Project Manager: Renchen Tso (Jenna)
This project is to supply 10 harvesting machines to Bailing Village to improve the living conditions of the villagers and decrease villagers’ health problems and increase education levels. The harvesting machines will reduce women’s labor burden, and will save a considerable amount of their time. With more time, women will have the opportunity to raise the cash income for themselves and their households as well.
The Global Fund for Women and Shem’s private donors funded this project
Renchen Tso is from Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County, Gansu Province, China. She is currently working toward an associated degree in English at the Qinghai Normal University Nationalities Department English Training Program.
What? Buy 10 harvesting Machines for Bailing Villagers
Who? 93 people who reside in Bailing Village and the 67 people who are currently working outside the Bailing Village in Huazang Township, Huarei County, Gansu province, PRC.
Photos of project implementation
The Villagers and the manager of the Agricultural Machine Company in Tianzhu County Town are loading the machines.
The villagers are unloading the harvesting machines.
The Villagers are helping each other to transport the machine to their own home.
This is a couple and the man is disabled (his right hand is artificial hand).After they got the news that the machines are going to be delivered to every two households, they are coming and to see it in the cold weather.
The villagers are trying to get general information how to use the harvesting machine.
The man is checking the tools and other parts of the harvesting machines.
This is picture of two village women and the project manager.
She is a 76 years old woman, she has arthritis because of the heavy labor of harvesting for her whole life, but now she is happy with having harvesting machines and the young generations will have to do less heavy labor for harvesting.
Project summary
Project title: Harvesting Machine Project in Bailing Village.
Project goals: The immediate goal of this project is to supply 10 harvesting machines to Bailing Village and 20 households will benefit from this project and two households will share one harvesting machine. The overarching goal is to improve the living conditions of Bailing Villagers. This project will decrease villagers’ health problems and increase education levels. The harvesting machines will reduce women’s labor burden, and will also save a considerable amount of their time. With more time, women will have the opportunity to raise cash income for themselves and their households.
Location of project: Bailing Village is one of four agro-pastoral villages in Huazang Township. Huazang Township is located in the northern part of Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County, which is in Gansu Province. The village is 20 kilometers from Tianzhu County Town (also known as Hua Zang Si). The county town is 145 km from Lanzhou City, the provincial capital, and 230 km from Xining, the capital of Qinghai Province.
Project beneficiaries: The harvesting machines will directly benefit 93 people who reside in Bailing Village. The project will also benefit the 67 people who are currently working outside the village because if they come back they also can use these harvesting machines as their own.
Implementation organization/individual: Renchen Tso, and the village leader of Bailing and a village woman and Shem Women’s Group
Contact Group: Shem Women’s Group
Funds received: Amount, date and date received
On11th January 2008, the project manager; Renchen Tso received 17,000rmb from Shem Women’s Group.
Details of project activities
originally planned project activities
1) May 2nd, 2007: A meeting was held between Renchin Tso (the project manager) and the villagers of Bailing. The village leader and sixteen village people attended the meeting.
2) May 4th – May 5th, 2007: Discussed the details of the project, the local contribution, how to distribute the machines equally, and maintenance. Photographs were taken to illustrate the problems that villagers face.
3) Submit proposal. And also choose six project committees include the project manager by the villagers and the village leaders. The project committees are three men and three women.
4) Proposal receives funding.
5) Buy the machines from Agricultural Machine Company in WuWei City.
6) Transport and distribute the machines
7) Teach villagers how to use the harvesting machines
8) Evaluate the project
9) Interview the villagers (men, women, young and old) and take pictures
10) Write the final report
11) Submit the final report with the receipts and photos.
Activities realized in the framework of the project:
1) May 2nd, 2007: A meeting was held between Renchin Tso (the project manager) and the Bailing Villagers. The village leader and sixteen villagers attended the meeting.
2) May 4th – May 5th, 2007: Discussed the details of the project, the local contribution, how to distribute the machines equally, and maintenance. Photographs were taken to illustrate the problems that villagers face.
3) Submit proposal. And also choose six project committees include the project manager by the villagers and the village leaders. The project committees are three men and three women.
4) Received the project funds on 11th January 2008
5) Purchased harvesting machines from Agricultural Machine Company in Tianzhu County Town (known as Huanzang Si) on February 25th, 2008.
6) Delivered harvestings to Bailing Village and distributed the machines to the villagers on February 25th 2008.
7) Took photos of the villagers getting the machines and learn how to use the machines on February 25th-26th 2008.
8) Interviewed four people (two men and two women) from Bailing Village on February 28th 2008.
9) Wrote final report from March 3rd to 27th, 2008.
10) Sent final report on March 28th, 2008.
Project finances
| Original budget | Actual budget | |||||||||
| Rec eipt # |
Item | Donor contri bution in rmb |
Local contri bution in rmb |
Shem in rmb |
Total in rmb |
Donor contri bution in rmb |
Local contri bution in rmb |
Shem in rmb |
Total in rmb |
Differen ce (bet ween o riginal& actual budgets) in rmb |
| #1 | 5Harve sting Ma chines |
8,500 | 1,500 | 0 | 10,0 00 |
8,500 | 1,500 | 0 | 10,0 00 |
0 |
| #2 | 5Harve sting Ma chines |
8,500 | 1,500 | 0 | 10,0 00 |
8,500 | 1,500 | 0 | 10,0 00 |
0 |
| #3, #4, #5, #6 | Project manage ment expenses |
100 | 100 | 0 | 200 | 100 | 9.3 | 109.3 | +90.7 | |
| Project manage ment payment |
0 | 0 | 500 | 500 | 0 | 0 | 500 | 500 | 0 | |
| Tot al |
17,1 00 |
3,100 | 500 | 20,7 00 |
17,1 00 |
3,00 9.3 |
500 | 20,6 09.3 |
(1)+ 90.7 |
|
Notes: all figures are RMB in the above table
(1) Before the project founded I planned to buy the harvesting machines in Gansu Province, Wuwei region Agricultural Machines Company which is 132 kilometers far from Huazang Town. But actually I brought the machines from Huazang Town (the detailed reasons why I bought the harvesting machines from the Agricultural Machines Company in Huazang town but not the Agricultural Machines Company in Wuwei are explained in Difficulty section. So people’s transportation fee to Wuwei City is saved. The project manager, Renchen Tso gave the left over money to the village.
List of recipients
Difficulties and lesson learned
Difficulties
When the project funded I was really happy, but things were not as easy as I thought. My project was funded in the winter, so I decided to complete my project during the winter vacation. When I got home I told the village leader to collect all of the local contributions and we decided to buy harvesting machines after the Losar (Tibetan New Year). After the Losar I called the manager of Agricultural Machines’ Company in Wuwei which was the company that I planned to buy the machines. Before the village leader contacted with the manager of this company and he gave me the price of the harvesting machines and contact information of the company in order to let me make sure the information are correct. So I called the manager of the company, he said I could buy machines any time I wanted. The problem was that after the Losar I called the company and he said there are harvesting machines, but the price was much higher than before. It was spring and usually the agricultural companies are lack of the autumn agricultural stuff, because during the spring the company managers thought nobody would buy autumn stuff (such as harvesting machines, threshing machines) in that case if they import a lot of autumn machines that will cause the financial problem for the company. Such as they can’t sell these machines then they don’t have enough money to import machines or the next year maybe there will be a new style machine which is effective, then their machines can’t be sold. In this case the Agricultural companies usually don’t import autumn machines in spring. In order to make sure they have plenty of machines, one of the Bailing Villager told his relatives to check out whether there were enough or not. On the contrary his relatives found out that there was only one harvesting machine in that company and it did not work very well. At the same time that I and two of our villagers planned to go there. When we found out the manager was cheating, we called him again and he said he thought I was cheating, because I was a girl and also it was spring time we didn’t need to buy machines in such a hurry. He also said he could import some machines but the price will be much higher, we bargained but it’s still not the appropriate price that we wanted. So we gave up buying machines in that company. Then the village leader started to contact with other companies, several days later, he found out one of the company in Huazang Town has the machines which are the same quality that we planed to buy. Also the price was appropriate for the villagers. So I decided to buy the machines in that company named Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County Agricultural and Nomadic Machines Company.
When I was going to complete the project, the village leader said that in March, 2008 will be some subsidy for agricultural machines. If you buy a machine the government will endow 30% of the cost. When I heard it, I thought it was really great. Then I and some of the villagers, including the village leader, discussed the issue of whether we should wait for the subsidy or buy it before. After our discussion we decided to wait to buy machines until we could get the subsidy and I called Shem group to get the permission. After I got permission we asked government leaders when we should buy machines. They said that the best time is around March and if we bought the machines at that time the price would be around 2500 rmb. In that case if we bought harvesting machines earlier the price would be lower and if we bought them later the machines would be expensive even with the government subsidy, just the same as the machines we were trying to buy earlier. So we decided again to buy harvesting machines before March without waiting for the government subsidy.
Lessons learned
After this project, I learned that every time we do anything we shouldn’t believe certain people so easily. We should check out what the real situation is by us and then decide what to do. For instance, this time if I believed the manager of the Gansu Province Wuwei Region Agricultural Machines Company, and went there without making sure, then we would have waste money and time to go there for nothing, because there was only one machine but he said there were enough for our needs.
We should always believe ourselves and do the things we want. Don’t think you are not able to do anything and give up your ambitious dreams. Unless you tried and you will discover that if you put effort in, then everything is possible. When you have a dream or hope first you should try to do it and put the efforts in, and then there will be something in return. There is saying “no pain no gain”. For example before I did this project, I thought it was really difficult and I couldn’t handle it. After I started this project many times I wondered to give up, fortunately by others’ encouragement I tried my best to implement it. Actually we all could do everything that we want; the problem is that we don’t believe ourselves. So I want to encourage everybody that we should believe ourselves.
Interviews of the project beneficiaries
1) Drolma Jyi
She is a 38 year old woman. There are four people in her family, her husband, a son and a daughter. Her husband is a disabled person, he has no right hand just a prosthetic one. In this case Drolma Jyg carries a big burden: she needs to take care of her whole family. During the harvesting season she spends twice much time to harvest than others, because she must harvest alone and her husband can’t. After we bought harvesting she said that her burden will be much less than before because her husband can drive the tractor. So he can do the harvesting in the future also. So she doesn’t have that much labor. She also has more time to do other things such as: embroidery, knitting work to improve her family’s income. She was really appreciated about the donors’ help. She said that she will never forget donors’ help and wishes the donors’ future will be more and more brilliant. She also hopes that more and more women like her who can get this kind of helps.
2) Tseirang Jyi
She is a 20 year old girl. She stopped school two years ago—-after her father’s death. Now there are three people in her family and her younger sister is going to school. After her father’s death she stopped going to school to ease her mother’s heavy burden. So the harvesting work would always be done by her mother and her. It is really tiring work. After we bought the harvesting machines she said she didn’t know how to describe her grateful feeling, so she just wants to say countless thanks to all of the people who helped her family. She got married ten days ago and knew that her mother would be okay on her own. Then during the harvesting season they can use harvesting machine that will be much easier for her mother. She also needn’t worried about her mother that much. The reason is that two families will use the machine together, and there will be more people. She also said she will always remember this help and pray for the donors.
3) Geining Shang
He is 57 year old man. There are 6 people in his family, but taking care of family is his and his wife’s burden. There is also an 80 years old man in his family. Actually there are six people in his family, but there are always three people staying at home. The reason is that he has a 6 year old granddaughter. She is going to primary school, because there is no school in my village and the children in my village usually go to school at downtown which is 20 kilometers away from Bailing Village. In this case, his son and daughter-in-law live downtown in order to let their child go to school. His son is a driver; they only come home during the Losar. So the house chores are really heavy and his wife has arthritis and cannot do much work. After we bought the harvesting machine he said that it is really great that two families can do the work together. Then they can finish the harvest in a short time and to do other work to get more money. He said he will bless the donors and project manager in order to show his thanks.
4) Samdrob
He is a 23 years old boy. There are four people in his family. His sister is a high school student. He always does part time jobs outside the whole year to get more money for his family and raise the tuition fee for his sister if she can go to college. Because of the harvest he needs to come home and quit his part time job for almost two months. He said now they have a harvesting machine and two families will work together during harvesting season. Then he does not need to come home during that time and can earn more than one thousand Yuan than before. He is really happy and grateful for the donors help. He said he hopes donors will help him in the future.
Letter of appreciation
Translation of the thanks letter
Dear Global Fund for Women and Shem’s private donors,
The harvesting machine project has been completed successfully in my village. The villagers are really grateful to the kind donors. After the villagers have the machines, then the students will not need to help their parents with harvesting. In this case they can go to school without any worries. Also they can study comfortably at school during the harvesting season. So whole families feel great joy. I will remember your (donors’) help forever and pray that your dreams will come true every time. Finally I want to say thanks very much again to the great donors.
Best wishes
Sincerely
Bailing Village committee
Receipts
#1
#2
#3
#4
#5
#6
Original Proposal
Project Location
Bailing Village is one of four agro-pastoral villages in Huazang Township. Huazang Township is located in the northern part of Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County, which is in Gansu Province. The village is 20 kilometers from Tianzhu County Town (also known as Hua Zang Si). The county town is 145 km from Lanzhou City, the provincial capital, and 230 km from Xining, the capital of Qinghai Province.
Population
There are 34 households in Bailing Village, with 167 total inhabitants, but 20 households have been chosen (93 inhabitants in total) specifically for this project. The remaining 74 villagers (from 14 households) are all currently residing outside the village for work purposes. It is uncertain whether they will return, so they are not being included in this project proposal. Of the 58 selected working-age participants in this project, 31 are men and 27 are women. Twelve elderly people live in the village. The oldest woman is 74 years old, and the oldest man is 81. There are 23 youths who are under 18 years of age.
Education
In Bailing Village there are only three literate adults. Two of them are men who are farmers, and the third is a male college graduate who works as a teacher. There are 23 youths who are of school age. Currently, 6 of these children are working instead of attending school. This leaves 17 students attending school in the village. In the student population there is one female college student, four high school students (two girls and two boys), 5 middle school students (three boys and two girls), and seven primary school students (four girls and three boys). The six school-aged children in the village who don’t attend school (four girls and two boys) are needed to work at home, farming or herding. Girls are kept home from school more often than boys, as education for girls is often seen as a waste of money since many of them will marry out of the village when they are older.
Cash Income
Cash income in Bailing Village is generated through selling livestock and labor. The average household makes about 5,340 rmb per year. This is earned through:
- Selling livestock products (meat, yak hair and sheep skins) – around 4,100 rmb per year.
- Labor or construction work (1,200 – 1400 rmbper year, depending on whether the men or women do the work) If men go out and do construction work he can 1400rmb and if a women go out and do construction work can earn 1200rmb.
A family’s approximate living costs for one year amount to 5,250 rmb. This amount can be separated into the following categories:
- 1,200 rmb for purchasing fertilizer for fields
- 2,200 rmb for food and drink (flour, radishes, potatoes and other vegetables, tea, milk)
- 900 rmb on important festivals such as Losar
- 350 rmb on clothes
- 600 rmb on electricity, petrol, medicine and other essentials
One can calculate then that the average family only has 90 rmb each year to spend on other items. If a family has a student, they must apply for a bank loan to afford school fees.
Herding
On average, each family has 90 sheep and 25 yaks. Recently the grassland has suffered desertification, due to a decrease in rain and snow. During the winter and breeding season, villagers must feed the livestock grass and hay two times a day to raise the breeding rate of the animals. From the livestock villagers can earn 4,100rmb. They spend this money on food, Losar festival, and fertilizer.
Agriculture
In Bailing Village each person owns approximately 5.8 mu (1mu = 666square meters). Usually a family owns 23.5 mu of land as determined by the government. The people of Bailing grow barley, wheat, and oats on 10 mu, and grass on 13.5 mu. All of the crops grown are used as food for yaks and sheep in the winter and breeding season. During the winter, lambs are fed oats and barley, and in the breeding season mother sheep are fed barley. Sheep are also fed grass and hay in these two seasons in order to keep them fully nourished. Families use their own crop production to feed the livestock to avoid needing to purchase them food. This grain is also appropriate for animal feed, as the high elevation of Bailing village (almost 3000 km) makes the grain unsuitable for human consumption.
Project Goals
The immediate goal of this project is to supply 10 harvesting machines to Bailing Village and 20 households will benefit from this project and two households will share one harvesting machine. The overarching goal is to improve the living conditions for the Bailing villagers. This project will decrease villagers’ health problems and increase education levels. The harvesting machines will reduce women’s labor burden, and will also save a considerable amount of their time. With more time, women will have the opportunity to raise the cash income for themselves and their households.
Problems
Health
In Bailing village the harvest is usually done by women. Girls begin harvesting at fifteen (if they are not students) and work well into their fifties. They usually use a small hand-held sickle to harvest. After one day’s work, women will often have aching backs, arms, knees and shoulders. As time goes by they become afflicted with arthritis and other painful conditions in their wrists, knees, elbows and shoulders. Humpbacks, swollen joints and weak bones are incredibly common in Bailing women. If a woman has an illness caused by harvesting, she can’t knit sweaters, make shoes or do embroidery. As well as causing intense, chronic pain, this also affects her family’s income. The chronic illnesses caused by harvesting are also a significant financial drain on households. It is expensive for a woman to go to the county town for treatment, and the cost of long term medical care is too expensive for all but the richest families. There are three women in Bailing with severe arthritis. All of these women have been living with this debilitating illness since their thirties.
Education
When the villagers harvest, it’s usually during children’s school time. Some of the families in Bailing have less labor capacity than others (for example, if there is only one parent, or if there are infants or elderly people in the household who need caring for). In order to complete the harvest as quickly as possible, parents make their children take time off from school to help them. Many parents also ask that their children work all weekend during the harvesting season. This means that the students return to school without studying, and with unfinished homework. Over time these problems affect students’ general level of education, and their exam scores. This in turn affects their chances of continuing their higher education.
Time Consuming Labor
Usually, each family needs to harvest for one month with at least two people working eleven or twelve hours each day. The weather in Bailing is very unpredictable, so in some instances, the harvest can take up to six or seven weeks. The autumn harvest season is the most labor intensive and stressful for a household. Simultaneous with harvesting, a family must pay great attention to their livestock. From September 10th to October 15th, yaks and sheep are at their fattest and ready to be sold. Selling the livestock is very intensive work which adds strain to the burden of harvesting crops. This is also the time of year when theft is common. Herders must pay close attention to their livestock or they are at risk of having their animals stolen by thieves.
Environment
The grasslands near Bailing are being degraded every year. In the spring, there are many sandstorms and strong gales of wind and sleet. The rainfall is lessening each year. Just two years ago, it would rain at least three or four times in the spring. Each of the last two years it has only rained one time. In the summer this weather trend is also the same. Without the rain, the summer grass is unhealthy, and is not enough to sustain grazing herds. This means that villagers now need to buy more fodder for their livestock.
Due to the changing climate in Bailing, villagers need to take their livestock to summer pasture (a valley) up to a month earlier than in previous years. These weather changes cause a lot of problems. For example, in 2005 the villagers went to the summer pasture in early April. Unfortunately there was a snowstorm, during which 120 yaks died from the extreme cold. In that year the villagers’ cash income was seriously depleted – each family affected lost at least 700 rmb.
The project manager’s mother stated in an interview: “The environment is becoming worse and worse. When I was in my twenties, we didn’t need to go to summer pasture so early. Sometimes if the lambs slept on the grassland, one could only find them by their sound because the long grass hid them. Nowadays it is really easy to find sleeping lambs, because there is only a centimeter of grass. Before we didn’t need to purchase too much fodder for our animals – we could supply our own grain for them and it would be sufficient. Sometimes there would even be some spare grain after the breeding and birthing season that we could eat. Then we didn’t need to purchase as much as we do today.”
Harvest Depletion
As previously mentioned, the weather in Bailing is very unpredictable during the winter and spring time. Because the harvest takes so long, villagers are at the mercy of the weather conditions for the harvesting month. It often happens that during harvesting time sleet will cover the villagers’ crops. If this happens, the melted ice rots the crops, or the moisture makes the grain geminate. In these cases a family’s financial security is severely affected. Neither animals nor humans can consume crops that have germinated or become rotten. As a result, families’ expenses increase and they must apply for bank loans to provide for their own and their animals’ needs. If these awful conditions occur in successive years, a family might be crippled with debt for years afterwards.
Population Decline
Due to the heavy labor demands on females, there are less and less women staying in Bailing village. The young village girls go to the city to earn money as waitresses or store clerks. Many girls don’t want to get married with boys in our village even if they are in love. Some of the girls from other villages say: “That place is not for a life, but a life for labor.” With many young people desiring to avoid the intense work necessary to survive in Bailing village, the population is declining.
Benefits
1. The harvesting machines will improve health standards in the village because people will no longer need to use sickles. This will improve the quality of life for all people harvesting, as they will not have to suffer from the chronic illnesses of arthritis and other body aches. If people don’t have to visit hospitals, and if they have the ability to sew and embroider goods, then their families will also have more cash income to spend on necessities.
2. If villagers use harvesting machines, they won’t need to pull their students out of school during the harvest time. Students will then have more time to concentrate on their studies and will get better grades on their exams. In this way more students will attend school who would otherwise be laborers all their life. More students will have the grades to attend higher education institutions, and will then earn more money for their households. Thus, over time, living conditions in the village will improve.
3. Harvesting machines will save a significant amount of villagers’ time, which can be used for other, more valuable pursuits. Usually people will take 30-45 days to harvest. If they use harvesting machines, the harvest will take only 8-10 days. As a result, 22-35 days will be available for villagers that were previously spent laboring. This time can be used to generate more cash income for each family. Men can choose to do some construction work in the downtown area, such as building houses, digging ditches, or cleaning up rubbish. Doing these jobs, men will be able to earn as much as 330-525 rmb. Women will have time to knit sweaters, make shoes, make use of second hand clothes, and embroider objects. In this way they can save 220 rmb. In total, a family can save an additional 550-745 rmb. If they have harvesting machines(two house hoods share one), It means they will work together during the harvesting so at least one family has one person to take care of their livestock. On the other hand, if they have harvesting machines they can finish it really quick, then they have less risk than before.
4. With harvesting machines, the harvest will be completed in a very short time. There will be a much lower chance that a family’s fields are destroyed by rain or sleet. With this more efficient and better quality harvest, households will not have to spend as much money on buying fodder for their animals. They will spend less time sorting through partially damaged crops, and will have more money to spend on essentials such as medicine and clothes.
5. The harvesting machines will decrease each household’s labor by a significant amount. As a result, young people and families will be more content to stay in the village. It will become more common for young women to marry into the village, as they will not have to bear the responsibility of a heavy labor burden and adverse health effects.
6. The benefits described above will together have a substantial and long term positive effect on living standards and income level in Bailing village. This will in turn benefit the local environment, as families become less dependent on their livestock. With more income generated through better quality crops and self-generated income (through labor or sewing), villagers will have the ability to reduce their reliance on livestock as the only income generator. This will give them greater choices regarding their environmental impact on the land.
Gender Equality
This project will make a big difference to gender equality in Bailing Village. The current local perception is that boys are better than girls. People believe that it is much more worthwhile to send boys rather than girls to school. Education for girls is seen as a waste of time and money. Educated girls, it is believed, will only marry out of the village, or will simply not be smart enough to continue further tertiary education. Boys, on the other hand, are seen as smarter and more worthy of educational support. As has been previously discussed, more girls than boys are kept home from school to work. This is certainly due to local perceptions of gender that are damaging to girls’ learning prospects. The success of this project will certainly change people’s idea of women. They will understand that girls are also capable and can do things for their community in a development focused capacity. As an educated woman, my example will help convince families of the benefits of educating their girls. Then villagers will send more girls to school, and the female enrollment rate will rise. As the first woman to significantly help Bailing community, this project will raise women’s social status. I hope that my example will be motivational to young village girls, and that they will have more confidence in school and life in general.
Another benefit to gender conceptions will come from the change in labor practices in the village. If women can spend more time doing more useful work instead of harvesting, their status as income generators will become higher.
Governmental support
In May 2007, I discussed this project with the Bailing village leader, Mr. Liu. Together, we went into town to meet the township leader. When we told the township leader about the harvesting project for Bailing village, he was very happy and expressed his willingness to help us talk with the county leader. After he talked with the county leader Mr. Liu gave his full permission for this project, as it will increase the villagers’ living conditions and decrease their labor.
Beneficiaries
The harvesting machines will directly benefit 93 people who reside in Bailing village. The project will also benefit the 67 people who are currently working outside the village because if they come back they also can use these harvesting machines as their own.
Detailed activities
May 2, 2007: A meeting was held between Renchin Tso (the project manager) and the villagers of Bailing. The village leader and sixteen village people attended the meeting.
May 4 – May 5, 2007: Discussed the details of the project, the local contribution, how to distribute the machines equally, and maintenance. Photographs were taken to illustrate the problems that villagers face.
- Submit proposal. And also choose six project committees include the project manager by the villagers and the village leaders. The project committees are three men and three women.
To be completed:
- Proposal receives funding
- Buy the machines from Agricultural Machine Company in WuWei City
- Transport and distribute the machines
-Teach villagers how to use the harvesting machines
- Evaluate the project
-Interview the villagers (men, women ,young and old) and take pictures
- Write the final report
-Submit the final report with the receipts and photos.
Detailed Budget
I got the price for the harvest machine from Gansu Province, Wuwei City, Agricultural Machine Company—甘肃省武威市农业机械总公司. The leader of Bailing Village gave me address and phone number of the company and I contacted with them for asking the price.
| Item | Price per item in RMB |
Number of item |
Donor Contribution in RMB |
Local Contribution in RMB |
Shem women’s Group in RMB |
Total cost in RMB |
| Harvesting machine | 2,000 | 10 | 17,000 | 3,000 | 0 | 20,000 |
| Management expense | 100 | 100 | 0 | 200 | ||
| Project management payment | 0 | 0 | 500 | 500 | ||
| Total | 17,100 | 3,100 | 500 | 20,700 |
Total cost of this project: 20,700 rmb
Donor contribution: 17,100 rmb
Local contribution: 3,100 rmb
Shem women’s group: 500 rmb
Sustainability
A committee of villagers will be involved in the planning, purchasing, implementation and maintenance of this project. This will ensure that the villagers will be responsible in the management and upkeep of the harvesting machines. The committee will also ensure that the harvesters are distributed fairly and used equally between households. They are prepared to solve any disputes that may occur. If the machines have broken then the villagers first should contact with the village leader and the village leader will contact with the company. If the village leader is not there then they will contact with project manager (Renchen Yso) then I will contact with the company.
There are four men in this village who are skilled mechanics, and they will form the care-taking committee after the project is implemented.
Past work experience
Renchen Tso (Jenna) started her English studies in September 2004. In the winters of 2004 and 2005, she completed two second-hand clothing projects in Bailing Village that were supported by Sue Bishsop at the British Consulate in Shanghai.
Map of the project location
