and spring, two- year -old calves can not get water to drink. Because the water is at least 1.5 km far from the villages and the calves are not able to go far from the pastures to drink water as other livestock go. Fetching water for the livestock is a hard task. Therefore two- year- old baby cows slowly died from thirst. Sometimes in spring, the villages ask the neighbor villages that have water in their yard to raise their calves until they get old enough.

6 No vegetables
The villagers can not grow vegetables in their field land without water even in summer because the land is not fertilized and it is dry. The villagers buy vegetables from Xinlong county town and they seldom can eat vegetables. Sometimes the villagers are even not able to get enough water for themselves to drink, so getting water for vegetables is just an impossible thing.

7 Poor hygiene
The villagers are not able to get water for washing their clothes and bodies because of the long distance from the villages to the water. In their minds, they are grateful to get enough water for people to drink; to get water for washing clothes is just kind of dream because it is really so hard for them to get water from the far-away water source. Some villagers don’t wash their heads and clothes for more than one month, and some older people don’t wash their bodies for years. Therefore sometimes their clothes have bad odors and they are very dirty. When they want to wash their clothes then they have to carry their clothes to the water source in the valley to wash them. Sometimes in winter time, women and children wash their heads in the valley even though the water is for the villagers to drink.

8 Poor living conditions
The village women have to do house chores like fetch water and also field work. Especially fetching water takes most of their time. The works which I mentioned above always hold the women back from doing other outside works and they don’t have time to go out of the village to look for extra work to earn money. They also don’t have time to do spinning and weaving at their homes to earn cash. In winter time, the children and women get colds again and again from the fetching water in windy places, as I mentioned before. Therefore they need to take medicine and each family might spend at least150 rmb during winter just for medicine.

9 Few children go to school
Fetching water is women’s and children’s work in Jialaxi Township. The children’s parents keep them at home and let them fetch water and herd the livestock. Therefore some children have no time to go to school.

Benefits

1. If there is water in Walo Village and Yajiong Villages, then the villagers will not need to travel the long distance to fetch water and they can use water as much as they want. Especially during the time of digging caterpillar fungus, the older people and the small children can drink water without young people’s help.
2. Fetching water is the villagers’ most difficult work and they spend most of their time fetching water. If the villagers have water in their yards, then the village women and children can save their time to do other things such as weaving and spinning, and they also will have leisure time to rest instead of fetching water.
3. The village women and children will not need to go through the dangerous road to fetch water. They will not need to think about the dangerous road any more.
4. The children will not get colds again and again as before and they will not need to take as much medicine. The village women will not get backaches, because the water will be near them and they don’t need to carry water buckets on their backs.
5. The calves can drink water whenever they want to and they will not die from thirst in the spring. The villagers will have more livestock to produce milk and butter.
6. Generally the other villages on the mountain slopes have water, so they can water their vegetables in their yards and they can grow vegetables to eat. If Yajiong Village and Walo villagers also have water, then they cloud grow vegetables in their yards. The villagers will be able to eat vegetables that they grow by themselves.
7. The people will be able to wash themselves and their clothes each week. They don’t need to carry their clothes to far places to wash and they can wash their clothes at their homes whenever they want. The people will not get illness from bad hygiene.
8. If there is water in front of their houses, the women will not need to spend time fetching water. They can go out to earn money from construction work and they also can do weaving and spinning at their homes. The children and women of the village will no longer need to go to the windy valley to fetch water in winter and they get less colds. Overall the villagers’ living conditions will be improved.
9. The parents will not need help from their children to fetch water. Therefore the children will have a chance to go to school.

Gender equality
In Walo Village and Yajiong Village house chores like fetching water and other field works are mainly done by the women; women become very tired from those works.. Therefore if there is water in the village then the women will have less work to do and they can have time for leisure activities or earning extra income.

Formerly in Jialaxi Township, people used to believe that women were powerless and they could not do meaningful things as men did. They also believed that sending girls to school was useless.

However last year in 2007, I did a barrier wall project and a solar panel project for two villages in Jialaxi Township. After that many people changed their ideas toward women and they believed that women could do as men can do and they respected women .Before I did these projects, nobody asked me to do projects such as solar power and water for them. But now many people believe that women also can do important things and they ask me to help write proposals for them. Some people tell my father to ask me to write proposals for them while I am not with my family.

If this project is funded, then in my hometown more and more people will believe that if women get education, men and women have the same ability to do meaningful things. More parents will send their girls to school and they will have high expectations for girls. The girls will also have higher expectations to accomplish more meaningful things.

Project steps

1. Discussed with the villagers why the village needs water and collect information for the project. (Done.)
2. Visited the water spring and see whether it is big enough. (Done.)
3. Discussed the project’s needs with Sangjia (who is more knowledgeable about water project than other people in the villages) and see what kinds of materials we need.( Done)
4. Contact the firm’s leader to get specifications and prices for the water pipe. (Done.)
5. Asked the local government leader, Banggeng Duoji to get permission to do the project. (Done.)
6. Decided what labor the villagers could complete, i.e. digging ditches and burying pipes. (Done.)
7. Take pictures for the project.
8. Write proposal (Done.)
9. Receive funds.
10. Have a meeting with the villagers to decide the starting date of the project.
11. Buy the water pipe and cement and transport them to the village.
12. Dig the ditch and bury the pipe in the ditch.
13. Interview the village men, women and children about the project and take photos.
14. Write final report.
15. Send final report with photos and receipts.

Time frame
(The villagers need 68 days to carry out the project with 30 people for each day)

1 day. Hold a meeting with the villagers to assign them tasks.

7 days: Go to buy the materials in Chengdu and Xinlong county town and transport them to the village.

41 days: to dig ditches.

11 days: to bury the water pipe in the ditches.

7 days: to build three cement boxes.

1 day: hold a meeting with the villagers, interview them, and take pictures of them.

Detailed budget

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Item	Number of Items	Price per item in rmb	Donor Contri bution in rmb	Local Contri bution in rmb	Shem Contri bution in rmb	Total in rmb
Cement	110 bags	35/bag	3,850			3,850
Plastic pipe #50	1,550m	15/m	23,250			23,250
Plastic pipe#101	200m	17.6/m	3,520			3,520
Plastic pipe#30	1,300m	12.5/m	16,250			16,250
Valves#75mm	1	210/each	210			210
Valves#50mm	1	155/each	155			155
Valves#32mm	3	115/each	345			345
Valves#32mm	9	7.5/each	67.5			67.5
Iron bar #12	450 kg	7.5/kg	3,375			3,375
Iron bar #14	250 kg	7.2/kg	1,800			1,800
Iron bar #6.5	60 kg	6.8kg	408			408
Bricks	7,000	0.55/brick	3,850			3,850
Connections (metal wire, screw)Pipes, spigots,valves connections	150 kg	7.5/kg	1,125			1,125
Unskilled Workers	52 days, 30 people	30/day/person		46,800		46,800
Skilled Worker	7 days, 1 person	100/day	700			700
Sand	5 tractors	180/per tractor	900			900
Transportaion fee for materials	(From Chengdu to Xinlong)	3,300	3,300			3,300
Transportation fee for sand and cement and Bricks	12 tractors	180/ tractor		2,160		2,160
Management expenses	Phone calls, Transportation from Qinghai to Sichuan( hotels)		950	500		1450
Management payment					500	500
Total			64,055.5	49,460	500	114,015.

TheTotal contribution is 114,015.5rmb

The donor contribution is 64,055.5rmb

The local contribution is 49,460 rmb

Shem contribution is 500rmb

Project Sustainability
The quality of the water pipe which the villagers are going to use for the water systems is very good. Yajiong’s neighboring village, Gere village, used the same type of pipe to build a water system for their villagers and it has been five years now and the water system still does not have any problems. The spring which the villagers planned to drive to their village is very big and it is enough to supply water for the whole village. Every body knows that fetching water is hard for them in that village and they will take responsibility for the water system well. If it breaks the villagers will be responsible for it and they will ask other skilled people to repair it.

Government support for the project
The project manager called the local government leader Banggeng Duoji on May 3^rd, 2008. He was very happy about the project and he said that several villages have difficulties with water in the Jialaxi Township. But the local government doesn’t have enough money to do water projects for them and if the manager can implement the water project for a village that would be great. The local government leader is very happy to give permission to complete the project.

Additional Information
The project manager Tashi Hlamo successfully implemented two small scale development projects in 2007. One was a barrier wall project for Yatong village, which was funded by the German Embassy. Another project was a solar electricity panel project for Yinlong village, which was funded by the British Embassy. The two projects are located in Jialaxi Township, Xinlong County, Ganzi Tibetan autonomous prefecture, Sichuan province. These two projects are mainly to improve the impoverished local people’s living conditions, reduce their workload and improve enrollment of school children.

The Water project for Walo and Yajiong Villages is her third project. Now she is working in Shem Women’s group in Xining City, Qinghai province.

Pictures

This is the water source where the villagers fetch water. The child and the woman in the picture are a son and his mother. Villagers always come to this spring to fetch water and it is located in a valley. In winter times, other villagers cut trees from the top of the valley to build houses and for fuel. Then they roll the tree logs from mountain top to this valley, making the water dirty. Sometimes the water is covered by logs like the situation in the picture, and it is very hard for the villagers to get water.

In the picture, the villagers are taking rest on the way with buckets full of water on their backs. The distance from the village to the water source is about 1.5 kilometers and they have to take a rest five or six times each time they go to fetch water.

The steep path in the picture is used by the villagers to fetch water. Especially in winter, the path is covered by heavy snow and the villagers can not see the path well. Sometimes they slip on the road with their water buckets. It is very dangerous for the villagers.

The child is carrying water on his back. His name is Garong Tashi and he is eleven years old now. He is not going to school, because he has no time to go to school and he has to fetch water and herd livestock for his family. He always fetches water on his back like this.

The man on the left is the child’s grandfather and they are in their kitchen. The family’s life is really hard and they have no water or electricity.

Diagram

Map of the project Location