UPLift--Poverty Alleviation For The Ultra-Poor

UPLift is a program designed to empower communities on the Thai/Burmese border that lack food security, opportunities for income, and education. Through the use of small grants and skills trainings, these families receive the opportunity to pull themselves out of poverty without having to rely on external aid indefinitely.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

November Monthly Report

Up-and-coming radish plants at Parami School

November was the start of a fun and hectic schedule for Khom Loy's projects in Mae Sot.  Garden projects are in full swing, the financial literacy project for migrant women is slowly coming into fruition and we are learning some new tricks in the pig project!  Enjoy the updates below.


School Gardens

1. Love and Care School (a center where migrant youth attend grades 9-12 and study hard to qualify for post-high school education programs)

  • Completion of raised beds in main garden area – long beans, bush beans, mustard, radish, morning glory
  • Cleared slope and planted 5-10 pumpkin clusters
  • Cleared bottoms (wet area) and began work on raised beds
  • Gourd trellis constructed beside teachers boarding house
  • IMO fertilizers finished, in use
  • Insect repellant finished, in use
  • Ash pile made for phosphorus to be used as soil amendment
Multi-cropped (mixing more than one vegetable) garden beds made of bamboo at Love and Care School
 

2. Parami School (a school partially supervised by Help Without Frontiers, Parami has over 500 students, grades nursery - 9.  Great teachers, great students and great motivation!) 

  • Completion of raised beds in four different areas – close to cafeteria, in front of kitchen, student work area well behind the school, and beside the school (near the football field)
  • Great success thus far with cucumber, radish, morning glory, gourds, bush beans. Insects not a huge problem yet
  • IMO fertilizers completed, in use
  • Insecticide completed, in use
  • Compost building #1 built and completed. Building #2 under construction, nearly finished.

3. Hsa Mu Htaw School (a migrant school serving nearly 300 children in nursery to Grade 6 classes. Home to KLDF Montessori as well as Garden projects.)

  • Small urban gardening setups expanded to front of main school building, front and sides of Montessori building.


4. Min Ma Haw School (a post-high school education program in Mae Sot. Students have an English immersion program and prepare for future study and/or careers here.)

  • Prepped for start of project on December 3rd. Bought/delivered supplies, tools and raised bed construction materials to the school garden area.

Pig Project

1. Thoo Mwe Khee School (Supported by Spinning Top, Thoo Mwe Khee serves over 600 students and has classes from nursery to post-high school. Mostly of Karen ethnicity with some Burmese children as well.  They have some great vocational projects here, inlusing weaving, gardening and the KLDF pig project.)

  • Pigs gaining weight (save for 2) since feed regimen has changed to more protein base.
  • Student group beginning work on IMO fertilizers Round 2
 
A fresh compost bed and pigs at Thoo Mwe Khee school

 2. Research of Pig Diet

  • Worked with Mae Jo University in Chiang Mai to find a base recipe for pig feed, which is very simple and contains only three ingredients (rice bran, FBS, fermented soy cake)
  • Making research plan for testing the use of chicken manure to increase protein in Banana stalk. Trials and analysis of two samples will be conducted at Mae Jo University in Chiang Mai

Financial Literacy Program

Ko Lynn and Mark visited the Cattle Yard migrant community to speak with both the Karen and Muslim group leaders. It appears as if we should be able to run small trainings in January with both ethnicities.

We also did some final planning and scheduling for the TOT training week at Wide Horizons school, will take place from 7-11 January 2013 with a preliminary Khom Loy introduction day on December 11th of this year.

 Admin

-Mark and Win Ko held quarterly progress meeting with Catherine from Global Border Studies (GBS) in early November, in regards to Win Ko’s internship at Khom Loy.  Thanks Catherine!

-Since our existing system to record garden yields had not been working very well, Ko Lynn designed a new school-by-school bookkeeping system that is in effect now. 

-On a more exciting note, Win Ko and Ko Lynn were able to acquire their international passports during the month of November. Special thanks to Nick and Marie Cragg from PHASE International, who sponsored our two motivated guys and made this happen!
 

December Plans

  • Wrap up garden work at Hsa Mu Htaw à transition to 2nd round
  • Continue garden work at Parami àtransition to school ownership (ahead of schedule!)
  • Continue garden work at Love and Care
  • Begin garden project at Min Ma Haw
  • Plan for garden project at TPC teacher training center
  • Push to finalize pig feed research and analysis
  • Continue schedule at Thoo Mwe Khee pig project
  • Assist Good Morning School (BMWEC) with IMO production for their pig project
  • Visitors
    • Paul + Patricia + visitors
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