Our team decided unanimously: if there might be a first price for the most innovative improved cookstove this would be it.
It is enjoyable to witness over the last 12 months how a simple model of a utilitarian improved cookstove transformed into an object for artistic expression. Our workshops are always community-wide events of two or three days. Spending this time together with your neighbors, seeing what they are building might just foster your creativity.
The team has been teaching improved cookstove building, bio charcoal making and reforestation for over a year now and already included 10 communities. Their preliminary evaluation showed that people are most interested in building their own improved cookstove and learning about bioremediation against plant pathogens and insects that do not require purchased pesticides. One of our teachers' other passions, besides having developed the improved cookstove model, is natural insect and pest control and he and his expertise are in high demand. As our founder put it: “I think he really enjoys to apply his knowledge out in the field with the villagers and not just teaching about it in a classroom.”
The other photographs are of improved cookstoves being used in rural kitchens.
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Maybe the proud faces with their brand-new bikes tell more than words in this report?
As an unforeseen consequence of COVID-19, our training team members are now the proud owners of bicycles. Zahana bought bicycles so they could reach the remote villages for workshops on building improved cookstoves, bio-charcoal production and reforestation. This allows them to travel on their own time and much quicker than on foot.
Private mini buses, the only public mode of transportation in Madagascar, were basically rendered nonexistent for months because of COVID-19 restrictions. In prior reports for our improved coostove project, we shared that the team had resorted to walking from their town to the villages for the workshops. Walking not only takes longer but also it leaves them more vulnerable. With bicycles they can reach the villages in a few hours compared to what before took a day or more on foot. Consequently, they can spend more time teaching than traveling. As a safety precaution they only travel in teams of two or more.
We are grateful for the Coronavirus Relief Fund from GlobalGiving and support from donors like you that make this technological mobility leap possible.
As part of our COVID-19 prevention activities we have recently posted a videoTop of FormBottom of Form ‘Learning how to wash hands with soap in rural Madagascar’ on YouTube. We hope you spend (literally) a minute watching it.
It is only prudent to mention that #GivingTuesday on December 1 is approaching fast. Ironically it falls on the same date as World AIDS Day this year. Most likely this is not the only email reminding you of that date. After all, many non-profits are scrambling for donations in these COVID-19 uncertain times and we are in good company.
For 2020 #GivingTuesday, GlobalGiving offers 1 million dollars of matching funds for 24 hours (starting 00:00 EDT). So, if you want to add something extra to your donation, this might be a good opportunity.
The funds will be distributed proportional to the total amount we raise up to a maximum of $2,500 per donation. Details of this (rather hard to explain) model can be found on the GlobalGiving website as a brain gym exercise.
A word about Monthly donors
Thank you to all of our monthly donors! Your steady support is the backbone for our activities.
If you feel so inclined, we are actively encouraging a monthly donation that spreads your total gift out over 12 months and helps us plan better for the future. Monthly donations reduce the anxiety of how much we are going to actually raise as most of the donations are received at the end-of-the year in December.
Currently your first donation gets matched by GlobalGiving 100%. As an added bonus there is a 200% match of your first month’s donation from December 14 to 18, 2020. To sweeten the deal, monthly donations also help us with the internal ranking at GlobalGiving more than a one-time donation.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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Washing hands, has, is, and will be an excellent public health strategy. Low cost and highly effective it is by far the easiest COVID-19 prevention measure to wash hands often - with soap. With soap, because it destroys the lipid membrane of this virus or SARS-CoV-2.
‘Did you wash your hands?’ is the mantra we all heard, or may have said ourselves a gazillion times. But this is much easier said than done, literally, even if you have running warm water and plenty soap in your bathroom(s).
But what do you do if you have neither running water nor soap? For billions, yes with a B, of humans on our planet this is a reality.
But where there is a will, there is a way. At our last site visit we were joined by a doctor friend from the Ministry of Health. She used her standing to talk to all the school children (and many bystanders) about the importance on how to correctly wash your hands with soap. As you can see in the video, you can use the container with the spigot provided by zahana, or a good old bucket, in this case a new green one, with a cup. (Please click on the YouTube link for the video).
Ps: Both of our schools have access to safe clean drinking water. Fiarenana with a well and Fiadanana with a faucet that is part of our clean safe water system. A 'personal' bar of soap for each student was provided at the visit as well (see website).
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Seeing these pictures is just a sheer delight. Children making toy improved cookstoves out of clay, imitating their parents’ activities is incredibly reassuring.
While the COVID-19 pandemic has turned our world upside down in many aspects, our partner team working on the improved cookstoves and bio charcoal have quietly continued their work. Focusing on one or two villages at a time, they conducted hands-on demonstration workshops on how to build our improved cookstoves in 10 villages over the last year. And all of this despite all odds. Most of the team teach at the Lycée technique et professionnel Tsiroanomandidy, the only city in their province. Lockdown measures due to COVID-19 have mainly been aimed at the three biggest cities in the country. Consequently all public transportation with buses or mini buses anywhere in the country came to a standstill.
But this did not deter our team. They literally walked to the villages to conduct the improved cookstove workshops. In some cases this added two days to their itinerary - one to walk there and one to walk back.
Why does the Seneca Park Zoo in Rochester, New York show the Zahana video Combining reforestation with locally made improved cook stoves in Madagascar?
We live in an interconnected world and the Seneca Park zoo is a supporter of our reforestation efforts. A zoo involved in reforestation in Madagascar you may wonder? Think lemurs. Which kid (or adult) in a zoo does not make a b-line to the Lemurs? Lemurs need trees in their habitat, if they are to survive in the wild. The zoo supports another incredible innovative reforestation project next to a national park, because zoos are major players in conservation efforts world-wide, as we learned through this relationship.
Seneca Park Zoo’s goal is to support the reforestation efforts of other Malagasy NGOs like Zahana as well. They generously included us as recipients in their annual Madagascar event for the first time in 2019. During a site visit to their reforestation project in Madagascar, they had to chance to meet our founder Dr. Ihanta in person in 2019.
But that was then, when one still took airplanes and traveled internationally.
This is now. ‘Now’ did not stop the Seneca Park Zoo to set up a virtual fundraiser: Party Mad(agascar) 2020 (now its 17th year). With many of us working from home, it is actually easier to join a fundraiser via zoom, thousands of miles away in upstate New York, than around the corner.
The zoo invited us to create a five-minute video to present Zahana to the audience. Short videos introduced the different NGOs, followed by live question and answer during ‘Party Mad 2020‘. We hope you enjoy this five-minute video Combining reforestation with locally made improved cook stoves in Madagascar. It is a good 2020 Zahana snapshot, which includes drone footage from the village in October 2019.
PS: We also added a short one-minute video Reforestation with Moringa in Madagascar by Zahana
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