Imani 2014 Mission Wrap-up
As we are now planning for our 2015 mission, it is important to briefly summarize what was achieved in 2014. This was another rewarding year for our small team of volunteers and supporters. We built on initiatives started in previous years and took on new projects which were important to Imani VTC.
David Guérin and Charles Frenette-Vallières, our Université de Sherbrooke Co-Op students, had a very successful work term and made some significant contributions to Imani VTC. They expanded the conventional composting project started by Michele and Sylvie in 2013 so that a new batch of compost is generated every week. A conventional composting project was set up at the Chekereni site in conjunction with the pig farmer next door. The project will be managed by Honesty, one of the carpentry shop workers, and the compost will be used in the Chekereni gardens and shared with the neighbour who provided the pig manure. In this way we share knowledge and build good will in the local community.
David introduced a new composting technique, known as Black Soldier Fly Composting, to directly convert pig manure into a food source (fly larvae) for our chickens and fish. This was an experimental program which showed enough promise, that the Head Mistress would like us bring this project to the production level. A former student, and now employee with Imani VTC, Dully, worked with David and will carry this project forward.
Charles and David worked directly with two Imani students, Ali and Innocent, to present their composting projects at two open houses held at the Chekereni commercial centre for the benefit of the local community. These Open House events were extremely well received, gave a tremendous boost to our students, and shared valuable information with the local community.
While David was working on the Black Soldier Fly project, Charles took the lead on designing and installing a new drip irrigation system for the school’s vegetable gardens. This new system replaced the original irrigation system installed by Greg John, CACHA’s first volunteer, and the School’s creator, Sista Placida. The new system has a large sediment filter which should help prevent the plugged orifices experienced with the original system. This new system, funded by CACHA, is serving as a test bed for much larger drip irrigation installations which are currently being planned.
Still on the agricultural theme, our Egg Production initiative has grown from 100 to 250 laying hens. This past year, the sisters embarked on a project of raising broiler (meat) chickens, which to date has yielded a good profit. Broiler chicks do not have the same long-term benefits as the Egg Program, but they produce immediate cash flow which allowed the sisters to sponsor a student’s tuition and board in exchange for his services tending the chicken flocks. Through the input of our technical advisors, John and Cora Beking, we continue to share best practices of poultry farming with the staff and students of Imani VTC.
2014 was the second year of a joint-venture project with Waterkiosk of Switzerland. We first met this NGO in 2013 when they had been asked to provide a new well for the primary school adjacent to Imani VTC. Subsequent investigation established that a new well was not necessary, rather the existing well had become plugged with silt and a small coupling had failed on the well pipe, effectively reducing the pumping capacity by more than 50%. Waterkiosk and CACHA cleaned the well and repaired the leak restoring adequate capacity for both Imani VTC and the Primary School. This initial project grew into a 3 year joint-venture to replace all of the leaking distribution piping on the Imani complex, install new high pressure storage tanks and provide an automatic pump control system. By December 2014, new high pressure riser tanks had been installed and we had replaced the critical piping on the VTC side of the complex. Further work is required on the control system and the buried piping at the primary school needs to be replaced. It is our intent to complete this work with Waterkiosk by December 2015.
Waterkiosk also have a very interesting solar oven project. Their design is essentially a solar slow-cooker which will cook traditional Tanzanian food over 3-4 hours using only the heat of the sun. Waterkiosk engaged Imani VTC (let by our Carpenter in Residence, Ted Dawson), to construct 6 proto-type ovens at our wood shop. Ted took this idea one step further and constructed a larger masonry unit at Imani that would be used for institutional cooking. The small solar cookers worked out very well and we hope to produce more of these this year. The larger masonry cooker did not generate adequate heat so we need to do some more experimentation in 2015.
When Ted joined our team in 2013 he led the charge to gather used, quality, hand tools to bring to Imani. CACHA supported the shipping of 5 pallets of tools in a container shared with the PTE project in Moshi. It took over a year, but our tools finally got to Imani just before Ted and I in September 2014. After these tools had been sorted and distributed to the Imani programs, it was apparent that we had more tools than we could use. This led to the Chekereni Open-House (referred to above) and accompanying tool sale. Tools of all sorts were sold to the villagers at “local” prices. The biggest hit was the files being purchased by the women to sharpen their pangas (machetes). Their men had better be on their best behavior! The revenues from these tools sales went to buy wood to make furniture in the carpentry shop. We plan on holding at least one more of these tool sales in 2015 to get our remaining tools into the hands of people who can use them.
For our fun event this year, we sponsored a field trip to a commercial seedling farm. This was an exciting outing for the students and gave them a chance to see what a little technology (irrigation) and good management could achieve. The school was split into 3 groups and each group was taken around the farm by one of the Tanzanian lead hands. My friend who manages the facility said his workers were extremely happy to share their knowledge and were empowered by being able to share their accomplishments with our students.
In our commercial woodshop, Ted worked with Msofe and his staff to create two pieces of furniture for our friend Sandra Proctor. We would like to significantly expand this capability and are hoping that the wood purchased in 2014 will spur a flourishing custom furniture business in 2015. There are still many hurdles to overcome, but the woodshop could be a major contributor to Imani’s financial self-sufficiency.
One of our major set-backs was a failure of the Landcruiser engine which required a $2000.00 rebuild. This was not envisioned in our budget for this year, but there did not appear to be any alternative source of funding for the repair and the vehicle is essential to the school’s operation. Sister Adella actually diagnosed the cause of the failure being the repetitive filling of the vehicle’s radiator with water from the school that is high in salt. This was necessary because the coolant recovery tank was not replaced after an earlier accident. This is a strong lesson, that preventive maintenance saves money in the long term. The Landcruiser has now had its coolant recovery tank replaced with funds from the furniture sales, and we hope for a long service life (with regular routine maintenance).
We are currently posting our position for two more students from the Universite de Sherbrooke, and planning our 2015 program. Over the next two months, I plan to outline this year’s projects in a series of postings.
Please stay tuned,
Peter Morrin