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Expect the unexpected!

6/25/2013

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            I arrived in Chad around 11pm Sunday before. Slept in N’Djamena and then awoke in the wee hours of the morning (4am) to catch the first bus leaving the capital. It took nine hours traveling in 106F/41C heat, sweat gluing us to our seats, for us to arrive in Moundou. Later, after we recovered a bit from our travels we met with Aquilas and Ghislain, two Chadians who work for ENVODEV. We made plans and laid out our goals for the next two weeks: test the Eco-Charcoal’s efficiency, streamline production of the Eco-Charcoal, and make a high efficiency cook-stove to better utilize the Eco-Charcoal. Sounds like an easily achievable list, right? Unsurprisingly, our plans didn’t quite work out the way we had anticipated. But, then again, this is Africa. Things not going according to plan almost becomes the plan if you catch my meaning. 

            First of all, let me tell you about the charcoal project. While we thought we would be streamlining the production process and testing the Eco-Charcoal, Chance granted us a new opportunity by damaging 14 bags of bio-char with flooding. How lucky is that? Having discovered the sopping bags we immediately dried the bio-char in the sun. We are now getting to test the viability of the bio-char after it has been exposed to water. While, on our own, we wouldn’t have thought to douse the bio-char in water, Chance thought it might be an innovative idea.  Imagine, either we find out that the bio-char is unusable (which would be an unfortunate waste), or we find the bio-char is resilient after being soaked. While we didn’t plan on conducting this experiment, hopefully the latter result will prove true thereby transforming a setback into an opportunity. Yet, life wasn’t done playing with us yet. We were also given a turn to test our reflexes and ingenuity when violent storms hit Belaba during our fourth day of production, which was the first day we were there to actually visit. When we saw the clouds come, our lightning fast responses were matched only by the lightning itself as we rescued all the drying bio-char from the rains and stored our workstations. The storm was violent enough that it ripped the doors right off their hinges at our production site. Such storms have continued to test our ingenuity and perseverance as they have repeatedly crashed over our production site. 

            We have also had the opening to ferret out the best workers in Belaba. After utilizing a team who were not able to meet the production quota, we have streamlined our crew. Now we have an Eco-Charcoal production crew who, if they aren’t the fastest this side of the Atlantic, Pacific, Southern, Arctic, and Indian Oceans, are at least the best in Chad. Yet, even the most dedicated crews can’t function in a production line if they aren’t communicating with one another. One such issue with the line of communication presented itself when we came upon our bio-char crew lounging around waiting on manioc paste. The paste takes about forty –five minutes to make, and no one had told the paste maker that they needed paste until they needed paste. This left them with about forty-five minutes of wasted production time waiting while the paste was made. While these disturbances can be frustrating, the experience we are getting from all the errors we’ve observed, like the manioc paste not being ready on time, ultimately helps us as we continue to refine our methods.

            Overall, though it has been quite fun to smooth out the production process as well as play dodge with the weather systems, we have decided to begin the process of taking the next step in equipping and empowering the local community. We are currently finding a local business to partner with who can provide a production site as well as a staff to oversee the process. This business will take over the entire production process, as well as full charcoal program responsibilities, and eventually become financially independent. While production this year will be ending soon as the rainy season approaches (the rainy season lasts from May-October) operations will begin again at the end of October, beginning of November. 

            Another exciting development that occurred in Chad this week was the completion of our first high efficiency FIRES (further improved rammed earth stove). These cook-stoves cut down on household pollution (which therefore reduces local risks of pneumonia, chronic pulmonary disease, lung cancer) while also dramatically increasing the efficiency of normal Chadian cook-stoves, which lose 80% of their total energy load. While we are excited to have finished this F.I.R.E.S. we have also found a local woman who builds stoves of her own, which allow for a 50% charcoal efficiency increase. This discovery provides us with another opportunity to partner with local community members by possibly creating a partnership with this young lady who has struggled to sell the cook-stoves on her own. Potentially, our facilities could offer two forms of cook-stoves, the rammed earth version, as well as this young woman’s.

            Lastly, let me give you an update about our valiant Henry Hilux, our faithful truck, who has been wheezing as of late. With the driving we have had to do for the production season, as well as preparing a mould for our efficient cook-stove; Henry has been creaking under the strain. As a temporary solution we began using moto-taxis to get around. While good in theory, it proved dangerous in practice. Motorcycle accidents are all too frequent in Moundou, and the hazards became all too real after our Envodev team member, Ghislain, was involved in an accident. Thankfully he came out unhurt, but we (Envodev and Henry Hilux) realized that we couldn’t continue to risk people’s lives in order for Henry to get a break. Unfortunately, after that resolution, Henry’s alternator took a turn for the dead when Chuck, Aquilas, and Ghislain were in Belaba testing charcoal. This required a large group of people to push Henry for awhile before they could call him back from the grave. Henry has told us that, while he’s happy to help, his 20 some years of faithful service are weighing heavily upon him, and now he just wants to rust in peace. You can help us put Henry out to pasture today by donating at our GlobalGiving page.

            Well, that about sums up my past two weeks. Our time in Chad has been encouraging as I continue to see this Eco-Charcoal project take on its full body as well as see the first production of our F.I.R.E.S.

Till next time!

-David De Armey, International Director, ENVODEV

Partner with us today and support the successful work we are doing in Chad! You can do this in a variety of ways:

1) Sponsor our growing projects by contributing at our Global Giving page.

2) Share our project by emailing or ‘liking’ our Global Giving page, following our Twitter feed (@ENVODEV), subscribing to our blog, or ‘liking’ our Facebook page. (Also, tell all your favorite friends about us!)

3) If you are savvy enough to have a personal website, why not help a friend out and embed our project widget onto your homepage? It’s extremely easy (especially for an informed individual like yourself) and is a fantastic way to raise awareness among family, friends, and colleagues!

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First production

6/7/2013

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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!
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My first mission to Chad

5/2/2013

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Meinhild Selbach has been volunteering for ENVODEV since May 2012. Based in Lyon, France, she assists David De Armey in administrative and accounting activities. She has helped develop a valuable system to enhance communication between France, the United States, and Chad. In February 2013, ENVODEV had the privilege sending Meinhild to Moundou to meet and train our staff. 

Meinhild shares her impression of Chad and the Eco-Charcoal project:
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Meinhild Selbach - During my visit to Chad in February 2013 I had the privilege of joining ENVODEV’s administrator Ghislain to the village of Tilo – about 20 km (13 miles) east of Moundou.

Leaving Moundou meant also leaving the asphalt road. The road out to Tilo was just sand. 

ENVODEV had been to Tilo a couple of weeks before to train them in rice-straw carbonization. Our visit was basically a check-up on how they were doing, and take bags of carbonized biomass that they had already produced back to Moundou.

After having heard about the rice-straw carbonization and having seen many pictures of it – very similar to the once I took – it was good to actually be on site and talk to people about the importance of what they are doing.

The “groupement” in Tilo that ENVODEV is working with, had been discouraged by the fact that most of the straw had been burned before they could use it for carbonization. 


I talked to one of the men about the importance of getting young people involved, and more than that, making an effort to explain rice-straw carbonization to kids. It was mostly kids that had put the straw piles on fire to chase the mice and rats that had been hiding in them. 
Chadians use an expression... : You have hands of a goat... as in, you are unable to deal with the situation that’s before you like a goat that is not able to remove a difficulty in its way...
I think the opposite is actually true.

Very early during my stay in Chad I observed that Chadians are very willing to learn and later I discovered that they are fast learners.
Let’s take the example of these four young guys. They followed everybody on the fields and sat there for a very long time just observing what the men were doing. One of them started helping and very soon his three friends followed his example. 

Chadians use an expression that would be literally translated “You have hands like a goat” which is used to say “you are unable to deal with the situation that’s before you like a goat that is not able to remove a difficulty in its way”.
I think the opposite is actually true. Chadians are able to deal with difficulties and are most of all able to learn new things.

They have to change paradigms. They need to learn to think outside of their “box”. Traditionally, rice straw is burned since it withers very slowly. That’s what everybody knows. When kids living in Tilo started playing with the straw and setting it on fire, they did not think of it as a bad thing. The youth needs to learn about carbonization and the need for it. Living in the village, they do not necessarily understand how valuable briquettes made from rice straw are to people in the nearby city of Moundou. Only when they know the value of the straw, they will understand that they have to protect it.

ENVODEV’s activities have been expanding around Moundou this year.

The day after our visit to Tilo, I joined Ghislain and ENVODEV’s Tchadian Director Dadje Aquilas to the village of Badeï. Badeï is about 16 miles west of Moudou.

Again, soon after leaving Moundou, we left the aspalt road and continued on a sand road.

The goal of ENVODEV’s visit to Badeï was to show the process of carbonization to a “groupement” of women. This time sesame straw was used.
Again I was impressed by how fast everybody was joining in to help – sometimes even before things had been explained. Ever since that visit in February, the women of Badeï have been busy carbonizing sesame straw.


The couple of hours in Badeï have been a personal highlight of my time in Chad.

- Meinhild Selbach
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The couple of hours in Badeï have been a personal highlight of my time in Chad. Photo: Meinhild receiving a gift in Badeï
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Global Giving Fundraising Bonus Day : $892 closer to our year's goal!

3/14/2013

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Rodoumbaye Ghislain, ENVODEV Chad Administrator in Badei.
In just 18 hours our Eco-Charcoal Project received a total of $892! Thank you to all of you who have not only participated yesterday, but to all those who have been supporting the project since the beginning.

The fundraising bonus day yesterday brought our total to $6,460 since the day we launched our fundraising campaign. Without nearly 70 different donors, our charcoal project could not have progressed the way it has so far.

Please take the time to visit our fundraising page here, and read our reports. You can also stay informed through our email updates. 

Thanks again on behalf of the entire ENVODEV Team!




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New bio char and new briquette binder - Eco-charcoal

1/26/2013

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Ghislain holding sesame chaff near Ndjamena (Nov. 12)
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. 

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Field Report 03 - Adding Tilo to the Nya Project

1/24/2013

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Project Area (click to enlarge)
Since the beginning of December, the ENVODEV Chad Team has been working relentlessly at making the charcoal project happen. After a successful demonstration and preliminary training at Nya, we have been in the process of building new carbonizing kilns to transform as much rice-straw as possible. Fidel, the leader of the Nya Team, warned us that cultivators have already begun burning away rice-straw in their fields, and that we need to move quickly and do a full-training session as soon as possible. A full training session will last three to five days, and require funds we are still in the process of gathering. Global Giving has yet to begin the disbursement of funds raised during the December Challenge, during which over $5,000 USD was collected.

In the meantime, our ENVODEV Team has explored another area where rice is extensively cultivated. Dadje Aquilas and Rodoumbaye Ghislain reached a location called Tilo, just 20 km east of Moundou. This area is very productive, and a local team is already set up to receive training in Tilo. Dadje Aquilas and Djems, a Chadian volunteer, performed a first carbonization demonstration at Tilo, and have greatly motivated the new Team called "KOSGUELBE," which means Supporting a Village. Tilo will reinforce charcoal production capacity by sending carbonized rice-straw back to Moundou, where charcoal briquette production will actually take place.

By contributing to our project, you are participating in the economic development and environmental protection of Chad. Thank you for your support, and for taking interest in one of the most neglected regions of the world.

 David De Armey

International Director




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Disaster in Chad: Flooding

9/27/2012

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Flooded N'Djamena Neighborhood of Chagoua
(NEWS) LYON – September 27, 2012 (ENVODEV) – The escalation of crises in Chad will inevitably mark the precarious lives of Chadians in the months to come. Last year’s drought, that resulted in a famine in Sahelian Chad, has given way to just the reverse phenomenon this year, hitting much closer to Chad’s population and agricultural centers. Unprecedented rains have ravaged central and southern Chad, not only compromising crop yields, but displacing populations across the nation. According to a report released by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, close to half-a-million people have been affected, and hundreds of thousands of hectares of cropland compromised (IRIN, 2012). Just last week, as stated in a press release by Djamil Ahmat on September 21, 2012, the First Lady of Chad, Hinda Deby, launched a vast campaign to help those who have suffered total loss in N’Djamena. Several hundred humanitarian tents have been given to the families whose homes were destroyed by the floods (Alwihda, 2012). (See map below to view affected regions and statistics).

Yesterday, in a discussion with an emissary of the Ministry of the Environment in Moundou, ENVODEV National Coordinator Loubaramadji Dadje Aquilas was informed that rice crops in the central region of Bongor have been devastated. The Logone River, which flows south to north, rose and swelled so much that the flat plains have been completely submerged. The Chari River, of which the Logone is a tributary, consequently swelled as well. The Logone water level is so high that the vast rice plantations are in some areas completely submerged, and rice grains have rotted. Dozens of villages have been abandoned, and the only road from N’Djamena to Moundou has become the place to relocate due to its elevated surface. Families are living on the paved road in makeshift shelters while violent rains, though progressively diminishing in frequency this week, still sweep across the plain.

The charcoal project to be launched and expanded this fall will not suffer since ENVODEV is working in southern Chad, where the rice crops have been affected to a lesser degree. The yields are expected to be mediocre, exposing Chad to a much more severe food crisis at the beginning of next year compared to the food crisis this year due to the drought in 2011. ENVODEV Administrator Rodoumbaye Ghislain announced that ENVODEV’s charcoal project has received unprecedented support from Laokein Kourayo Medare, the Mayor of Moundou. More meetings with the Mayor are to be held in view of establishing a project in an effort to mitigate the environmental stress due to deforestation, a result of wood-charcoal consumption.

Deforestation is the leading cause of desertification in Chad. Because of the lack of protection from trees, the topsoil is exposed to the elements. The soil is baked in 45°+C weather for several months, then blown away by winds; this makes the ground incapable of absorbing the torrential rains during the wet season, particularly when the rains last five months instead of three as they did this year. This phenomenon has affected countries well beyond Chad.

The other result of excessive water is the increase in disease epidemics. Water is synonymous with typhoid fever and malaria and many other crippling diseases that chronically affect the country. Only time will show the extent to which these diseases will affect the Chadian population this year. Outbreaks of cholera are yet to be reported. 


Flooding situation Map: Chad
United Nations Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs. Relief Web.

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Come and meet us! 

8/3/2012

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New York City August 12th & 13th. Boston August 15th. Get in touch if you are in the area and would like to learn more about our energy and sanitation work in Chad.

Joshua Lohnes, Vice-President of the US Board, and David De Armey, International Director, will be coming through New York and Boston on the dates above.

For more information, please send a message to: 

- Joshua Lohnes, joshua.lohnes@envodev.org
or
- David De Armey, david.dearmey@envodev.org 
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ENVODEV getting support from local and national authorities.

5/16/2011

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ENVODEV responding to the Chadian plea.
When ENVODEV was established in Chad last year, local authorities in Mbaikoro and Mbaibokoum welcomed our projects as great news. When we explained our intentions regarding sanitation (composting project) and energy (eco-charcoal), they urged us to succeed and to get Chadians working on these projects as soon as possible. 
During my last visit to Chad, after our team worked with the team in Doba, Mr. Emmanuel Nadingar (the Prime Minister of Chad), came with the Environmental Advisor to the Prime Minister along with Mrs. Toupta Bougena (Minister of Health) to learn more about our eco-charcoal. They met with Mark Heath and Philomène, and actually had a meal cooked on our own eco-charcoal as they learned about the fabrication process. In Moundou, I met with a delegate of the Ministry of Community Care, and explained the health and environmental impacts of our charcoal and compost projects. These encounters are a big step forward for ENVODEV. Chad is difficult country to penetrate and the hardest phase for any organization is simply to start.
ENVODEV has received unanimous support from the Minister of Health and from the Prime Minister of the country. We are strongly encouraged to develop these projects as the government is soon going to crack down even harder on wood consumption in Chad.

Local authorities´ role in projects
As ENVODEV continues to promote its projects, local authorities have committed to facilitating our efforts as much as possible. Last year, after talking to the local representative of the state in Mbaikoro, the prefecture immediately gave ENVODEV a large piece of land to develop our activities. Authorities in Moundou, Doba, and Mbaibokoum have expressed their intent on assisting the progress of our projects in similar ways.

Yanice with Ambassador of France to Chad
Yanice will be meeting with the Ambassador of France to Chad today at 5 P.M. (local time) to present ENVODEV´s projects. The ambassador has heard of ENVODEV and would like to understand the nature of the projects. We are encouraged by the interest shown by the French authorities.

Momentum is growing and Chadians at all levels are bringing their support.  As the need for our projects to grow becomes all the more urgent, we need your support more than ever. Consider making a donation, and take part in projects that reach some of the most disenfranchised people in the world.

David P. DeArmey

International Director
david.dearmey@envodev.org


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