Review the Masaka application form and help to define the steps and tasks
Status: 
Attached is the application form for the project of Masaka.
Please read it over and comment on what you feel is needed in order to formulate the project. We need to define the initial steps to undertake, keeping in mind that short and concrete tasks are more feasible.
Project: Help Improve Notre Dame High School
HI Christopher,
You do not need anything special for a chat. You can use your email account or a msn account. Maybe you can ask at the cafe you usually visit to see if they can explain you how to use msn messenger or yahoo chat?
I can also send you detailed instructions or if you tell me where you are located I can try to put you in contact with another local representative to explain you how to set up a chat session.
Raul
Thanks Christopher, I will have a read.
Raul, chat sounds like a good idea. I am on GMT+1 and work Monday-Friday office hours. So evenings/weekends, or (possibly) first thing in the morning would work best for me, although evenings probably won't work for you due to time differences!. Or maybe next Monday as its a public holiday here and I am off work.
Mary
Next Monday could work for me. I could try this weekend too.
Let's see what works for Christopher.
Raul
Dear friends,
Thank you for all.
May you please,continue writting through this system.
When l talked to the person at the cafe here,l realised it may take me some time to learn to use the chat system and money.
Let us be using this system for the time being.
God's blessings
Hi Christopher,
Ok, let's wait for the chat in the new website that will be live in some time. Chatting is key for the success of the project.
My main comment in the proposal you have presented is that the budget is really out of the type of budgets that are worked within Nabuur. In my case, I do not make part of projects that are purely based in funding because they are really hard to go ahead and to find sponsors for.
My suggestions are:
- LEt's see the piggery project proposal to discuss it more.
- Let try to start a discussion on other possible methods that could be used to provide the community with safe water.
There are a few things that are happening in other discussions on potential water solutions for Uganda and that I am trying to bring into our discussions here.
Let me know what your thoughts are,
What do you think Mary?. any ideas on the best way to go?
Raul
Hi Christopher
Apologies for taking a while to reply - I was waiting to see if we would be able to chat first. I would agree with Raul that it would be good to do that at some point as its a good way of discussing things. I do know people in Uganda who use it but unfortunately none of them are in your area so they can't show you how to use it!
I have been reading your proposal doc and would agree with Raul that this is a BIG project in its current form. And that it would be good to see the piggery project details too.
Finding over $100,000 through Nabuur will almost certainly not happen. Although there are several projects on Nabuur who have created budgets for large projects, none of them have succeeded in finding funding for them. The ones that are most likely to succeed are those that need relatively small amounts of money, have a very clear benefit, and where the local community are very actively involved, and do as much as they can for themselves.
It seems to me that it is really two projects in one: the school, and the wider community. It may be that they have different solutions.
You may be able to do the school one in stages, a building at a time, as you get money. And you may be able to reduce costs if you look at different options.
I don't know the likely income from the piggery, but it may be that some of that will be able to go towards the water projects.
What contact have you had with other Ugandan groups who have done similar things? And how much input have other local people had into the project - I know they need clean water, but don't know if you have talked to them about the design, what they can contribute etc.
I have no experience of rainwater harvesting, but from reading on the internet there are many lower cost options that are already being used successfully in Uganda. Some of these may work in Masaka. In some cases local people have been trained to construct tanks/jars and this has gone on to become a small business in its own right.
A few examples:
Uganda, 500-750 litre jars costing between US30-50 plus guttering
http://tilz.tearfund.org/Publications/Footsteps+41-50/Footsteps+46/Low-c...
An investigation into the potential to reduce the cost of constructed rainwater harvesting tanks in Uganda by Peter Cruddas.
This includes information on several low cost options that are already being used in Uganda, including one in Masaka district. Includes costs and local contacts for the organisations who run the projects. Including a 25,000 litre underground tank costing 608,000 Ugandan shillings, and many low-cost small scale tanks/jars too.
https://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/bitstream/1826/2379/1/Peter%20Cruddas...
(note this is a large PDF file - about 1.8MB. As that may take a long time to download over a slow connection, I have attached a smaller version - about 560KB - to the end of this post. No changes to text, I have just compressed the pictures)
These and others mention the Development Technology Unit at Warwick University in the UK, who have a huge amount of information on low cost options. Some of the documents on this site also refer to projects in Uganda including a 5,000 litre tarpaulin tank costing about US$40.
http://www.eng.warwick.ac.uk/dtu/pubs/rwh.html
I would suggest contacting some of the Ugandan organisations to see if they can offer you advice based on their experience. You may find that you can reduce costs a lot, as well as having more options to choose from. If you want me to find contact details, let me know.
There may also be other options such as finding ways to purify the water from other local sources.
I do think this is an important project - you all need a good supply of clean water. I just think that there may be other cheaper ways of doing it, which will make it more likely that you will be successful.
What do you think - are you interested in learning from others and looking at other options?
Mary
Great info Mary,
Look forward to your comments Christopher.
Raul
Thanks dear Mary , Raul and all friend.
It is very true the project costs were so high.But tis was brought about by including 100 community beneficiaries.
We had suggested that we start small and with the water school project .After its completion then we would embark with the community.And with the community we would at least start with at least 25 for the first year, 25 in the second year and so on.This would carry the water project for at least 5 years.
The water reservor/tank explodes the project expenses.I would be impressed to get the low cost tanks so please Mary help us in the research.
Planning for the whole community is indeed expensive .It was our view that we start small with the school water and piggery projects.
Attached is the piggerry project.
It is always realistic to start water and piggery projects together because the latter depends on water.
We request you to discuss our water and piggery projects first at school.
Christopher.
Dear friends,this is to inform you that also ishtiaq, has decided to join our village{one of the facilitators}
Hope with that also help we can work out a solution for the people.
1.Water harvesting project.
2.Peggery demonstration project.
Happy to hearing from all of you.
Christopher
Welcome Ishtiaq and thanks Christopher for the document.
I will review and get back with comments
Raul
Dear Christopher,
Thanks for putting together the initial ideas for the piggery project.
My questions:
- How many community members would be part of the project?
With the money tha school has available for the project I think we can have a great start and then see if other partners would get involved.
My recommendations are:
- Use the 1,500 that the school will contribute to buy 5 initial reproductive pigs
- Instead of building expensive structure to house the pigs, use natural fencing. Pine and eucaliptos can be used as well as many other local materials
- DO not think it would be wise to build a biogas unit yet. If it is for cookin maybe solar cooking canbe used as a start
- For water, we are looking into non expensive options so we can continue that discussion.
Teh idea is to look for a strategy that would really decrease the initial investmet so if the community has to go for a loan, the loan would be a very small one and with easy to pay re-payments. The best strategy is when resources that are already available are used.
Any initial comments Mary?
I think we are moving in the right direction.
Look forward to everyone's comments,
Raul
Hi everyone!
Ishtiaq, welcome! Its always good to meet a new neighbour. Please join the discussion and share your views on the projects.
Christopher, thanks for posting details of the piggery project. I have had a quick read, and would agree with Raul that there may be a lot you can do for lower cost, but I need to read it properly before making more detailed comments. Its a little late to do that tonight, but will do over the next couple of days.
Good to see that you are interested in looking at low cost water options, and in splitting the school and community projects. Were you able to download and read that document about existing low-cost systems being used in Uganda? It does contain some contact details, but if it will help you, I will try and come up with a list of some of the groups involved, also see if I can find any more using low cost large tanks (suitable for the school) so that you can get in contact and see what you can learn from them.
Raul, you mention solar cooking. Do you know of other Nabuur projects with experience of this? I was reading info a while ago about a group in Kenya (not on Nabuur) who had a lot of success with this, both for cooking, also as a good business for generating income as they are relatively simple to make. This may be a topic for another time, but am posting the links for future info
http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Sunny_Solutions
http://solarcookers.org/programs/multkenya.html
Mary
Thanks dear Raul, Mary , lshtiaq and friends .
Your comments were so good but have few items to highlight.
1. Piggery project and water go hand in hand. You cant have piggery without water.
2. We have seen projects of biogas in Uganda and are doing very well with them.
Biogas Tecnicians are many and with biogas you can kill more than three birds using one stone.You can have light, you can cook, get manure from the slurry and sustainable piggery projects.Whereas with solar only light will be used.
Cooking will depend on the availability of the sun that day.
3. Cheap materials to build the sties is welcome in the initial stage and would work well as a teaching aid to the poor rural farmers who would like to start piggery projects.
However, in the long run better building materials are redesired for better piggery image.
4. Cheap water tanks would be so much desired for the rural communities as rain is through out the year.
However, for the school, better quality is desired as we need bigger reserves for the available population ( 550 pupils plus teachers and non teaching staff).
One tank of capacity 50,000 m3 cannont be constructed using cheap materials as would be for the case for tanks for the rural community members.
We are so grateful for lshtiaq who has joined us.
CHRISTOPHER
Hi everyone!
Raul, can you explain a little more your thoughts about the community getting a loan as I am not sure what this would be for?
Christopher, you talk about piggery and water being linked. Would the rainwater provide enough water for both the school children and the pigs? Or will you still need to collect water from other sources - am assuming that pigs are better able to deal with dirty water than humans.
With tanks, are you interested in contacting some of the groups who have already used low-cost solutions? That will probably be the quickest way for you to get an idea of what will work in Masaka. If so, would you like me to give you contact details or are you able to get them from those documents I posted? I haven't found a low cost option for big tanks, although did post details of one for 25,000 litre tank the other day which may be worth investigating further.
I see that the piggery project is already split into phases with the biogas plant being right at the end. So you can get everything else up and running, then look at that separately.
Am not sure what the feed mill is for?
You say that you want to use better building materials as you want to create a good image. As this is aimed as a demonstration project for other community members (as well as creating income for the school), would it be better to concentrate on using designs that they will be able to copy cheaply?
I don't know anything about pigs but am quite surprised at the cost ($330 each). Are you intending to use particular breeds because they are better than normal local pigs?
Your intention is to start distributing piglets to poor families (80 families, 2 piglets each by July 2009). Is this a one-off exercise or will the school continue to distribute piglets to other families? Will families also be expected to give away piglets to others in the future?
Do you have any idea of how much income the school will make from this project short and long term? And what you will use this for?
Mary