5 Minutes to Change the World, and How We're Doing It!

Last week, UPLift and Room 2 Grow staff completed their video entry for the Project Inspire competition, sponsored by the UN Women's Organization and Mastercard.  This competition gives a $25,000 grant to the group with the best plan for improving women's lives through social entrepreneurship and financial literacy.  Check out the video above!

As you know, over the past year UPLift has been working with a number of families on a city landfill near the Thai-Burmese border in Tak province, Thailand to help increase their food security and income through a variety of pilot projects.  Two of these projects have proven themselves to be lasting, effective, and most importantly drawing the interest of other families on the landfill.  With this in mind, Paul Hancock from UPLift realized that women have been responsible for our most effective pilot projects and have the power to change the status quo on and around the landfill.

Now that we wish to scale up our activities to include other families, having a grant opportunity such as this that matches our goals is fantastic, and we are "inspired" to continue our work in this area.

Income Generation on the Landfill--June Update



Since February we have been working with motivated women on a landfill near the Thai-Burmese border in Tak province to start a rugmaking venture.  Given the low incomes garnered by day labor and picking recyclables there, having a new source of income would be a great way to break the current cycle of poverty there. 

After providing training and materials for an initial workshop, one pregnant woman named Thin Thin Khaing picked up the idea and began making large numbers of rugs, using materials found on the landfill! (see previous blog post from Izara Arts here)

After three months of dedicated work, Thin Thin has made over 100 rugs and has sold 62 of them.  This has provided her family with an additional 1,240 Thai baht of income ($38 USD)...considering that entire families sometimes make 50 baht per day in the landfill, this supplemental business has given her more financial flexibility, as well as prestige within the landfill community.  In fact, several other women have seen her success and are now interested in weaving rugs as well!  

Banana Tree Workshop

An UPLift workshop was held this week at Future Garden Learning Center in Tak province on best practices for planting healthy banana trees (they're not actually trees, but are referred to as such)!  In attendance were staff and students from six Burmese migrant schools: Hway Ka Loke, Sky Blue, BHSOH, Nam Tok, New Blood and Future Garden. (For more pictures, visit our photo album).

Why focus on banana trees?  This is important to us, as our upcoming pig/compost program in Mae Sot depends on a large source of banana stalk to use as fermented food.  Using a cheap resource such as this reduces the cost of pig food to as little as 3 baht per kilogram, yet still results in rapid weight gain and health for pigs.

Everyone has their own way of planting bananas. Our goal was to simplify this to one best method.

However, while looking for a simple answer for planting a healthy tree we ran into a multitude of answers.  Beyond a general suggestion of using quality soil and planting during the hot season, nothing surfaced as a concrete answer.  We solved this by:

• having each of the schools share their experiences for planting banana trees
• finding similar steps from each experience
• debating differences in opinion and coming to a consensus for one best practice
• discussing lessons learned from past mistakes/how to avoid those mistakes

And who would have thought that people are so heated when it comes to defending their agricultural prowess!  At one point two of the participants were yelling across the table at each other...fortunately for us, by the end of the day we all had agreed on one method that should result in strong, fully-grown banana trees:

1. Dig a hole 9 inches in depth.
2. Slice off the outer layers of a large banana root to expose the insides.  Meanwhile, using a diagonal cut, chop the stalk to a height of 2-3 feet up the stalk (but below the area with leaves).
3. Plant banana stalk; mix removed soil with rice husk and return, compressing firmly around the stalk.
4. Cover area around the stalk with 1-2 kg of compost/manure.
5. Water thoroughly every 2-3 days.

Students working on some practical experience

 We then planted two example trees for practice.  With all of this information fresh in mind, the schools will return home and get to work on a goal of 90 banana trees planted in total before rainy season begins.  This ensures that they will have enough raw materials to begin raising pigs by the end of rainy season!

Do you have any opinions or input on how to grow banana trees?  Let us know at uplift.khomloy@gmail.com .

April Activities--Banana Chopping and Mae Sot Visit



Flowers, veggies and compost at BHSOH School

 

In preparation for upcoming sustainable school projects UPLift staff has been surveying schools and testing inexpensive methods for raising pigs and making natural fermented food.  The past week has been packed with new experiences!

On Monday we visited a local equipment producer in Chiang Rai province who had agreed to create a prototype banana stalk processor that is powered by a bicycle setup.  This eliminates the need for purchasing an engine and the utility costs involved.  This setup costs 8,000 Thai baht, compared to 18,000 baht for the engine-powered conventional version.






We arrived in Mae Sot on Monday evening and began surveying migrant schools and checking up on schools that we already have projects with.  A new school, Future Garden, has a great principal and staff but is located on a very poor-quality piece of land.

We are working with them to create the ultimate success case--turning an almost useless piece of land into a thriving agricultural center for creating income.  The skill and motivation is already there, so we want to see what happens when Future Garden is given the chance to try new things and create their own source of school income.




We also visited BHSOH, one of the largest migrant schools here in Mae Sot.  The school has recently moved to a very large piece of land with adequate soil...however, there is a problem: There is little or no water here!  In order to expand beyond dependence on the monsoon season rains, the school has dug a new pond and sunk a deeper well (since their current well is defunct).  We have helped by purchasing a water pump for them and are planning to have garden and pig-raising projects here starting in rainy season.



Original garden training with BHSOH in Nov 2010


The principal's wife has a lot of agricultural experience and does a great job of keeping the older students involved in gaining knowledge and experience in agriculture.











Yesterday we visited Hway Ka Loke, another large school in Mae Sot.  This particular school consists of all Karen students and is located just a few kilometers away from the Burmese border.  They have shown great ability in running creative and useful projects in the past, as we have shown in previous posts with their sustainable garden.  Jim (the principal) has great leadership skills and initiative.  Due to this, we are working with Hway Ka Loke to launch the first pig/compost pilot project starting in May.




Hway Ka Loke principal with some of their existing pigs

 While we were there we ran into a student showing off the seeds he and other students were able to harvest, dry and save for the upcoming planting season (video below):

Learning More About Natural Farming

We have spent the last month researching Natural Farming (NF) for upcoming pilot projects in Mae Sot with migrant schools.  This low-cost method of farming produces strong pigs, vegetables, and large amounts of compost and is geared towards improving income for a small piece of land.

Learning about lactic acid with Aj. Chokchai

In late March, Mark attended a 3-day training at the Northern Sustainable Development Learning Center in Chiang Rai province.  Ajarn Chokchai Sarakit ran the training, which covers the general theory of NF and instructions.  See here for pictures from the training.

We've also been working on a training manual based on the above training, and practicing training methods with a local group of Thai villagers close to Chiang Rai city.  Our first round focused on fermenting food for pigs, and how it cuts costs and improves pig health.




Raising pigs in deep-litter compost


In addition, we are looking at success cases of NF in Northern Thailand and trying to transmit experience and lessons learned to a future project in Mae Sot.  This album (and the video above) are from our most recent visit to an Akha farmer in Mae Suay, Chiang Rai province.

With this information in hand we are looking forward to excellent income-generation projects for Burmese, Karen and Shan migrants.

Compost In A New Light--Chokchai Integrated Farm

Today we visited the Northern Sustainable Development Learning Center in Chiang Rai province.  Located halfway in between Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai, it was a convenient place for us to visit.  Using what we learned about integrated farming, our school garden projects in Mae Sot will yield additional benefits to the Burmese communities there!

After over 50 years of serving as a community development worker the founder of this organization, Khun Chokchai wants to change the attitudes of local farmers in order to overcome two important problems: poverty and debt.  Poverty comes from the lack of knowledge and support to gain income on a consistent basis, while debt comes from the costs of growing rice and raising animals in the conventional Thai manner. 

Having an integrated farm (using everything available from the natural surroundings and not using expensive cost inputs like fertilizer and pesticide) can solve both poverty and debt.  Chokchai mentions that one rai, or 2/5 of an acre, can result in 200,000 baht (US$6000) of annual income by using integrated farming.

Fermented pig food using cheap natural ingredients found around the farm

Using bottles to water plants efficiently

Using everything in an average village's surroundings helps an integrated farmer get past some difficult challenges.  Egg shells become sources of calcium for plants, empty beer bottles become water tanks for individual plants during hot season, and pigs do most of your labor for making food and compost!

The most impressive aspect of what integrated farming can achieve is composting.  This involves finely chopping a mixture of dry and living grass/leaves (free) and layering the bottom of a pig pen with it and some rice husks (extremely cheap).  The pigs are fed on a diet of fermented banana tree stalk (free), rice husk (very cheap), some corn (very cheap), and banana leaves (free).  The manure they produce is then mixed in with everything else by the pigs, their nature being to kick everything around.  Removing the mixture on a monthly basis and replacing with another batch is a great way to create high quality compost that outperforms dry compost made by conventional methods. This technique also removes all smells usually associated with pig rearing, as the bacteria in feces and urine are broken down almost immediately by the composting process.

Pigs play the role of worker by making compost for you

In terms of quality, quantity, cost of production and final sales price, compost that is made by this method is excellent.  For example, five pigs raised for six months can produce four metric tons of compost!  This compost can be sold at 6 baht per kilogram, meaning that one year of small scale compost production yields
48,000 baht income.  This is from owning just five pigs and using free materials from just one rai of land!

Of course, the pig compost can also be used for intensive vegetable growing, as this lettuce bed showed.

However, it gets better! Mixing the pig compost with some ground bonemeal and a little corn allows one to make pellets which can then be used to raise chickens, which are kept in a closed coop so that the eggs can be collected each day (one per chicken from the 100+ chickens in this farm). And, of course, the shells are collected to be included in feed or fertilizer.

We are excited about using these concepts to help the migrant learning centers in the Mae Sot area to increase their food output, and will now be planning a training/demonstration center near Mae Sot to provide training to teachers and pupils at participating schools.

To see all photos from our trip today click here.

Water Solutions for Burmese Migrants

In January we met a group of four Burmese families in Mae Sot, Thailand.  They live near a red dirt road winding through fields of sugarcane, just past the town landfill.  A Thai farmer was kind enough to give them permission to live on one acre of his land without having to pay rent.  They can also grow vegetables and use water from his pond to do so.

The youngest woman of the group recently had a stroke, leaving the right side of her body partially paralyzed.  She no longer can collect recyclables or harvest sugarcane (two primary job opportunities for the Burmese in this part of Thailand), staying at home instead.  When she expressed interest in growing vegetables both for personal use and for sale, we noticed that this project would not only allow these families to improve their food security and income, but also give her an opportunity to boost her livelihood.

Improved soil leads to improved crops

Our first few visits were spent speaking with them about the water supply, what the land is like, and what types of veggies they have experience growing.  Given that they have a year-round source of water from their pond, we wanted to test a foot pump, a small plastic tank and normal 40-meter water hose.  This will reduce labor by cutting down walking time and distance for using a bucket to water the plants, and benefits the paralyzed woman greatly.

A deep pond near their homes

Their first round of vegetables were planted without much planning on their part, and most of the crops died as a result of poor soil and handling the seeds improperly.  However, by February they had learned much from their first month of practice and began managing their garden plots in a more serious fashion.  By using subdivded square and rectangle plots instead of planting in and around existing bushes, they have more order and control of what they are growing.  In addition, they are now using seeds bought on the Burmese side of the border, which they have more familiarity with.

We also tested our foot pump and explained the need for a tower of some kind to make all of this a "gravity system", which is fairly easy to understand--if the water is put in a high location, then gravity takes care of the rest by pushing the water back down inside a hose.  Two days later when we came back to measure the land, the families had taken the initiative to build their own wooden tower!  Together we gave the gravity system idea a shot, the results (see video above) were successful.

A half-day of work leads to a decent (and cheap!) gravity tank

See more photos of the families' garden, tower and great progress so far, and stay tuned for more updates on how they are doing!