Support 200 Nepalese farmers to become food secure

Summer is approaching, and that means our Where There Is No Engineer (WTINE) educational programme has come to an end for this academic year. As mentioned in our previous updates, Shree Krishna Dhital, Director of Sanskriti Farms, has been collaborating with us this year, and the projects designed by students have focused on Nepal and the real-life challenges facing the region. 

Last Friday, we hosted this year’s National Finals, where the best teams in the WTINE programme showcased their projects in front of a panel of judges. This year’s winners are two Mechanical Engineering students from the Atlantic Technological University (ATU) in Sligo, with their low-cost hydroelectric turbine designed to generate electricity from natural water flow in rural Nepal. The WTINE programme is the same initiative through which the biochar project was developed, and we hope this new project can have a similarly positive impact on the region. We will now work with the winning team and Sanskriti Farms to further develop and implement their project in the field. 

Since our last report, both the Irish and Nepal teams have focused on finalising the semester and organising the WTINE Finals, which has left little time to advance the biochar project. With the academic year now behind us, we will turn our attention to analysing the results of the KAP surveys conducted with biochar users and determining next steps. 

Securing sufficient funding remains one of our key challenges, and we are actively working to grow our support base. Every contribution, no matter the size, makes a real difference to the work we are able to do. If you are in a position to support us again, we would be truly grateful. We hope to share positive news on this front in our next report. 

We hope you have a lovely summer - thank you for your support for this project!