First day in Naddi: Culture shock is a rite of passage

It’s 7 am on a cold and cloudy day in the middle of January in a small village named Naddi at the foothills of the Himalayas. The time of day coupled with the overnight bus from Delhi make the vague outline of the mountains seem surreal. A local teenage girl approaches me and my new colleague, she has a sweet demeanour and a kind face (I will soon find out this is a common trait amongst the villagers). She knows our names and introduces herself as Milan. I don’t know how she found us or whether she was even looking for us at the time, but apparently she’s been expecting us for over a day. Our lack of respect for the rush hour traffic in Delhi two days previous had cost us our seats on the bus. She brings us to her home where we meet her family, they feed us Chapatti (a local type of fried bread) and Chai tea. 

Before I’m aware of what’s going on another young girl takes me by the hand and leads me away to her home. Her name is Sunana and she informs me that I will be staying with her and her family for the foreseeable future. This 11 year old girl knows a lot more than I do about the “new westerners” living arrangements and I am tired enough to trust her implicitly. I am obviously not the first person to pass through here like this; the locals are very accustomed and welcoming. It seems that children are the only ones who speak any English; I am immensely grateful for this as my Hindi is severely lacking. Sunana shows me what’s to become my temporary room where I contemplate contacting someone from EduCARE but I pass out before I can even find my phone.

I wake up in a daze at around 2 o’clock, although you could never have guessed the time as it is so dark, cold and wet. What on earth am I doing here on this rock hard bed, in this freezing room, in this small community on the outskirts of this small village at the base of these enormous Himalayan Mountains? I’m daunted by what lays ahead of me and just want to retreat under the covers until the sun comes out, even if it takes a month. I tell myself I’m too tired to face making “small talk” with Indian children and “small amateur sign language talk” with Indian adults.

“Wrong attitude Alex! Stop being such a wet blouse, grow a pair (pardon my French), go out and face the day. You signed up for this, paid your way to come here and have been looking forward to this for months. I put on about fifteen layers of clothes; it probably takes me about ten minutes to get dressed. In time I will realize that everything takes longer in India, in this instance even something as simple as getting dressed...

I step outside my room into the rain and bump into my colleague that I travelled with. We comfort each other with the fact that we have been going through similar emotions of uncertainty. I make a quick stop in the toilet, as I expected, it’s an outhouse with a hole in the ground on the side of the path leading up the hill. Hearing people walk by the little toilet shed and talking makes me uncomfortable.

“Get used to it, this home for now.”

Walking up into the village we are met by two familiar faces, familiar not because we know them but because they are not Indian,. They are from EduCARE. We’re brought to a hotel for our first induction meeting where five other uncertain faces greet us. Other new interns! It’s explained to us that we are to spend two weeks in the “homestays”. These are part of the micro finance project set up as a type of guest house to help develop a small home business in hospitality. It’s not just a place for new interns to stay but also for tourists when the season comes. The aim is to encourage cross cultural learnings, for the guests and the hosts whilst making a few Rupees for the families.

The vision and philosophy of EduCARE are explained to us, but I think it passes over all our heads. We're reassured that this is normal and that it will take a couple of weeks worth of meetings and discussions before we adjust and understand what it is that we are doing here. I'm not reassured, just more uncertain.

The afternoon is coming to an end so we head back to our respective homestays for dinner. The kitchen is small, without tables and chairs, there are just a few mats on the floor surrounding a small fire with minimal ventilation. The family are incredibly nice and welcoming, even if we have to communicate through Sunana. Feeling comfortable on this floor happens very fast.

I’m the first to receive my plate of food, but it doesn’t come with cutlery. I wait and see what happens next. Sunana gets her dinner and dives straight into it with her hands. When I was her age, this would have been expressly forbidden, my parents would have told me to stop playing with my food. I would have loved to have been allowed to eat this way. Now I’m older, with 30 years of conditioning in the ways of western dinning behind me. I make an awkward attempt to grab my food with my fingers, rice, lentils and sauce pour down my hand. What’s left of the food that I hold is about to fall from my grasp. At the same time I try to throw it and shove it into my mouth. I miss. The food on my face and my jumper creates a bonding laughter between me and the family. Sunana chooses this moment to offer me a spoon. If they thought this ironic gesture would be funny, they were right.

Despite my wants to fully experience this culture, I can’t resist the temptation of what I consider to be the practicalities of cutlery. I look to my side and Sunana is already finished, every last grain of rice is gone from her plate in what I would consider record time. This is a clear lesson to me that there is no right or wrong way for anyone to eat their food.

After dinner I retreat to my icy room which has been supplied with plenty of blankets. No amount of blankets would be enough. Like in the afternoon, it takes me what seems an age to get undressed and then dressed again. For this first night I decide it would be prudent to sleep in a hat with 3 layers of clothes, a sleeping bag and 2 huge blankets. After a few minutes the bed warms up and I am actually quite cosy. I think to myself about the struggle to get out of this warm bed that awaits me in the morning and then it hits me; I forgot to go outside to the toilet before bed, Lesson learnt! I won’t make that mistake again, but there are many more mistakes to make and solutions to find as I settle into this very foreign village.

- Alex Moran, Ireland

SWASH Project Manager, Naddi

The interns who make EduCARE

In mid-January, six new international interns joined EduCARE; Alex (from Ireland), Sigrunn (Norway), Emma (USA), Viktoria (Germany), Lucy (USA) and Mimi (Canada). There is always a sense of nervousness and anticipation when new personnel arrive, but after a month all six have adapted to life in Naddi extremely well. Many of the projects have been given a new lease of life, with the energy brought by the new interns motivating the whole organization.

February has been a difficult month in Naddi, with periodic intervals of snow, rain, sunshine and storms. Despite these meteorological challenges, work has progressed apace. A series of productive meetings of the microfinance team (Lucy, Mimi, Sigrunn and I) have resulted in a whole host of new ideas and plans to be implemented. The ReStore has been reopened by Mimi, and a new range of products is being created and tested. After surveying consumer demand and analysing which products are not currently available in the area, Mimi has developed a series of prototypes. I am in the process of developing links with shops and cafés in McLeod Ganj who have shown interest in stocking products made in a sustainable manner by the women of the community.

Lucy has begun work on several of the microfinance projects, and has worked hard and shown a great deal of initiative in developing them in new directions. Her editing skills for the homestays booklets, committed approach to the chicken coop project and focus on community engagement in JDM community will all reap dividends for EduCARE in the future. She has also taken over running Fun Club, and has developed a host of new ideas for stimulating activities for the younger children.

The proposed EcoStore in JDM community shows how several projects can fit together within a holistic framework. An existing local shop will transition towards stocking alternative products that are not available elsewhere in Naddi. It will also stock eggs produced by the chicken coop, and many other locally sourced items. Sigrunn is working hard to develop a range of items that can be produced locally, thereby creating business for the local community and ensuring economic and environmental stability in the future. While the project is in its development stage at the moment, Sigrunn’s attention to detail and positive engagement with the community to find out their needs should ensure that the project is a great success.

All of the projects that are being developed by the new interns reflect a model of development that focuses on the needs of people on the ground and allows them to develop their capabilities and achieve self-empowerment. Such an approach is, in my opinion, the only truly sustainable one.

Rick Parfett, UK.

MicroEmpowered Project Manager

The Journey of Rubbish…in Naddi

This weeks Shenney Fun Club activity was organised by none other than the waste management heroes themselves – the SWASH team – and as expected environmental education and awareness was on the agenda.

More specifically the activity was focused on the different ways we can dispose of our rubbish and what the environmental consequences of each are.

Hence the first activity consisted of creating a big mind map of The Journey of Rubbish as shown in the photo below.

The use of photos also proved to be an effective tool to the mind map to life for the children, though we had a hard time sticking them to the damp blackboard!

This activity was then followed by a short educational music video in Hindi – An Anthem for a Garbage Free India – that the kids loved.



And of course finally what more could we do than to empty the rubbish bins! In theory it was a brilliant plan, however in practice is proved to be much more difficult!

    

Because most of the older children were absent the muscle power was to come from the interns as we lugged the blue bins all the way to the other end of Naddi.

Surprisingly this proved to be a hit amongst the children, they loved the excursion, especially rolling the barrels back down the hill!

As usual the activity had its ups and downs but all in all it should be considered a success as most importantly the rubbish made it safely to the bin!

By Veronica Noetzli, October 2013

Financial Literacy and Generational Change in India

A survey conducted by MasterCard this spring concluded that financial literacy in India is at the bottom of 16 countries in the Asia-pacific region, with Japan trailing behind in last place. The term financial literacy refers to the basic skills of money management – saving, investment, planning for old age – which according to this survey is severely lacking in Indian society. My financial literacy session last month aimed to raise awareness of such concepts among the women of JDM and Shenney community, as well as informing them of their economic rights and entitlements. There was a large turnout from both communities of women and girls of all ages.

I began by relaying some of the statistics on financial literacy; another survey, this time conducted by Visa, found that 34% of Indian women and 29% of Indian men claimed to have no savings. Similarly, it revealed that 43% of Indian women do not discuss matters of money management with their children, due in large part to their own lack of understanding. It is no surprise that in a society where women are less likely than their male counterparts to engage in paid work, and are therefore not expected to undertake decisions relating to the family budget, they do not educate their children in these matters. My own surveys conducted in July this year revealed much of the same; when asking women in the JDM community whether they had a household budget, many responded that they did, but that their husbands were the sole determinants of how this money was spent.

However, it seems that India’s younger generations are more financially aware than there elders. When I asked how many women owned a bank account, nearly all of the teenage girls raised their hands, whereas none of their mothers did the same. This was a more hopeful finding from both the MasterCard and Visa surveys, suggesting that across both the urban and rural parts of India, financial literacy is on the up. The internet is becoming increasingly accessible to India’s youth, providing information about financial services that was previously unavailable to older generations, and may offer an explanation for these trends.

I then informed the women that their own Self Help Groups fit most of the criteria for a bank loan. The Union Bank of India states that the group must have been in ‘active existence for a least a period of six months’, ‘have undertaken savings and credit operations from its own resources’ and have ‘maintain[ed] proper accounts/records’. Both of the Shenney and JDM treasurer’s had brought along their record books, showing that both groups of women consistently put in their share of 50 rupees a month. It may often seem that commercial banks are disengaged from the agricultural communities of rural India, but schemes like this show that large banks are becoming increasingly aware of the need to support micro-entrepreneurs. The statistics may, at first, look disheartening, but generational change is producing a new cohort of Indians more empowered in matters of financial literacy.

Anna Cooban, UK

JDM Self Help Group Project Manager

Gardening in Rajhol

It’s only right to start this blog post by thanking the neighbors that made my farm possible. In our small village of Rajol, Himachal Pradesh, farming is the only way of life. There are a few shop owners and restaurant owners, but even they tend their farms after work. The day I started working in my field, all the neighbors came over to see what I was doing and to offer advice and assistance. The neighbor to the back of our house, Ramchander, helped me rent a hand tractor to till the field and sent his son, Teju, to teach me how to use it. The neighbor next door gave me a lesson in Indian fertilizers (khad) used to grow corn (makki). Finally, even the restaurant (dhaba) owner down the street weighed in saying that okra (bhindi) would be my best bet for vegetables to grow in monsoon season. The outcome of all this support: bhindi is my best vegetable crop and the makki I planted continues to grow at a steady rate.
While the growing okra is mutually appreciated crop between my neighbors and myself, the corn is a different story. The debate surrounding khad seems to be unending. My current understanding of this word, “khad,” is that it is the Hindi word for manure or compost. Where my knowledge is lacking is in the chemical make-up of this compost and whether there are artificial and chemical additives in it. My neighbors clearly think that my corn will fail without the khad and I am worried that might be true. However, this is an organic initiative and the benefits of fully organic farming may not be seen in this first experimental phase. The bottom line is, we need to investigate different varieties of khad, see what organic and chemical khad is available and probably apply organic khad in the cornfield.

Moving on from manure, the most interesting part of Indian monsoon farming for me has been the initial field preparation. In monsoon season in India, which generally lasts the months of June, July, and August, heavy rain is a daily expectation. In response to these conditions, farmers employ strategies for diverting water to and from different fields. Corn needs relatively dry soil, whereas rice needs to be submerged in water. Both of these crops are monsoon crops and grow simultaneously. To make this unlikely combination possible, rainwater is diverted from the cornfields through channels and is sent to the tiered rice paddies. These intricately contoured fields hold a consistent depth of one to three inches of water behind short walls surrounding the individual fields. This makes sure that the rice get plenty of water, and that the corn doesn’t drown. Similarly, the vegetables need to be protected by channels. These channels, when dug, elevate the soil level in the planting area slightly above the water level in the channels. Additionally, the soil dug from the channels is put on top of the area to be planted in. Since there is so much rain, the plants still get plenty of water but the roots are protected from being flooded out. Most importantly, however, the channels help to add a cool aesthetic element (water feature) to the garden separating each planting and each individual vegetable.
By Owen Jollie

Making Healthy Choices... and Fun!

Last week in Naddi, we took over Fun Club (the after school program) in Sheney to teach the kids about what it means to be healthy and making healthy choices. The kids were all enthusiastic as we brainstormed what it meant to be healthy, but they were even more excited when we brainstormed unhealthy things, yelling out their favorite foods - ice cream, lollipops, chocolate! Eventually, we had the kids thinking beyond food and we began to talk about how happiness, work, and friends have to do with being healthy. Next we talked about "choices" and what it means to choose something. With folded paper and color pencils, we drew healthy choices on one side and unhealthy choices on the other - careful to avoid things that we did not have control over, such as the air we breathe or diseases we're born with.

Once the kids were thoroughly antsy, sick of sitting on the ground of the Fun Club room, we herded them outside to play a game about healthy choices. The kids lined up on one side of Sheney, divided into two teams, and we put the brainstorming poster on the other side with a line down the middle, dividing it into a healthy and unhealthy side. I stood in the middle with a stack of homemade cards - healthy or unhealthy choices on each (with an image, an English label, and a Hindi label). The kids had to hop on one foot to me, get a card, hop on the other foot to the poster, and stick the card in the correct column before hopping back to their team and tagging the next person. The relay race began with cheers and yells from both sides. (The kids can always be counted on to get a little competitive!) And as they hopped across the community, women came out of their homes to watch, smiling and laughing as the kids haphazardly jumped from one end to the other. At the end of the race - amid cheering, laughing, and overall confusion about which team actually won - we gathered around the poster to go over the cards. All the kids yelled whether each choice was healthy or unhealthy - vegetables, ice cream, sleep, water, visiting the doctor, visiting the dentist, fighting, going to school, cigarettes, soda, alcohol, many more - and we moved any out-of-place cards into the right column.

As the sun began to set and Fun Club came to a close, I pulled all the kids together outside and we pledged to make at least three healthy choices every day. "What should our healthy choices be today?" I asked. In the middle of the community, we did ten jumping jacks together, shouting the number of each one, choosing exercise for our first choice. Then I handed out lichis, and we stood together, peeling away the rough skin and sucking on the juicy fruit, choosing fruit as a healthy snack for our second choice. "What will be your third?" I asked, and everyone shared what they would do - push-ups, sleep, be nice to their friends, eat dal...

This simple activity may seem unimpressive to an outsider, but it was the first health activity with the kids and we all considered it a great success. Now they are beginning to think about health, what it means to be healthy, and how all the choices they make day-to-day affect their well being. Children are the future of course, and as this generation grows up, we want to ensure that the community will continue to thrive and develop even healthier lifestyles.

Betsy Hinchey

United States of America

Rural HealthCARE Project Manager

March – July 2013

Renewable Energy Workshop for volunteers and interns

Renewable Energy Workshop - Bio-Gas in Himachal - Part 1

As part of the ConservEN program, four of my intern colleagues and I recently participated in a two-day Biogas Workshop aiming to increase basic awareness of biogas plants and their potential as a renewable energy source in Northern India.

On the first day of our workshop, we learned how a biogas plant functions and why it may be a beneficial sustainable energy source for the communities we live in.

A biogas plant produces clean gas through the digestion of cow dung and non-woody biomass waste. The resulting biogas is used as a low-cost fuel for various energy needs. This workshop focused primarily on using biogas for cooking as an alternative to LPG (liquid petroleum gas), a limited environmental resource.

Biogas plant diagram (source: biogas-technology.blogspot.com)

Biogas plants provide an extensive list of benefits. The input, most commonly cow dung mixed with water, has high levels of the greenhouse gas methane. After biogas digestion, however, the biogas plant emits the processed cow dung as waste with significantly lower levels of methane. This “waste” product can be used as a nitrogen rich, odorless organic fertilizer full of beneficial bacteria that’s easily absorbed by plants. Therefore, the biogas plant not only provides a sustainable source of cooking fuel, it also supports rural sanitation, organic plant growth, and greenhouse gas reduction.

The Indian Ministry of New and Renewable Energy provides subsidies for biogas plant construction, reducing the 30,000 rupee cost to roughly 20,000 rupees.

Extensive list of biogas benefits (Source: Indian Ministry of New and Renewable Energy)

On the second day, we visited several working biogas plants in nearby villages. First, we visited the village of Charhi, where the head of the village, Mr. Dadwal, invited us into his home to study his biogas digester. 

Mr. Dadwal’s resilient biogas plant built into the ground.

This biogas plant was built 20 years ago for a cost of approximately five thousand rupees (roughly 100 US dollars), which was quite an important amount at the time. The biogas plant features an aboveground input tank to insert the dung mixture, connected to the underground concrete reservoir where anaerobic process occurs and produces the gas. The waste outlet expels the processed dung as pressure builds. They feed the biogas plant roughly five kg of cow dung each day from their one cow, producing two-three hours of biogas cooking fuel daily. The family uses up to two cylinders of biogas per month due to the reception of many guests, which is linked to the position as head of the village of the father.

The Biogas Workshop participants. From left to right in foreground: Gulshan (cultural liaison officer, far left), interns- Clement, Aureline, Katrina, Mandy and Adrien

The second visit took us to Mr. and Mrs. Shamsher’s home, near the EduCARE intern house in Maiti. Like Mr. Dadwal’s family, this family has an important role in the community as current village committee members.

Mrs. Shamsher kindly demonstrated how to use their 18-year-old biogas plant, a similar model to the plant in Charhi.

First, Mrs. Samsher added water to the dung in the inlet reservoir.

Then, she mixed the dung and water together and removed the stone that allows the mixture to enter the reservoir where anaerobic digestion occurs.

On the top of the concrete biogas reservoir, she opened a valve that released the gas into the gas line. Here you can see the gas line carried through the trees to their kitchen.

She also welcomed us into her kitchen where she uses three sources of energy for cooking: wood, biogas and LPG. According to her experience, the biogas flame is slightly weaker compared to the LPG and provides the slower heat best suited for cooking chapatti bread and vegetables. She uses the biogas for 75% of their cooking, up to 2-3 hours per day, with dung supplied from their three cows. One supplemental cylinder of LPG now lasts her 3-4 months. During the winter, she uses the stove more often because of the heat it provides to her home.

Her three energy sources for cooking (biogas, wood stove, and LPG) increases her self-reliance if biogas supply is low.

After visiting these two biogas digesters, we visited Mr. Ramesh’s Nirmayam Trust Organic Farm close to Maiti.

The farm applies organic farming, permaculture, and natural farming principles by growing several kinds of plants in the same area. This creates resistance to pests by increasing biodiversity.

Natural building made of stone and clay plaster with a roof made of slate rock. Although concrete is becoming more popular, this style of natural building is still common in the local villages.

The farm holds up to ten cattle in the barn, but they aren’t currently processing the dung for energy use. This is a good example of the biogas plant potential in the area as biomass/dung is readily available.

Finally, we visited Dr. Anjan Kumar Kalia in Dharamshala at his renewable energy shop and information center. As a retired professor of Palampur Agricultural University, Dr. Kalia is a leading expert in biogas processes in India and has travelled extensively around the world to present his works in several environmental conferences.

Dr. Kalia’s renewable energy center displays and sells a wide array of sustainable energy options.

He provided us with valuable, relevant information from his research on the current biogas use in India.

His statistical highlights focus on the state of Himachal Pradesh, where half of the ConservEN and EduCARE interns currently work:

• Cattle to human ratio = nearly 1:1
• Dung from these cows could fuel 319,482 biogas plants
• 319,482 biogas plants = domestic energy needs of 1.24 million people
• 45,000 biogas plants currently installed = only 14% of potential
• Carbon credit can be sold by rural villagers with biogas plants to the International Carbon Market for reducing methane gas production

Dr. Kalia also provided us with advice and guidance on how to fix the issues Adrien encountered with his ambitious homemade biogas plant.

After two days of workshop training, we gained a deeper awareness of biogas production. Most importantly, we began to process and discuss the potential of biogas usage in the communities around our centers in Himachal Pradesh and Punjab.

Next, we plan to develop Adrien’s model of a biogas plant and gather additional knowledge on our communities’ need and interest in relation to biogas use. We’re excited to share our experience and knowledge at our REstore office, to open in the next month or two.

by Adrien Calvez Petit (France) and Katrina Sill (US)

Renewable Energy Workshop - Biomass in Punjab - Part 2

Recently, the interns involved in the Biogas Workshop held in Himachal Pradesh were treated to an extra day of field visits related to renewable energy in Punjab. The biomass plant visit was among the many highlights of this extended workshop.

Located near Nakodar, the Green Planet Energy Ltd Biomass Plant produces 7,000 kilowatts of energy per hour (KWh). Assuming the average house utilizes 3 KWh, this one plant produces enough energy to power 2,333 homes every hour. All of this energy is produced through the burning of biomass (organic) waste that would otherwise be burned in farm fields.

Full view of the biomass plant with the boiler on the left

Benefits of the Biomass Plant:

• Alternative to burning biomass in fields, causing air pollution
• Saves habitat and ground cover
• Produces renewable energy – 2 KG biomass = 1 KW energy
• Gives extra income to farmers – 1 rupee = KG of hay or biomass

Biogas Plant Process:

1. Farmers sell biomass waste to the plant
2. Biomass is dried and compacted
3. Compacted biomass is loaded onto the belt, leading to the furnace (see Photo 2)
4. Biomass is used as fuel in boiler, reaching temperatures of 700 degrees Celsius
5. Boiler heats 30 tons of water each hour (of which 2 tons evaporates, 28 tons reused)
6. The boiling water creates steam
7. Steam runs the turbine at 7500 revolutions per minute (RPM)
8. Turbine produces electricity/power by running the generator

Compacted biomass is loaded onto a belt leading to the boiler

Waste Products/Emissions from Biomass Plant Processes:

Of course, burning the biomass fuel creates waste fumes. The fumes contain particles of carbon monoxide, a poisonous gas for humans to breathe, and carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas widely considered to be contributing to global warming.

                                                  

The workshop team in front of the electric static precipitator  (from left to right: Clement, Adrien, Owen, Gulshan, Biomass Plant Engineers, Ariel, Katrina, Mandy, and Sevil)