Starting the Pig/Compost Pilot Project!

This week, Hway Ka Loke Learning Center and the UPLift Program began work on our first Pig/Compost Project in the Mae Sot area.  This project is designed to give migrant schools and families on the Thai/Burmese border more access to income generation opportunities, and to become more self-reliant! (To view the full photo album, click here.)

Work began on Wednesday, when the assistant principal of the school joined Mark and our newest staff member on digging the perimeter of a one-meter deep litter, and doing their best to clear the top layer of soil and grass. 

Thursday provided some more progress:

...and then Friday just happened to be a school holiday, which meant that some of the older students interested in agriculture were available to give some assistance!

Work should finish on Saturday, and we can move on to the next step--planning and constructing the walls and roof.

Pig Rearing for Burmese Migrant Schools--Project Update

Staff and Volunteers at New Life

This week Mark visited New Life Foundation in Chiang Rai in order to learn more about organic farming and to meet another specialist in the area of deep-litter pig rearing.  As a result, our Pig-Compost pilot project is set to begin in Mae Sot next week. (For photos of Mark's visit click here.)

New Life Foundation is a recovery center for those dealing with drug addiction issues.  UPLift first met New Life staff during a Natural Farming training we attended together in March.  Julien, the current manager of New Life, has recently begun a revamping of the site's farmland in order to generate income on a larger scale in order to self-fund their operations.

To do this, New Life is working alongside Ajan Suthat, a former chemical engineer who has recently found a passion for organic farming.  Compared to other teachers and programs on the topic of Natural Farming, Ajan Suthat uses a more scientific, data-based approach to refine pig rearing, organic farming, and compost production in order to help impoverished families learn how to do these things for themselves.

Ajan Suthat (center) working with New Life employees

With his methods for improving pig feed, raw material inputs and overall pig health, UPLift's pilot project in Mae Sot will improve considerably, most notably the reduction of time needed to increase a pig's weight to 100kg (our previous estimate of 5 months has reduced to 3 months).

Speaking of the pilot project at Hway Ka Loke school in Mae Sot, we will sit down with the school staff and begin the planning process next week!

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.