By Jessica Kind | Managing Director of Tui'k Ruch'Lew
Dear friends of Tui'k Ruch'Lew,
we would like to thank all of you for supporting our environmental education program. Your support really matters to us and to the indigenous community of Maya Tzu’tujil.
With your financial contribution to this project, we have developed strategies to support our Maya Tzu'tujil community in maintaining and repairing their ONIL stoves during the coronavirus pandemic. These include instructional maintenance videos that we distributed among the stove owners and through social media. The feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive, as it helped them identify malfunctions in their stoves and fix them quickly and efficiently.
Our biggest concern at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020 was that stoves will be destroyed due to the lack of maintenance. I remember the long discussions we had in the team on how we can support the stove owners in maintaining their stoves to ensure long-term functionality, optimal heat transfer for reduced firewood use and of course the elimination of smoke in the kitchens. Based on the COVID restrictions in Guatemala, we had to shut down operations for almost 10 month. For us that meant, no stove installations and no maintenance visits. As of January 2021, we are out in the community again (with all precautions taken) and catching up on our maintenance schedule.
Today, we would like to share with you more about our monitoring plan for the ONIL stove program. Prior to the stove installation, our outreach team (Isa, Maria, and José) are visiting the house of the future beneficiary. This visit is exclusively dedicated to getting to know the family, and explaining the social, environmental and economic benefits of the programs Tui'k Ruch’Lew is offering to the community. This pre-survey also serves as the baseline to quantify future improvements of the living situation based on the participation in our programs (e.g. improved health conditions due to lesser smoke in the kitchens, more economic liberty due to lower expenditure on firewood). Usually, our team is installing the ONIL stove within a week. To ensure long-term durability of the stove, our outreach team is visiting the stove owners 1 week, 3 month, and 1 year after the ONIL stove installation or whenever a maintenance is required from the stove owners. Moreover, during the lifetime of a stove - 15 years if well maintained - we aim for an annual visit to ensure that stove owners are happy with their ONIL stove and can reap the benefits of the stove.
We at Tui’k Ruch’Lew believe that education is key for sustainable community development. Therefore, our monitoring program is centered around environmental and community education.
Thank you again for your contribution,
Jessica and the Tui’k Ruch’Lew team
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can recieve an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
