By Janet G Preethy | Project Leader
Although GlobalGiving's negotiations with the Indian government have not yet resolved away to disburse the funds donated to this and all other India-based projects, we have continued to do the one thing we can do without funding: utilize our virtual volunteers to research new ideas that will make the farmer's tree plantations more profitable and help protect against future storms, and to search for grants that would enable us to continue without GlobalGiving fundings.
One of our volunteers, noting that much of the land impacted by the cyclone still had to be cleared of fallen trees, came up with the idea of burning the wood in biochar kilns -- an environmentally friendly way to burn the wood on site to create charcoal that can be used to enrich the soil. The kilns are easy to construct from inexpensive materials, and can be moved from farm to farm. But we will need an army of volunteers to chop up the wood and prepare the kilns to burn it.
Our volunteer Grant Researcher has exhaustively reviewed dozens of websites that might offer grants or business loans that we could apply for. They have located a small grant opportunity that might fund hiring a project manager who could oversee volunteer recruitment and the construction of dozens of kilns, and another volunteer is working on preparing our application.
If you would like to help if we are able to start this project, please message me through the Voice Trust page on Facebook.
Thank you so much for your patience, and for any support you can offer --
Janet Preety
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