2014

Total Donated in 2014: $6,343.40

March 2014- Total $3,116.84

$950.60 - PANAMA Latrine Initiative in Memory of Tim Ahrens

$722.08 - PARAGUAY Yerba Mate Tree Nursery

Yerba Mate Tree Nursery Project Update

$722.08 - SENEGAL Elementary School Bathroom

Peace Corps Volunteer Builds First Bathroom in Senegal School

$722.08 - MADAGASCAR Latrine Construction

Latrine Construction- Madagascar- Update

May 2014- Total $1,226.56

$1,226.56 - TANZANIA Water Catchment and Storage in Memory of Tim Ahrens

The purpose of this project is to create a reserve of 16,000 Liters of potable water for the 100 female boarding students. The system will capture rainwater and well water, allowing students to stay in the classroom and fetch water after class, and will create a reserve of clean water for the dry seasons. By increasing the availability of potable water and decreasing labor required to fetch water, dormitory girls' health and academic performance will improve. The school community hopes to implement this project between June and September 2014. The total cost of installing the two 8,000 L SIM tanks attached to rain gutters and a water pump is 7,064,000 Tanzania Shillings (TSH). The school will contribute 550,000 TSH in cash and 1,215,000 TSH in construction materials, manual labor and transportation costs. A water committee comprised of nine staff members, led by the headmistress, is responsible for budgeting, implementing, and evaluation of this project. The committee chose the water catchment and plastic SIM tanks because of the system's durability and relative simplicity to repair. Nevertheless, the committee has reserved 400,000 TSH for future maintenance costs the system might need. After the system is build, the committee will continue to meet every semester to ensure water resources are being effectively and sustainably utilized by the school community.

TANZANIA- Water Catchment and Storage Project Update

September 2014- Total $2,000

$957.62 - TOGO 4 Stall VIP Latrine

Our middle school, with about 350 students doesn't have a latrine. This means that each day students are required to walk into the nearby snake filled field to go to the bathroom. Girls have to walk even further to find adequate cover.

This project will allow students to stay in class longer, allow for a more sanitary environment and will encourage menstruating girls to come to school.

The school is contributing money for part of the building materials and donating their labor to help construct it.

$638.42 - TANZANIA Primary and Secondary School Water and Sanitation Project

Both the village's primary and secondary school don not have a reliable source of water for daily activities such as cooking, washing hands, watering, and washing dishes. Each school has a student body of 300 students and about 10 teachers. The majority of the time, students have to use their valuable school time to fetch water, which is keeping them away from their studies. In addition, with water being a problem to get, students don't wash their hands after using the bath room facilities, which makes spreading germs easy and increases the number of absences in the school due to students being sick. The proposed project is to build a hand washing station for both the primary and secondary school. These stations will be connected to a rain water catchment system, but also could be filled up manually. Each hand washing station will have three faucets, the tank will be 3,000 liters and will be connected to a gutter system on one side of the building. The government and school board designed this project because of the positive outcome from the similarly designed water catchment system built at the health clinic earlier this year. The project will be take two months: starting at the end of September 2014 and completing at the end of November 2014. Both the government and the school committee will have meetings so that the building process will go smoothly. The village government, school staff, and the Peace Corps volunteer have created the project design, found the construction works from previous water projects done in the village, and the government and school staff will monitor the project every day to evaluate the process every week. Once the project is finished the school staff will monitor and evaluate the performance of the water tank and hand washing station every month and will identify and repair needs, which they will tell the village government. This is a sustainable project due to the fact that we are using a construction worker from a near by village to build the water tanks and teaching the local construction workers the process to build the water tanks. The local construction workers will gain new skills to build and repair the water tanks, and the community will be able to have these resources to build any additional water tanks. In addition, the school staff and the Peace Corps volunteer will teach the students good habits of hand washing and how to use the station. To oversee the implementation, this project, a committee was created. There are a total of 6 water committee members consisted from local government and school board. The community will provide housing and food to the construction workers as well as some transportation and some materials including: small stones, wood, a pvc pipe, and sisal sacks.

$403.96 - NEPAL Increased Water Security and Vegetable Production for Women

Farmers

The purpose of the project is to provide the farmers in town with the opportunity and potential to produce enough vegetables in their gardens to provide a sustainable living and potential for sales. The project will cover a total of eight months starting in October 2014. The current state of the farming community in that the farmers rely on the growth of grains (wheat, corn, rice, and mustard) for subsistence farming and use very little land to produce a variety of vegetables for a healthy diet. There are 28 households and all homes currently rely on subsistence farming. Of the 28 households, only 3 farmers (10%) have reported that throughout the year they were able to sell some of their vegetables in the local market. The challenge is that substantial water is not available throughout the year.

The goals of this project are:

1) All 20 members of the farmers group will apply methods of sustainable garden management learned through Peace Corps Partnered training by May 2015

2) With the increased access to year round irrigation water through the installation of a pump and tank irrigation system, by May 2015, 8 farmers (40%) will report an increase in vegetable production and an ability to sell vegetables in the local market. The members of the community will provide assistance in all phases of the project. All members of the women’s farmers group will participate in training and demonstrations for vegetable production. With the increased knowledge and skill, the women farmers will be able to provide an additional source of household income through farming. As a collective, the community will pay 25% of the monetary needs. All members of the community will assist in the collection of local tools when available and will perform all unskilled labor. The total cost of the project is $5,408.37 (USD) with a total cash and in-kind community contribution of $2,884.41(USD) and requiring input from the grant of $2,523.96 (USD).