Belaba / Chad. ENVODEV is proud to see Eco-Charcoal see the light! After many months of preparation, trips to train villages, follow-up work, communication, we finally see the first briquettes being made! The time is just right. The rainy season is approaching, and with rain comes a higher demand for cooking fuel. Thank you to all who have been supporting this project! The charcoal program has a bright future ahead, and our team in Chad is very thankful for the care and attention all of you have demonstrated these past months to make this possible. 

This is the first official production of Eco-Charcoal since we launched the charcoal program in December 2012. The bio char being used comes from Domane and Badéi. Moundou, fuel is on the way!

Moundou - Chad / ENVODEV received its long-awaited first shipment of bio char from the villages of Badei and Domane. The bags were brought to Moundou at the end of the month of May. Nearly 1000 pounds of bio char were shipped to our centralized production site on local transportation, consisting of a pick-up truck that routinely drives through remote areas to pick up and drop off all different types of goods and fresh produce.

Each bag of char was purchased from the trained teams in Domane and Badei, giving the team members a new source of income they never could have imagined before. Once Eco-Charcoal is produced and introduced on the local market, the profit will be reinvested into the program. The ENVODEV team is thrilled to see that production is finally happening.

But our program has not been without its challenges. To name a few:

1. Our vehicle, though completely repaired two years ago, needs to be replaced. Our Toyota Hilux is taken to the repair shop after each trip to a village. We are exploring different ways of obtaining a new vehicle that will garantee the expansion of our program in the coming months.

2. Part of training a team in the pyrolysis process is insisting that kilns be left to cool off completely before opening. This garantees full carbonization. If the kiln is opened prematurely, there is a risk that a small amount of biomass ignites upon contact with oxygen. Even just a pinch of ember will slowly but surely consume the entire bag of bio char. The team at Domane learned the importance of respecting cooling instructions the hard way. After losing a few bags of bio char to combustion from within the bag, Domane made sure to give kilns enough time to cool. Fortunately, the biomass used is free, and all they really wasted was time.

3. The biochar has been transported out to Belaba, where production will have to take place for some time. The property we have been using has been partially taken by the City of Moundou for the expansion of the nearby bridge. The team we trained last year in Belaba will oversee production and help with sales. The team, Association pour la Protection de l'Eco-Système (APRO-ECO), has been waiting for this moment for a long time. Unable to collect enough raw material around the Moundou area, they knew it had to come from rural areas. (See picture of the property during the construction work).

But challenges are to be expected. Good things do not come without problems. In fact there is a saying in Chad. If a project doesn't come without problems, it's not a real project.

We still need capital to pay APRO-ECO members for the upcoming production of Eco-Charcoal. Please continue to support our project! Here is how you can help!

1. Continue to engage in our project by making another donation.

2. Share our project by emailing or 'liking' our GlobalGiving page.

3. If you have a personal website, embed our project widget, it's easy and can really help us raise awareness among contacts, friends and family. (see instruction on this page)

Moundou - ENVODEV Chad is pleased to announce that the tests they have been making on sesame chaff have been positive. Sesame is grown across southern Chad, and like rice-straw, is burned after harvest.

On 09 November our team tried carbonizing sesame chaff just east of N'Djamena. Since those preliminary tests, Aquilas, Ghislain, and members of APRO-ECO have been collecting sesame chaff in Moundou to get enough char to make briquettes.

According to Aquilas, the charcoal briquette quality equals that of the rice-straw charcoal. This news comes at a great time as ENVODEV is in the process of turning this project into a larger sustainable vocational program (Charcoal as Vocation). 

Along with this encouraging discovery for our project, our ENVODEV staff in Chad has been working closely with villagers of Tilo and Belaba to test a new form of binder. The current binder used to make the briquettes is manioc, a root also known as Kassava. But manioc remains our number one cost for briquette making, and the cost is fairly high. That expense will decrease with time as ENVODEV forms partnerships with local manioc cultivators, but in the meantime, a cheaper binder would be more than welcome to find. Women of Belaba made a new binder from a plant that grows in the wild. This plant, used to make a basic sauce called Tan Koul, is much more abundant and available than manioc, and in terms of cost, represents only one fifth of what manioc costs. 

Both the discovery of sesame chaff as a new form of bio char and the wild plant as an alternative binder will inevitably help the eco-charcoal project become more accessible to everyone, and more easily sustainable. 

Last Friday was a good day for Apro-Eco! The group produced a total of 384 eco-charcoal briquettes. This represents 1.5 bags of charcoal, which can last up to three weeks for one household.