General Update: Floods in late-July
on into early August continued to affect our UPLift projects, some minimally,
some majorly. On the TPC Land, soil preparation for planting on the land was
delayed until the rainy season winds down and pigpens at TPC continue to flood
(a major issue). School gardens from
KLDF projects last year experienced a fair amount of rain damage and UPLift
Staff continues to provide support to help remedy these damages and ensure the
viability of the gardens. Lastly, we see
how the rains affect migrant families in Mae Sot as we continue to assess
communities for our financial literacy project.
The weather has quieted down in these last weeks of late August and early
September and Team UPLift is working in full swing to find 3 schools
appropriate to collaborate with on garden projects (one of which we’ve ensured)
while we concurrently search for a suitable community to implement our Women’s
Financial Literacy Training.
Project-Specific Updates
1. TPC Land: In
early August, Uplift staff prepared flags to survey land plots to begin initial
phases of preparing the land for our agricultural training center/ ‘farm’.
According to the aerial map we shared a few post ago, we will begin by planting
Morning Glory (a leafy green very popular to Thailand) as soon as possible in
one of our lower plot areas since it can grow well in swampy conditions. Once the rains become less frequent and as we
move into the dry/cool season, we will follow with planting sweet potatoes and
the “Three Sisters” (beans, corns, and pumpkin) in higher ground plots. Further on, we will incorporate model
efficiency farming in 4 plots using a variety of techniques such as bamboo
beds, mounds, vertical gardening, and container gardening. Lots of cultivating
ahead!
Uplift Staff surveying KLDF-leased land around the Global Neighbors
pond.
2. TPC Natural
Farming Pig Rearing (NFPR) Project:
·
Pigpen Flooding & Remediation: Since our last update, the pigpen flooding
situation has proved to be a continuous hurdle for us. Following our first drainage, the Mae Sot
Area encountered heavy rains again in mid- August and as we feared, our pens
once again filled partially with water. To ensure our pigs health, we required moving
them to a nearby conventional pigpen while we continue to work towards finding
long term solutions to flooding.
Ultimately, we will have to abandon the practice of digging the pens as
deep as we initially planned. We will change these measurements from 90cm depth
to 20cm. Granted this will decreased the amount of compost produced using the
NFPR method. However, as we learned from
digging out manure and filling from the semi-flooded pens, we are quite
confident there will be no shortage of compost even if the bed is made shallower. As we begin the remediation process, staff
will need to redraw pen blueprints and consult with a local expert in order to
address the issue soundly. Since our
pigs only require one pen, we will devote our current efforts to fixing one pen
so we can get our pigs back into their designated space ASAP. Given this, staff members are devoting
efforts the first weeks of September to achieving a sufficient solution—filling
the pen in with material up to 20 cm below ground (from 90cm). Once this is
completed, we will test the solution when the pigs are moved back and as we
continue through the rainy season.
Pigs enjoying ‘green snacks’ in Pigpen
1—minor flooding can be seen off to the side.
Second pen, second flooding episode;
pigs are seen huddling to avoid the wetness.
· Pig
Feeding System, Schedule & FBS (Fermented Banana Stalk): Beginning in
August, we initiated the use of 2 5-slot pig feeders and a watering drip system
to improve feeding efficiently. In terms of what we feed the pigs, following
the NFPR schedule we have also begun to
increase more natural feeding methods as the pigs mature. According the method,
we start out with a higher amount commercial food to initiate a growth spurt
and ensure solid health early on. Pigs
are already fed leafy greens “green snacks” and some leftover food scraps. Beginning a few weeks ago, we starting
decreasing commercial food and added rice bran to their diet. Yet another diet change we incorporated just
two weeks ago is the use of Fermented Banana Stalk (FBS). As we have made and used this type of feed in
our previous school pig projects, we are confident in the benefits and eager to
follow the results of adding this natural food. FBS is just one aspect of NFPR that uses
low-cost local natural ingredients (banana stalk, sugar/sugar derivatives) to
grow plants and rear animals. FBS is an
effective food containing a millions of good micro bacteria (like yogurt) for
pigs to better and more efficiently absorb nutrients and proteins from other
foods, build immunity and fight against sickness.
Pigs
apparent growth after 6 weeks in Khom Loy’s care—with new feeding trough.
Piglets at about 6
weeks old before they arrived at the Khom Loy Farm.
· FBS
Making: According to our planned
feeding schedule, once we start making and feeding FBS, we slowly increase the
amount until the FBS to commercial feed ratio is 50:50 or more. Since FBS is not protein dense, pigs still
need a varied nutrient diet. The benefit
of commercial food is that it provides a secure amount of protein—but as we
explore feeding methods, we could potentially find a plant or byproduct that
would work as an additional/alternative protein so we can continue to decrease
and perhaps eventually cut out commercial feed.
As part of making FBS, our staff uses a bicycle propelled ‘banana
chopper’ (a replica of the chopper used in the school pig project) to cut thick
banana stalks utilizing a fraction of the time and effort it would take to do
this by hand. As of now, we are
making about 30kg of FBS/week and making a new batch with increased amounts
each week.
UPLift Staff using
the banana chopper to make FBS!
.
·
NFPR
Trainings & Outreach: At present, we are in the process of a
10-day training course on NFPR with TPC students. Over the course of the next 6 months, KLDF
staff will conduct NFPR trainings with all 70-80 TPC students in addition to at
least 5 local NGO staff. One full
training takes place 1 hour/day over 10 days.
Eventually our land and training officer, U Tin Yu will lead these
trainings with support from Program Manager, Heidi. Throughout the course of these 6 months, TPC
student trainees will follow us through our first round of rearing full grown
pigs, see the sale of market ready pigs (selling for about $200USD/pig) and
observe our reinvestment process. Thus, they will have a clear understanding of
how this method works from start to finish.
U Tin Yu (Land & Training Officer) training a group
of TPC students on Day 2 of the NFPR training.
Ko Lynn and
Heidi training TPC students on making IMO’s (Indigenous Microorganisms).
3. School Garden
Projects:
· Garden Training with Irawaddy Students: Traditionally,
KLDF staff makes 2-3 trips to potential garden project schools to assess if the
school has the appropriate conditions to achieve successful garden projects.
Some of the main benchmarks we look for are cooperative and engaged
headmasters, a reliable water source, land available for planting, flooding,
school funding (food budget), students/teachers illustrating previous project
success and drive to take responsibility for projects. Once we assess by
written surveys and observations, we conduct a day-long “mock” garden training
as a trial or practice-run for our 3-month training that allows our staff to
see how students and teachers respond to our instructions,
ultimately determining their readiness and willingness to participate. For
2013-14 KLDF staff will assess 4-5 primary migrant schools in this fashion to
find appropriate matches for the garden project. In August 2013, Uplift Staff began
garden training assessments with a new primary school, Irrawaddy, which has 219
pupils. Upon achieving our benchmarks for an ideal garden project candidate, we
proceeded with further assessments at Irawaddy.
On our third visit to the school, we conducted the mock garden training
on making bamboo raised beds with about 45 student leaders and 6 teachers,
including the headmaster. To our delight, students and teachers alike were
enthusiastic and proactive in learning the techniques by working together to
make the bamboo bed and answering their own questions about the steps in the
process. Given the illustrated readiness and responsiveness of the school, we
will begin a full-scale garden project at Irawaddy in October 2013 when dry
season settles in.
KLDF Uplift Ag. & Training Officer, Sai Aung Tung
presents about raised beds at Irawaddy School.
Irawaddy
School Headmaster and students layering the raised bed with green &
dry manure,
rice & coconut husk and topsoil.
·
Current
Garden Project Assessments—KLDF is in full assessing mode as we work
towards finding the next three schools (aside from Irawaddy) to reach with the
garden project. Last month we talked
about the prospect of Wide Horizons (WH) School for young adults and given the
supportive donor response about a garden project at WH, we will proceed with a
mock garden training in September and commence the full 3-month project in
October. We continue to assess for our other
two garden schools and will have a busy month of mock garden trainings at 3
additional schools. The goal is to have
our assessments finished by the end of September so it is possible to start right away
at Irawaddy and WH in October.
4. Financial
Literacy Revisiting Previous Projects and Planning
· Community
Assessments Cattle Yard: Financial Literacy project Phase 2 Income
Generation in year two at the Cattle Yard Community continues to move along in
the research stage. At large, staff is researching for Income Generation that
we can incorporate with our new Financial Literacy Training this year and
include it as regular step of the project. Particularly, we have been looking
at mobile selling around the community (for instance, different types of basic
hygienic product), small income generation groups working out of a space, home-based
work, and small saving groups.
We visited the organizations called Help Without
Frontier (HWF) to learn about a sewing training project they offer that could
align with the Cattle Yard Women. HWF also teaches mop making with left over
clothes from HWF sewing project. The mop
project would be ideal if the women are conducive to it as HWF offers the
resources for doing mop and materials costs are low. Following the visit with
HWF, Ko Lynn revisited the Cattle Yard in late August to talk to several women.
He interviewed one woman from our Financial Literacy training who is selling
things and foods such as kitchen supplies, meat, fish, and vegetables around
the community. She was enthusiastic at the idea to sell more things including
hygiene things and medicine via cart. Other women were receptive to the idea of
mobile selling as well. This visit gave us preliminary feedback about small
enterprise development possibilities at the Cattle Yard. We will continue to
research other skills building/ entrepreneurial organizations in the Mae Sot
area including a visit to Youth Connect, an organization reaching young adults
through job skills trainings, apprenticeships, marketing, business planning,
and market access.
· Assessing
New Communities: In August staff
visited a community in the greater Mae Sot Area twice. This community came into
existence in 2008 and consists entirely of displaced families who fled after
Cyclone Nargis ruined their livelihood on the Irawaddy Delta. An array of
information and survey data was collected to allow UPLift staff to make
informed inferences about the community and decide if it is a good fit for the
Financial Literacy Project. Our
preliminary analysis for this community (i.e. women’s ability to demonstrate
the ability to work in groups) is positive and we hope to learn more as we
continue to assess other communities in September.
