Reports

This project is to build 40 greenhouses. Create a sustaianable and reliable income. Increase school attendance. Lighten women’s burden.

The Australian Embassy funded this project

Lhamotso is from Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China. She graduated in 2005 with an Associated degree in English from Qinghai Normal University Nationalities Department’s English Training Program. She is now working as a program director and core staff member of Shem Women’s Group.

What? 30 greenhouses for 30 Tibetan, Han and Hui households
Who? Heluoshi village, Tiegai Township, Gonghe County, Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province.

Photos of project implementation

The villagers are distributing the cement.

The stones are used for the foundation of the greenhouses

The steel doors were transported to Heluoshi village and the local villagers are distributing them.

The local villagers distribute the cinder blocks

They are building the wall of the greenhouse with cinder blocks

She is a college student and is helping her family build their greenhouse.

The villagers are taking the roller bamboo from the tractor.

They are making the foundation of the greenhouse sturdier using the hammers to compact the stone, cement and water

Both women and men are involved in the distribution of materials, both them are loading the roller bamboo onto the hand tractor.

It is a very cold day, but the villagers are happy to see the other villagers transporting the steel doors from the big tractor to the hand tractor.

They are working on the roof of the greenhouse to make sure the rain cannot leak through.

One of the project beneficiaries, a Hui woman, standing in front of her family’s new greenhouse.

The engineer, who is from Heluoshi village, is making the wall of the greenhouse smoother. The little boy is his son who is standing next to his father and providing water.

All the villagers drove their hand tractors to collect red bricks.

Although they are more than 50 years old, this elderly Hui couple came to get their own red bricks because there are no other people in their family to help them.

The female villagers are carrying the cinder blocks from the tractor.

This woman and this man are couple and they just moved here from a nomadic area. They have had a difficult time since they are not used to working in the fields.

They are mixing cement, stone and water together for the foundation of the greenhouse.

The project manager, Lhamotso, (wearing a white hat) is helping pour the foundation

The villagers are distributing the thin plastic sheeting.

List of Recipients

Project Summary

Project title: Greenhouses for Heluoshi Village

Location of project: This project is located in Heluoshi village, Tiegai Township, Gonghe County, Hainan Prefecture, Qinghai province. Heluoshi village is in the southeastern part of Gonghe County, and it is approximately 170 miles from the provincial capital, Xining.

Implementation organization/individual: Lhamotso (Lily), Wandetai (villager) and the leaders of Heluoshi village

Contact Person: Michelle Kleisath

Funds received: Source, Amount, andDate Received

The Australian Embassy 59,357.32rmb 9th of April 2006

Details of project activities

The originally planned project activities

• Held a meeting with the village leaders and local people to choose the 40 poorest families. The poorest families were chosen based on how much money the family makes each year; the quality of the fields (How much of the fields are covered by sand and stone); how many children go to school; How much money they have borrowed from the bank each year, and how many people are able to work per family. Every single villager agreed that the chosen families are really poor that they should be helped by building the greenhouses.

1. Held a meeting with the village leaders and the engineer. The main content was about where the materials will be purchased: Cement in the County Cement Company in Gonghe county; Red bricks and cinder blocks in the County Tile Factory in Gonghe county; Steel doors in The Prefecture Steel Company in Gonghe county; roller bamboo and thin plastic in the Prefecture Trade Company; and Finally logs in the Prefecture Log Market in Gonghe county.
2. Secure funding from donor organization.
3. Collect local contribution from the villagers
4. Local people begin to collect the rocks and sand from 13km away near the Yellow River.
5. Buy building materials from Gonghe County. Go together with the village leader and the engineer in order to ensure the quality of the materials.
6. Build the greenhouses
7. Evaluate the greenhouses
8. Take pictures
9. Interview the local people (men, women, children)
10. Interview the village leaders.
11. Write final report
12. Send final report with pictures

Activities realized in the framework of the project

1. On 13th of January 2006, Michelle Kleisath emailed me (Lhamotso, the project manger) and told me that the greenhouse project for Heluoshi village was funded by the Australian Embassy.
2. On 19th of January 2006, Michelle Kleisath emailed me again and said that the Australian Embassy gives grants of no more than 10,000 Australian dollars (60,731rmb); and that I had to make the project smaller.
3. On 23rd of January 2006, there was a meeting about making the project smaller with the villagers and the village leaders. We all agreed to choose 30 poorest families in Heluoshi village.
4. On 28th of February 2006, Lhamotso sent the bank information to theAustralian Embassy.
5. On 5th of April 2006, San Chuan Development Group received 59,357.32 rmb from the Donor.
6. On 9th of April 2006, Lhamotso received 59,357.32 rmb
7. On11th of April 2006, Lhamotso and some villagers purchased cement in the County town.
8. On 10th of April 2006, it snowed so the cement could not be transported to Heluoshi village.
9. On 11th –13th of April 2006, 30 tons of cement were transported to Heluoshi village
10. On14th and 15th of April 2006, each household collected sand and rocks for building the greenhouses.
11. On 16th -18th of April 2006, it snowed and rained, and the project was delayed
12. On 19th of April 2006,only two tractors of cinder blocks were transported to Heluoshi village, the factory could not make more because of several days of rain. And also the cinder blocks were not dry enough to build the greenhouses. According the factory, once the cinder blocks were made, they should dry for at least one week. So for the following week the villagers just waited for the cinder blocks to dry.
13. On 27th of April 2006, another two tractors of cinder blocks were transported to Heluoshi village.
14. On 28th of April 2006, red bricks were transported to Heluoshi village and the village leaders helped to distribute red bricks to 30 households.
15. On 1st–2nd of May 2006, the villagers dug the foundations and mixed the sand, cement and stone together to create the foundations.
16. On 3rd–6th of May 2006, Lhamosto interviewed the villagers and took some photos; and the villagers poured the foundations.
17. On 7th of May 2006, we waited for the foundation of the greenhouses to dry.
18. On 8th of May 2006, it rained heavily
19. On 9th of May 2006, the villagers again waited for the foundations to dry.
20. On 10th of May 2006, three tractors of cinder blocks were transported to Heluoshi village.
21. On 11th –20th of May, the villagers just waited for the remaining cinder blocks to arrive
22. On 21st, the steel doors were transported to Heluoshi village
23. On 22nd –27th of May 2006, the logs were transported to each household.
24. On 28th of May –1st of June 2006, the rest of the cinder blocks were transported to Heluoshi village.
25. On 2nd–7th of June, the villagers built the walls of the greenhouses with the cinder blocks.
26. On 8th of June 2006, we installed the steel doors on the greenhouses.
27. On 9th of June 2006, roller bamboos were transported to Heluoshi village
28. On 10th–13th of June 2006, roofs were built using the logs
29. On 14th–15th of June 2006, the roller bamboos were added on to the roofs in order to keep the greenhouse warm.
30. On 16th—20th of June 2006, villagers used cement to make the walls strong and flat.
31. On 23rd of June2006, thin plastic sheeting was transported to Heluoshi village, The vegetables cannot grow at this time of year, so the villagers stored the plastic sheeting for later.
32. On 6th —9th 0f July 2006, Lhamotso (the project manager) interviewed villagers, and village leaders and took photos.
33. On 10th—13th of July, I finished the final report

Delays, difficulties, and lesson learned

Delay of activities

There were many delays during the implementation of the project due to terrible weather conditions. Usually in the April; it does not rain or snow, but unfortunately, this year it snowed and the road was too muddy and slippery to transport the cement. So the villagers had to wait for the weather became nice and sunny before we could begin construction.

In addition, there were not enough cinder blocks in the factory because of the continual rain and snow. The weather caused the factory to stop production for several days. Also, once the cinder blocks were made, people had to leave them out to dry for one week. This caused another delay in construction.

Difficulties encountered when implementing the project

It was very difficult to decrease the size of the project. Originally the 40 poorest families were selected to receive a greenhouse, but once the project was funded, I found out that I would need to reduce the size of the project considerable, from 40 greenhouses to 30. When I told the villagers about this change, they were upset and complained.

We all met together to choose 30 of the poorest families from among the original 40 families, but many people were not happy about the change in plans, and of course those who no longer received greenhouses were unhappy about the decision.

Luckily, after several days, the local government decided to also build a greenhouse project in Heluoshi village. With the two projects combined together, everyone got a greenhouse. The villagers were satisfied because they could all get a greenhouse from one of the two projects.

As described above, the unexpected weather also caused many difficulties and delays. But the factory and the local villagers could not do anything about the weather except wait for it to improve.

Lessons learned

The meetings that we held to make decisions about the project were very important. Although the villagers were unhappy about the changes in our plans, they all attended the meetings and were aware of what was happening, and this helped them feel better about the problems that we encountered.

I also learned that self-confidence is a key factor for project managers, especially female mangers, because most people have negative stereotypes towards women and think that we are unable to do something important like men. But actually women can also do something important, but we need confidence in order to keep pursuing our goal even when others doubt us.

Interviews

Here are interviews with some of the villagers who are the beneficiaries of this project:

1) Zhaojiangong

Zhaojiangong is a Chinese man and he is the father of two children although he is very young. He went to school when he was small, but later, because of the poor living condition, he stopped going to school and stayed at home to help his parents in the fields and do construction work outside. When he was about twenty, his family helped him find a wife from Heluoshi village. He lives with his wife in a very simple mud house, which was bought from one of the villagers. He had very difficult time in the beginning because he is the person who should financially support his family.

He worked very hard in the fields and during the summer time he went out to do construction work to earn a very small amount of money to maintain his family. He did not get any help from his original family or his wife’s original family because they were both too poor. His family is one of the poorest families in Heluoshi village. On 3 rd of May 2006, I went to his house, at that time he was busy building the greenhouse with his wife, and two little kids were sitting on the cold ground. He said it was a very difficult task to build the greenhouse since there were only his wife and he there, but he was happy because he could make money without going out to do construction. He said that now he can raise livestock such as some sheep, goats and cows in the wintertime and plant vegetables in the summer time. And he also mentioned that definitely there was now a hope to send his two children to school and buy school materials for them. He said without the help from the Australian Embassy, he doubts whether he could send his children to school because he could not afford it. He gave many thanks to The Australian Embassy.

2) Gnm-skyid-mtso

Gnm-skyid-mtso is a Tibetan housewife. On 7 th of July 2006, I interviewed Gnm-skyid-mtso. Her first expression was that the greenhouse is beautiful because the greenhouse is really better quality than the houses that most villagers live in in Heluoshi village. She told me that before, there was way to plant varied vegetables such as peppers, eggplants, tomatoes and cucumbers because the weather is cold and the earth is salty. People usually eat potatoes as the main vegetable for the entire year. Now, she can plant eggplant, cucumber, tomato and pepper in the greenhouse in order to save money and her family can eat different vegetables. And also she told me later that she can also make money by selling milk, which will be produced by the cows raised in the greenhouse in the wintertime. She and her family are happy and appreciated what the Australian Embassy has done for them which can bring good fortune into their lives. Gnm-skyid-mtso and her family members wish the Embassy will do more good things for poor people in the future.

3) Mamaosu

Mamaosu is a fifty-year-old Hui man. On the 6 th of July 2006, After the project was complete, I interviewed him. During the interview, he told me the original condition of his family. There were five people in his family; his three daughters, his wife and him. All of his three daughters attended the village school until grade three and four, and then dropped because their school tuition increased. As a result, their family was unable to let them continue studying because the low income. So his three daughters stayed at home and help their family in the field: weeding, irrigating, harvesting, doing housework, and making shoes with their mother. When the eldest daughter was about 18 years old, she got married and left home to live with her husband. Later, the other two daughters also got married and moved in with their husbands. Now there is only Mamaosu and his wife left in the house. Now both of them are over fifty years old but they still have to work in the fields in order to make some money and buy daily needs such as salt, tea, clothes and other necessities. Even though they work in the fields, it is not enough. So Mamaosuo has to take out a loan (3,000rmb) from the local bank every year in order to buy 1,000kg wheat and make flour. He said that he leads a very difficult life in Heluoshi village. When he talked about building the greenhouses, he said he was very thankful the Australian Embassy who helped him and people who were just poor like him. He mentioned that before in the winter time, it was extremely difficult to raise livestock such as sheep because of the cold weather, snow and strong winds. But now it would be much better and convenient to feed the livestock and sell for a high price.

4) Zhaoguihua

On 8th of July 2006, the project manger Lhamotso interviewed Zhaoguihua. She is a female village leader and she works in The women’s federation in Heluoshi village. She mentioned this project was good for women because usually planting vegetables was women’s responsibility so women work hard compared to men. Using the greenhouse, women can plant vegetables very easily.

5) Rezen

Rezen is a thirty nine year old Tibetan man. He and his family are brand new to Heluoshi village because they moved from a nomadic area one and half years ago. He bought a house and planted a few fields which had originally belonged to his elder brother (Now his elder brother went to Lhasa to make some money in order to get rid of thier poverty). Because his family moved from a nomadic area, farm life is difficult for them, especially his wife. Nomadic people are not used to working in the field. So Renzen believes that he is the only person in his family who can do work skillfully in the field. He was kind of complaining that his wife could not help him in the field so that he could go out to earn money. He said to build greenhouses for them was wonderful. They normally depend on the government and the government only gives a small amount money and very limited food at the very end of each year. The greenhouse could use for many years. He said that it was a sustainable idea.

6) Hatema

Hatema is a Muslim woman in Heluoshi village. On 8 th of July the project manager Lhamosto interviewed Hatema. She started by introducing her family conditions. There are four people in her family, two daughters, her husband and her. But they only have four-mu of fields, which is not enough for four of them. So they need to buy about 2,000kg wheat and take loan of 3,000rmb from the bank each year. With a 3,000rmb loan they can buy fertilizers, school materials and daily necessities. Her husband does construction work outside for two months each year but he can only make about 1,000rmb. One of the daughters is fourteen years old and another one is sixteen years old. Her two daughters currently are going to school. Her family is not rich enough to send two children to school but her and her husband try their best and work hard to afford for them to school. When I asked why she still sent her two children to school even though her family had a very difficult time, she said because both her and her husband never went to school, they were poor and had a bad life. So they wanted to let their children get educated and lead a good life in the future. Finally she said greenhouse could really help her family with thier poor living conditions and she also had same idea as many people said she would plant vegetables in order to save money, which could be used on buying school materials for her two daughters. And she was really happy and thankful for getting help from The Australian Embassy.

7) Guguihua

On the 6th of July 2006 I interviewed Guguihua. She is a Chinese woman. She described the general situation of her family. There were six people in her family but they only have little mu of field (six mu). Her third son attended to school until he was grade one in the County Middle school. After that he stopped going to school because of the heavy school tuition. He went outside to learn about making clothes as a tailor. Now he works in a small clothing shop and earns a little money, which he uses to survive. Now Guguihua lives with her second son who has not finished primary school. When he was about nineteen years old, he married a girl who was only eighteen. He goes out to do construction work one month every year and he can only earn about 600rmb-700rmb. That amount of money is used to buy some daily needs such as clothes, salt, fertilizer for the fields, and tea. She was very happy and said the greenhouse could really bring something to them in order to improve their life conditions. The Australian Embassy said they would do something, and then it happened immediately, not like the local government, which said they would give something, but it didn’t happen for a very long time, or never happened. Guguihua appreciated what the Australian Embassy did for them and said that she and her family will remember forever.

8)Qihaiqing

Qihaiqing is one of the Heluoshi village leaders who has been the local leader for more than five years and knows the whole situation of Heluoshi village very well. When I interviewed him on 8th of July 2006, he said it was a very helpful project because the greenhouses could help the villagers to earn money in a very easy way. And he was kind of sorry for the villagers that as a village leader he could not do something for the villagers. Finally, he said many thanks to The Australian Embassy.

Detail budget

ACTUAL BUDGET
Quantity	DonorContribution	Local Contribution
30tons	9,540rmb	0
12,000 blocks	20,400rmb	0
3,000 bricks	870rmb	0
30 doors	6,300rmb	0
510 logs	15,300rmb	0
188 roller bamboos	4,500rmb	0
300 sheets	2,100rmb	0
1 engineer	347rmb	0
60 tractor trips	0	2,400rmb
90 tractors trips	0	3,600rmb
60 workers	0	27,000rmb
30 households	0	653rmb
	59,357rmb*	33,653rmb*

*Originally the total requested money from The Australian Embassy was 82,760rmb for building 40 greenhouses in Heluoshi village. However,The Australian Embassy only supports projects of no more than 10,000 Australian dollars (about 60, 730rmb) so the project manager, Lhamotso, made the project smaller. We built 30 greenhouses in Heluoshi village instead of 40. Therefore, the actual budget is far less than the original budget.

Letter of Appreciation

Translation

Dear Australian Embassy

First of all, thank you to the Australian Embassy, which greatly supported Heluoshi village, and helped build greenhouses for the villagers. In the summer time, people can now plant different vegetables in the greenhouses. And in the wintertime, people can raise livestock such as sheep and cows in order to increase their income and lighten their heavy burden.

Again we really thank you for your selfless donation to the people of Heluoshi village.

Sincerely,

Heluoshi village committee

7th of July, 2006

Receipts

Receipt #1

Receipt #2

Receipt #3

Receipt #4

Receipt #5

Receipt #6

Receipt #7

Receipt #8

This is the receipt that shows the amount of money that I received from Sanchuan Development organization. The total amount is 59, 357.32rmb

Original Proposal

Location

This project will be located in Heluoshi village, Tiegai Township, Gonghe County, Hainan Prefecture, Qinghai province. Heluoshi village is in the southeastern part of Gonghe County, and it is approximately 1 70 miles from t he provincial capital, Xining

Background

Heluoshi village was historically an agriculture village. The village used to be locat ed opposite of Longyangxia town, but during 1987 and 1988, the village transferred to Mahaitai area because the government planned to build a hydroelectric station there. Therefore the village had to move.

Population

Heluoshi village consists of four different ethnic groups: Tibetan, Chinese, Hui and Mongour. There are 83 households of 489 residents in the target village. There are 173 grown women, 150 men, and 166 children.

Education

In total, there are approximately120 school-aged children. Of these, 55 are currently attending school: 34 in primary school (21 male students and 13 female students), 10 in middle school ( 7 male students and 3 female students), 7 in high school (5 male students and 2 female students), and 4 in college, (all female).

A number of children have attended primary school and after dropped out because their families can’t afford to pay the expensive middle school tuition fees. The primary school’s tuition is about 60rmb and the Middle school’s tuition is more than 500rmb per year. Therefore, less and less students go to Middle school. The college students are very few. A few years ago, one boy and one girl got high marks in the college entrance examination and they got the actual papers which said that both of them were chosen by other provinces’ universities. Unfortunately, they did not go to college because their families are too poor to pay 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 of the families have negative cash income. The average income per family per year is 1, 200 rmb, and they must spend around 1,000 rmb per year on food, fertilizer and clothes . People spend about 900rmb per year to buy fertilizer in the form of urea and amino acids. Each 100kg bag of urea is 95rmb and each 100kg bag of amino acid is 150rmb. Villagers also spend money buying meat, vegetables, clothes, salt, tea and other necessities. In addition, s chool fees cost an average of 1,000 rmb per semester.

Almost all the families have to take out loans because they need to buy fertilizer and support their children’s education. When the time to pay back the loan arrives, villagers are busy borrowing money from relatives and friends because they have no money to pay back the loans. And also some of families h ave to buy flour at the end of year because their fields can’t produce enough food for them.

Agriculture

Local people usually grow wheat, potatoes, beans and rapeseed. Generally, the climate in Heluoshi 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 8km 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 in every year . Finally, the amount of land that each person owns is not sufficient to produce any substantial harvest. Each person only has 1.7 mu of farmland. All of the above problems result in very poor harvests. Usually, 1 mu of field can only produce between 300 jin to 400 jin of wheat. As a result, some families do not produce enough food even for self-consumption, and the must buy wheat, barley, and vegetables from outside.

Herding

Mostly the households don’t have livestock such as yaks, cows, sheep, goats, donkeys or horses. Only a few of the households have small amount of sheep, goats and cows. The total number of sheep in the village is 27, cows are 13 and goats are 43. Five families own these.

Project Goals and Benefits

The overarching goal of the project is to increase local people’s income, thereby increasing school attendance and quality of life. The immediate goal of the project is to build 40 greenhouses

Low income

The biggest problem faced by Heluoshi village is the lack means to make sufficient cash income for survival.

In the majority of cases, local people earn cash by doing construction work, and digging caterpillar fungus. Only one or two families have a big enough harvest that they are able to sell the extra grain. On average, each family can make 700rmb per year digging caterpillar fungus and each person can make 150rmb per month doing construction work.

Except for these two options, there are no other known ways to earn money to survive. The problem with both of these sources of income is that they are unstable and unreliable. For instance, people who do construction work are very often cheated out of their pay. In one very common example, the construction manager promises to pay the workers one month after they finish construction. One month later, when they go back to collect their payments, the construction manager is gone, and they end up getting paid absolutely nothing for their work. As a result, they have wasted time doing work for nothing. This is a very serious and common problem for people who work outside. In addition, the government has recently forbid people from digging caterpillar fungus because they claim that it will destroy the ecological balance. So, digging caterpillar fungus to earn cash is no longer a viable option.

Because villagers can no longer earn money in these ways, it is becoming very common that, in addition to not having enough money to support their children’s education, many families do not have enough money to buy food and clothing.

Low school enrollment

In Heluoshi village, most children do not attend school because they are poor. Most children go to primary school for only one or two years before dropping out due to high tuition fees and the need to help their families work the fields. The few children who do manage to finish primary school usually do not go on to attend middle school because of the high fees. That is because middle school’s tuition is more expensive than the primary school’s tuition.

Because taking out bank loans puts families in a financially compromising situation, very few families are willing to take out loans to support their children’s further education. Therefore, the chance that a child from Heluoshi village will be educated through high school or college is very slim. Due to the extremely low school enrollment in this area, most of the villagers are illiterate, and lack the abilities needed to find new ways to make money. In addition, people don’t know what is going on the outside world and the village’s economic situation is falling behind.

Heavy Burden on Women

In Heluoshi, women need to get up around 5:30 am every season except winter and do all the housework (cleaning, collecting fuel, feeding pigs, fetching water and making breakfast). After they finish the housework, they need to weed the fields for at least 5 hours every day during the summer, and harvest all day during the fall. After a full day’s work, they often make shoes for their family members late into the night. Thus, women do not have time to do any leisure activities and sometimes they don’t even have time to eat with the rest of the family. Women spend much more time than any of their family members weeding and fertilizing the vegetable fields. If they don’t do this job well, they will have no vegetables to eat and they will have to buy them.

Solutions
Create a sustainable and reliable income

If there are greenhouses, the villagers won’t need to spend their money buying vegetables from the county, which is about 18km away. In addition, they can use the greenhouses to breed healthy, fat sheep and cows during the wintertime. Without a greenhouse, it is too cold during the winter to breed livestock. The few offspring that manage to survive every year are too thin and sick to sell. Because sheep and cattle that are raised in a green house are so much fatter than those raised outside in the freezing temperatures, the greenhouses can make a dramatic difference in number of livestock and in the selling price of livestock.

Specifically, every greenhouse can hold 30 sheep and 4 cows per year. One fattened cow usually sells for 1,500 rmb, and a fattened sheep for about 400 rmb. Each family will need to invest some money in purchasing breeding livestock. They will purchase sheep from outside for about 200 rmb each, and cows for about 1,000 rmb each. The sheep need to be bred for three months and the cattle need to be bred for two months. Each sheep needs to eat two jin of feed everyday and each cow needs to eat four jin of feed everyday. And one jin feed costs 0.7rmb.Therefore in total, the feed for 30 sheep and 4 cows will cost 4,452rmb each year. The total investment during the first year will include the cost of buying livestock (10,000 rmb) plus the cost of feed (4,452 rmb) and the total amount made from selling fattened livestock will be 18,000. Finally each greenhouse can make approximate average of 3,548rmb cash profit (including people’s labor).

Moreover, people can save money that is used to buy vegetables from the county. The roundtrip bus ticket is 8rmb and every time they go, people spend about 20rmb to buy vegetables. So if there are greenhouses then they can save money. People usually go to buy vegetables about 10 times per year. If they have greenhouses, they will be able to save approximately 360 rmb per year on vegetables.

In sum, the families of Heluoshi village will be able to make approximately 3,908 more cash income per year with the help of their greenhouses. This is a sustainable and reliable cash income that will help alleviate many of the additional problems that the villagers currently face:

Increase school attendance

If there are greenhouses, the villagers can use the cash income that they earn to support their children’s education. Once the villagers have a sustainable and reliable cash income, the primary and middle school enrollment will increase dramatically. Fewer children will drop out of the school because their families can’t support their school tuition. Gradually, more people will be educated and a large number of children will be able to go to high school and even college. As a result, the well-educated people will be able use modern technology to find better ways to make money in order to increase the whole village’s economy.

Lighten Women’s Burden

Normally, women try to grow small vegetable patches for self-consumption. These crops are usually not very productive, and are extremely time consuming. In addition, women are the people who go to town to buy vegetables when they are needed. If women have greenhouses then they can save the time that they normally spend buying and cultivating vegetables to do other work such as making shoes and making baskets for their family’s use. Also the women don’t need to get up so early because they don’t need to spend so much time on the fields. In the greenhouses eggplants, tomatoes and peppers can be grown. And the women will have more time to hold activities during some special day such as women’s day.

Finally, the greenhouses will make it possible for many more girls to attend school, which will open up new opportunities for them and make their quality of life better.

Beneficiaries

In total 489 people will benefit from t his project. 40 families’ incomes will be increased by approximately 3,908 rmb pe r year.

Governmental support

The local government agrees with the project. In July, Lamomthso (Lily), the project manager met with Faxiuyi, the villager leader. He said that he was happy to support any projects, which can help local people to have a better life. In addition, about three years ago, one college student did a pigsty project in the neighbor village and the local and county government totally agreed and supported his project.

The steps of the project

1. Hold a meeting with the village leaders and local people to choose the 40 poorest families. This step has already been completed. The poorest families were chosen based on how much money the family makes each year; the quality of the fields (How much of the fields are covered by sand and stone); how many children go to school; How much money they have borrowed from the bank each year, and how many people are able to work per family. Every single villager agreed that the chosen families are really poor that they should be helped by building the greenhouses.
2. Hold a meeting with the village leaders and the engineer. This step has already been completed The main content was about where the materials will be purchased: Cement in the County Cement Company in Gonghe county; Red bricks and cinder blocks in the County Tile Factory in Gonghe county; Steel doors in The Prefecture Steel Company in Gonghe county; roller bamboo and thin plastic in the Prefecture Trade Company; and Finally logs in the Prefecture Log Market in Gonghe county.
3. Secure funding from donor organization.
4. Collect local contribution from the villagers
5. Local people begin to collect the rocks and sand from 13km away near the Yellow River.
6. Buy building materials from Gonghe County. Go together with the village leader and the engineer in order to ensure the quality of the materials.
7. Build the greenhouses
8. Evaluate the greenhouses
9. Take pictures
10. Interview the local people (men, women, children)
11. Interview the village leaders.
12. Write final report
13. Send final report with pictures
    

Time frame

This project will take 3 0 days to implement.

1 day has meeting with the entire villager together

3 days go to Gonghe to buy materials and transport them into the village

5 days to collect stone and sand

1 day to transport the logs

20 days to build the greenhouses

Detailed Budget:

Requested contribution from the donor

Item	Quantity	Unit Price	Total
Cement (transportation included)	40 tons	3 18 rmb/ton	12 , 720 mb
Red bricks ( transportation included)	4,000 bricks	0.29rmb/brick	1,160rmb
Cinder blocks (transportation included)	1 6 ,000 blocks	1. 8 rmb/block	28,800rmb
Steel door (transportation included)	4 0 doors	2 06 rmb/door	8,240rmb
Logs (transportation included)	600 logs	33 rmb/piece	19,800rmb
Roller bamboo (transportation included)	24 0 bamboo rollers	26 rmb/roller	6,240 rmb
Thin plastic sheeting (transportation included)	4 00 sheets	7 rmb/meter	2,800 rmb
Engineer	1 engineer	100rmb/per day/30 days	3,000rmb
Total requested from Donor organization			82,760rmb
82,760rmb = 10 , 240 US dollars

Local contribution

Item	Quantity	Unit price	Total amount
Sand	8 0 tractor trips	4 0rmb/trip	3 , 2 00rmb
Rocks	120 tractors trips	4 0rbm/trip	4,8 00rmb
Day labor	80 workers	1 5 rmb/person/day 30 days/	36 ,000rbm
Total local contribution			44,000rmb

Sustainability

This project is sustainable because greenhouses can be used in two seasons: summer for growing vegetables and winter for raising sheep and cows. The greenhouse can be repaired anytime if the thin plastic tears into pieces; or if the roller bamboo breaks; the villagers can easily buy these materials from Gonghe County. And also the rocks used to build the houses are very strong–thus the greenhouses will last a long time.

According to several families from Tiegai village who have built greenhouses before, the project will produce benefits for the villagers for more than 15 years .

Each household will maintain the project after it has been implemented. And each household will take care of their greenhouse. For instance, when the wind blows strongly people need to take the thin plastic sown from the roof of the greenhouse in order to avoid the thin plastic from tearing into pieces. If there is a little problem with the greenhouse people need to repair it properly very soon. And also each household should buy thin plastic in every three years and roller bamboo in every five years as well. The villagers will pay for all of the repairs and maintenance.

Additional information
Past experience

Lamomthso (Lily), t he project manager, has already successfully completed four 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 project is located. During the same year, in the winter Lamomthso managed another solar cooker project funded by the Canada fund, which provided 30 solar cookers to Heluoshi.

Lamomthso also successfully completed two second-hand clothes projects in 2004 and 2005. These clothes were provided by British consulate in Shanghai. There were two boxes of the second clothes that included shirts, trousers, bags, shoes, hats, toys, sweaters and other stuffs.

Interviews

Here are interviews with some of the villagers who will benefit from this project:

(1) G.yang ‘bum

His wife died three years ago and he does almost all the work for his family. His parents–in-law have lost their capacity to work for a long time except do some easy and light housework. His father-in-law has suffered by illness, which are arthritis, and illness that is related to kidney. Ana his mother-in-law can’t work because her legs have suffered. In this case it is very hard for him to deal all the work inside and outside of the house.

(2) Thub-bstan

His three children go to school. When I got his home, he was very happy that I came to visit him. By interviewing, I knew that he was an unlucky person because in the past time a person died in each year. So his family always has problem with money. Even so he still supports his children go to school. At that very moment I can’t do any thing for him except comfort him to do work honestly.

(3) Xiuying

Her mother in-law died of cerebral hemorrhage and hypertension four years ago. Her father in-law has gotten diabetes since his wife died. However, unfortunately her husband’s elder brother has gotten mental problem since he was born. Therefore she needs to help her husband on the fields and she alone does all the housework. Beside this work, she needs to take care of her father in-law and her little child.

(4) Tshe-ring-sgrol-ma

Originally her two elder sisters and elder brother attended the school when they were very young. After they had grown old enough to work the fields, they were forced to drop out of the school because the school fees were too expensive, and they needed to help their parents work. Tshe-ring-sgrol-ma was the only child who went to school in her family. Later she almost finished middle school, but her parents couldn’t support her anymore. As a result, she dropped out of the school and stayed at home to help her mother make shoes. Now she works in the restaurant as a waitress in Jingxigou Township, which is near Qinghai Lake.

Engineer’s plan fo rthe greenhous

Diagram of project location

Map of the project location