Hello Everyone,

Since one of the objectives of this new round of featured villages is to find ways to better define the steps and tasks of a project to be able to define the way is going to be approached.

I thought a good way to start this discussion was to proposed some topics that can be covered:

When commenting on the things that can be done when defining a project, one facilitator contacted me to talk about the Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation method used for projects in developing countries where a lot of the work happens at the community level.

A comprehensive lit review can be found [url=http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/ESSD/sdvext.nsf/66ByDocName/ParticipatorymonitoringandevaluationinLatinAmericaOverviewoftheLiteraturewithannotatedbibliographyIDSMay2000/$FILE/pme-latam.pdf]here[/url]

From this method, one of the main tools used is the assessment village assesment instrument that allows a determination of the level of developent at which a village is and from there, decisions can be taken.

You can find the tool here

I think this has been raised in the past but I thought this could be a good moment to bring it up and discuss more about it.

My idea is that we could maybe start evaluating the level of a village together with the application form (or maybe we can also discuss how the application form can be modified) so we can start deciding what would be appropriate for a village to support the project definition.

MAybe we can use the villages in the featured villages that are new in the featured villages group to start testing this?

All the best,

Raul

Hi Wamala,

I have read your application form.

A couple of comments.

- With the Nabuur model it has been demonstrated that the effort of all neighbours can be more fruitful if the tasks are not concentrated i raising but in finding means to address the issues from other perspectives. Maybe finding economic methods to purify water?. There are some very effective techniques that are not expensive.

- Maybe some other cheaper ways to devise a way to build the tanks with the funds that can be sourced locally.

In many cases, once some steps have been taken by the community then it becomes easier to make things happen.

I am also thinking in maybe ways to supporting the families of the children in other income generating activities that could translate in more funds to build the tanks.

Just some ideas.

Look forward to having more people participating and a facilitator soon.

Raul

Hi Everyone,

Just another source of information I have received that could add to the discussion about defining a project as well as monitoring with more involvement from the community.

http://www.lindaswebs.org.uk/Page3_Orglearning/PALS/PALSIntro.htm

Look forward to getting some feedback and getting more people participating.

Raul

Hi!

Christopher, thanks for the invite to join you. I don't know if I will be able to become a regular contributor, and I don't have any practical experience of rainwater collection, but I did say I would have a look...

I have read the Nabuur application and see that you have a very clear focus on setting up a rainwater harvesting system. There is also a brief mention of providing education to raise awareness of water-related health issues. Although not in the application doc, you have also said in the Nabuur introduction that you want to provide better toilet facilities at the school.

According to the document, you want all your Nabuur tasks to focus on fundraising, although you don't give any indication of the amount of money that will be required to set up the system. Do you have existing contacts who may be able to assist with funding?

How much detailed planning work have you done? For example: have you worked out best ways of collecting and storing water (type, size of tank etc), purification of the collected water, ongoing maintenance of the system, whether it will cover all the water needs of the school (how much water do you need each day, how much rainfall do you get, what happens during dry times), what associated education you will offer? And the likely costs, both for initial setup, also for keeping things running?

There is lots of information out there about relatively low cost RWH systems e.g.

http://www.eng.warwick.ac.uk/dtu/pubs/rwh.html has a large number of documents on the subject that describe a variety of different methods (some of the files will be quite big to download)

Practical Action
http://practicalaction.org/practicalanswers/product_info.php?cPath=24_78...
(basic text introduction, plus a big PDF with more detailed info)
and water-related links (RWH, pumps, purification etc) http://practicalaction.org/?id=links_water

Southern and Eastern Affra Rainwater Network
http://www.searnet.org/searnetfinal/home.asp
which may be able to link you to others in Uganda who can offer you local advice

There will also be other Nabuur villages working on water-related issues who may be able to offer advice and contacts.

Sorry, lots of questions, but am just trying to get a good idea of how much you have done so far. The more specific you can be about this, and about what your needs are, the easier it will be to define the exact tasks that should be on the site, and the more likely you are to succeed through Nabuur.

Mary

Dear Mary
and all well wishers to Notre Dame High School,view what is needed for setting up the Water Hervesting project.
What lam sure of is that the buildings are in place ,of which the roofs are to serve as the main water tapping source.We believe we can only need materials to use to do the water hervesting (water resevoir tanks.gutters and other plumbing materials etc..)
Other attachements of the project such as toilet settings up,bathrooms setting ups and income related small projects can only come at a further date to come.Let us first concetrate on water hervesting at this time and them
another.After this we can go on for another item project one by one.We believe we cannot take all of the items at once.
.I request for more advice.

project extmates for notre dame high school waterhervesting.doc

Hi Christopher

Thanks for the figures. I put them into a spreadsheet which is attached, and some of the calculated numbers did not match with your doc, so you might want to have a look and see which is correct.

I would agree with Raul that finding funding through Nabuur is not always successful. Did you see his comments about looking at other things too, like possibly finding cheaper ways to build tanks and/or purify water? What contact (if any) have you had with other schools/groups in Uganda that have worked on similar RWH schemes? There do seem to be quite a lot of them.

I assume that once the tanks are up, the school will be committed to keeping them in good repair?

Mary

Masaka budget.xls

Dear Christopher,

I'm facilitating the Buterere project in Burundi and a neighbour has recently brought the moringa tree to our attention that seems to be a real miracle tree. Its seeds can be used for water purification and its leaves are highly nutrituous (vitamin A, C, calcium etc.). It grows very fast. Leading universities and development agencies confirm all this.

Growing moringa trees may be a cheap alternative to building a water tank.

Of course purifying the water is more tedious than just taking it out of a water tank. But the positive side-effects are many: nutritous food, students can teach moringa water purification to their families... It could even generate income for your school if you start selling the leaves.

For more information look at the info provided at the bottom of this Buterere page (we were looking at it mainly as a source of vitamin A but you find info on water purificaiton in the attachements, too):
http://www.nabuur.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=6947&viewmode...

Warmly
Antje

Dear Antje and all friends.
Thank you somuch for the contribution to our village.
May be to let you know more about me,before founding Notre Dame High School/Masaka Village,l had founded another small organisation called AFRIKA BELT,while working with this organisation,we locally got some funding with the help of the then Member of parliement The late Hon.Partrick Misisi.
We carried out a moringa tree planting as an income generating small project for women and the orphaned children od HIV/AIDS,iN SSisa Sub-county -Katabi,Bweya and in masaka erea etc...
We provided seeds for planting to the women and to the orphan children.
Before,living and as l write now,trees are there i almost each and avery home .Most trees are now being cut down.
People are no longer having interest in the whole program.No Market for neither the seeds nor the flowers.
At first people used to eat these flowers when dried ,but these days no one eats them..
Just mention about Moringa trees and everybody will lough at you.
We then turned to Verandah vegetable farming,which did very well up to now as a nutrition devolpng project and as an income generating project for women and the orphan chidren inin communities.People with this vegetable growing can sale and eat.
However,l do not descourage all that are having intrest in it but what l know they must make a better reasearch on market.
As regards to our water hervesting project at our Masaka vILLAGE/Notre Dame High School,l have read the attached docs but have not seen how hervested water can be purified using moringa .
Again,our most urgent need is to hervest water for drinking using the already availble buildings as a source for water caption.
Our need is funds to buy water reservour tanks,and materials for capturing the water from building roofs.Other things like purifying it,can come at a letter date when water is at the place.
However,very many friends confuse our project compearing it to others of more or less the same nature.
We at the moment need hervsting water from the available roofs ,and then athor things can come at a letter date.

Hi Christopher

What you write about the moringa trees is interesting - you may find that there are uses for them in the future if you are able to do a little research, but that will be for local people to decide.

If your only need really is for money to complete the project then several things occur to me (others will add to this list I am sure)

Firstly its not guaranteed that you will be successful through Nabuur. Some projects have been, but a lot have not.

Check out your budget and work out exactly what you need - as I said in a post a few days ago when I put your numbers into a spreadsheet my totals (especially the amounts in Euros) did not match with what you showed. Also whether there is any way of reducing costs (while still getting the things you need to make the project work of course).

Wherever you aim to get money from, you will need to be able to be very clear in explaining the benefits of the project e.g. that you will have a clean local source of water rather than students having to go and collect it, what this will mean to their school day, number to benefit etc. That you have done sufficient planning e.g. size of tank, amount of rainfall etc. Also in how you are going to keep things running e.g. maintenance of tanks, purifying water etc.

What have you tried already?

Locally/within Uganda

You mention that in the past you were successful in getting money for another project via your MP. Do you have contact with the current one, can he help?

What (if any) money is available to schools there for making improvements etc?

If you belong to any networks of schools or community organisations they may be able to give advice on what is available.

If you know others who have successfully completed similar projects, how did they do it?

As you are a school, I assume that your teachers will have been to university - any chance of getting support that way, or through former students who are now studying there.

Are there any international (or larger national) organisations working in your area who may be able to assist?

Have you had any contact with local community service organisations - Lions, Rotary etc? They are sometimes able to link up with other branches internationally to raise money.

Some embassies e.g. USA, Japan, UK, other European countries run grants schemes for community projects. They should be able to provide details of who can apply and what the procedure is if you contact them.

Do you have ways of generating publicity for the school - radio, newspapers etc? You may find that this brings in money or good contacts.

Internationally

You may be able to link your school with one or more in another country. Although most links are around sharing information between teachers, exchanging letters between students, working on projects together etc, they could also lead on to fundraising.

Same applies if you have a local church etc that would be interested in linking up with one in another country.

You may be able to apply for funding from various non-profits, foundations etc. All will have their own rules for what they will fund and how you apply. There is a huge amount of competition for this, so information would need to be as complete as possible and you would need to focus on ones where you meet their criteria.

You may find some neighbours who are interested in doing some fundraising in their area. Or who have good contacts with groups that may be interested in helping you.

You may be able to raise money online through sites like GiveMeaning or GlobalGiving. There are several Nabuur projects on GiveMeaning, but many of them have not been able to raise much money.

I am sure there will be other things you need to do as well as fundraising for example your application form also mentions that you want to educate local people about water-related issues. This is something you can do for little cost and, if you don't have the necessary information already, neighbours may be able to help you find examples of successful education programmes.

Mary

Thanks for all these ideas Mary,

Christopher, it is really important to focus on what the community can do and we can support on identifying more ways in how you could do it. As Mary said, many projects like this one have hard a really hard time because the support from the NAbuur community in a case like this is desired to be more in the search for funds side. Better results in this type of model are achieved if we concentrate in the creation of ideas, development of long term plans and in supporting the community find ways to generate income locally for any of these type of projects.

Hope this helps,

Raul

Hey Mary,

I was wondering if you had a look at the tools I posted in the featured villages site:

http://www.fv.nabuurtest.com/forum/10

I was thinking maybe we could try them out here in Masaka to see if they would work. I imagine the way the project is going now, using them might be a concrete way to get some steps defined soon.

What do you think?

Raul

Dear Raul and all friends,
Thank you somuch for the nice contributions.
Now and for the past three days ,l have been descussing the program with friends here.Now we have come out with total support to for full descussion of the Village not only the project for the water.
We have noted that much as water is also needed at the school,but there are other needs originating from the villages where these children in question,some of them live /stay or originate.
Its would be not proper or true to only concetrate on the water project,but to also put in mind the whole village as Raul and others had suggested.
Much as water is a basic but on top of this there are other needs for both the children at school,and where they live or orinate.The concern must not be for children only,buy also ,teachers,parents and everybody sorounding or that livie within these localities that must be addressed.
Let me also avail toyou the full project of the water project,but putting it in mind that there is need to descuss the whole village problems for a lasting solution.
However,we shall request for friends to help us modify everything that may be as the requirements for a mordern village set up.

NABUUR PROJECT PROFILE RAIN WATER HARVEST NOTRE DAME.doc

Dear Raul and all friends,
Thank you somuch for the nice contributions.
Now and for the past three days ,l have been descussing the program with friends here.Now we have come out with total support to for full descussion of the Village not only the project for the water.
We have noted that much as water is also needed at the school,but there are other needs originating from the villages where these children in question,some of them live /stay or originate.
Its would be not proper or true to only concetrate on the water project,but to also put in mind the whole village as Raul and others had suggested.
Much as water is a basic but on top of this there are other needs for both the children at school,and where they live or orinate.The concern must not be for children only,buy also ,teachers,parents and everybody sorounding or that livie within these localities that must be addressed.
Let me also avail toyou the full project of the water project,but putting it in mind that there is need to descuss the whole village problems for a lasting solution.
However,we shall request for friends to help us modify everything that may be as the requirements for a mordern village set up

NABUUR PROJECT PROFILE RAIN WATER HARVEST NOTRE DAME.doc

Dear frinds,could be you not aware.
The trueth must be said,almosy all of us here at Notre Dame School,have little or not at all ,knowledge of the use of the computer /internet.lam the the only persom with some little a knoledge of the copmputer.lts has been disturbing me ,but lam doing everything possible to continue learning it.
Now we have seen the documents packs you have been sending to us .We shall use them ,and continue to sdudying them for a better descussion.
Otherwise,thank you all that are participating to try to help our village.l know this may cause loughing to some of you but its the reality.
God's blessings and to all.

Hi Christopher,

Good to here from you.

I am personally aware than in some places in developing countries there are several challenges with the use of computers so do not have to worry and it does not make me laugh but actually it is one of the reasons that make me feel part of these projects.

I hope that with a wider discussion as you mention the community is eager to discuss we will be able to achieve some good results.

All the best,

Raul