Dec 2017 / Feb 2018No. 141

28th February 2018

Project Progress

Yi Women Health and Income Generation Project in Yingjing County

Health training on stomach,bronchitis, heart and lung diseases

On 7th Feb, a health general knowledge sharing activity on the topic of stomach problems and bronchitis was held in Daping village. 42 women participated in the session. DORS Yi staff used PPT projection with clear pictures to illustrate the disease causes with examples in  Yi language for Yi women. As the topic was familiar to all people, (most of them also have at least one of the symptoms in the family), all participants were very interested in the session, and asked a lot of questions. All participants will correct some of their bad habits in daily life,  including diet, following this meeting.

Another health training session on “Heart and lung disease” was arranged on 19th Dec in Daping, as most of the villagers were  out of village for work last time. 13 villagers participated including 12 women. As before,  training covered symptoms, prevention and treatment for these illnesses.  

Grant for Micro Projects: Breakfast Shop and Mill House

On December 27th, DORS signed the grant project agreement with 2 households (Ms. Hammaromo and Hammaroze) of Tazishan village to support them running “breakfast shop” and the mill house respectively for income generation. Ms. Hammaromo told DORS: “A lot of children from Tazishan village go to school without having breakfast, it will be a good chance to provide breakfast for children and also for adults who are busy at work”. Hammaromo wanted to open a mill house in the village so that all villagers don’t have to go to town to mill. She was confident with running the mill house as she has experience in running a mill house in Liangshan prefecture years ago.

Grant project progress

On 4th January DORS provided 1500 Yuan for Azhi’s pigsty construction：On 23nd Jan, DORS gave Ms Hamamoromo and Hamaroze the second grant of 2500 yuan for running breakfast shop and mill house respectively  and the two projects were running well.On 25th January, DORS delivered a grant of 1600 yuan for household Qumichiri to buy chicks.In January, chickens raised by the 5 demonstration households were ready for sale. Some have sold out at the price of 80-90 yuan and they have continued to buy chicks.

Second grant disbursement to Wangxia                                  Provided Mr. Qumuchiri the grant to purchase chicks

         Wangxia was selling breakfast                     Households were selling chicken during Chinese Festiva

On February 8th, DORS decided to support 9 Yi families to raise pigs in Tazishan after assessment. They had participated in DORS income generation training and had their own pigsty. Each household received a grant ceiling of 2000yuan to buy sows. Given that the pig raising could cause environmental  pollution, DORS will assist households to improve the pigsties in March, by building, for instance, manure pits to collect the waste and then use it for agricultural cultivation.

Latest progress of sow raising project

In mid February, household Shiyemuri’ sow gave birth to 10 piglets. Households Qiluo and Yibumuniuge completed their pigsty construction, and received 1500yuan and 1300yuan respectively for the construction from DORS. 

Sow breeding technical guidance

Household Ms. Yibumuniuge’s  sow hasn’t been breeding since being purchased 6 months ago from supplier. She wanted to change the sow to another, but the supplier didn’t agree with that and said it was caused by the feeding management. Therefore, DORS invited the supplier to check the sow management and find out the solution. After checking the sow living environment and the sow situation (the sow was thin but it was in a better condition compared to a few months ago), the supplier said that the sow has no problem, He suggested giving some medicine and more food to the sow and keeping it in a dry and clean pigpen for 2 month., He said the sow should get pregnant. The supplier promised that he will give another sow if it fails to  breed after 2 months following the guidance. The household agreed with that.

Guidance on Chicken Raising

As the weather is getting cold and villagers lacked technical experience of raising chickens, some chicks died in the 5 demonstration project households. DORS technician Mr. Bai and project staff visited all households to check the situation. In general, households had tried hard to improve the chicken coop to keep it warm, but it still couldn’t prevent the winter cold. And the hygiene was not good in the chicken coop. Therefore, Mr. Bai and project staff assisted households to use Chinese traditional ways to feed chicks and clean the chicken coop. They helped 2 households fix the chicken coop firmly to keep them  warm.

Community project experiences sharing workshop

On 26th December, DORS organized a community project experiences conclusion workshop with 10 representatives from Daping village and 22 representatives from Tazishan village.. The conclusion of the two years project experiences in two communities was shown in the exhibition panel, which included the advantages and disadvantages of the project, existing problems and needs in the next step.  The project conclusion content covered the drinking water, community health, income generation, technical training, children’s education and capacity building and so on. Drinking water management team member of Daping village shared his experience on the process of water system construction and management. A good management regulation is the foundation to keep a good water running system. For example, the water diversion entrance was damaged by a storm in September 2017.  With the cooperation of all villagers, the water system was repaired in a very short time, which provided good experience to Tashan water management. A chicken raising householder (Mr. Qumuchiri) from Daping village also presented his experiences on how to raise chicks and chicks management to others. Households who raised sows in Tashan have various outcomes: 5 households purchased the sows together on the same day, 5th June, some have already had piglets. However some sows were not able to breed, which was related to the management. Mr.Amilazhi was doing very well on sow raising and shared his experience with others. Lots of participants also raised some special needs in terms of income generation, such as:  how to learn to work in the town, receive  more  knowledge,learn Mandarin, open a shop, run a mill house, learn hair cutting, cake- making and tea garden management, animal husbandry training and so on. About the capacity building, the community project management members raised difficulties encountered during project management. For example, some team members may not be able to work according to the team leader’s requirement.

It was a good and open occasion for all participants to raise their questions and share their experiences, and was also good for the project running in the future.    

Visit to the tea factory manager

In late December, DORS director Guoyumei and project staff visited tea factory of Tashan and discussed with the factory manager how to assist villagers to increase income through the tea garden project. The manager said that water shortage, poor soil fertility and tea varieties lead to the tea quantity and quality being of  a low level. The tea variety would not change but the water shortage can be improved through irrigation system demonstration, which is under  consideration by DORS. Additionally, Tashan tea factory was working on the organic brands and improved villagers' awareness of the value of the quality and its brand in the market. DORS will work with the tea factory to do something on the tea garden project.

Visit to Township Government

On 27th December, DORS director Guoyumei and project staff visited Minjian Township, and had a discussion with local government on drinking water project, animal husbandry project, tea garden management technical training for further cooperation.

Help for the low-income family

Before the 2018 New year, on the 27th December 2017, DORS visited the low-income family of Zhuxiaobin in Tazishan and gave the household a bag of rice and cooking oil. The household which we visited is very poor due to the father Mr.zhu being  disabled  and effects of alcohol abuse, which had negative effect to his family including two sons. We hope the  sons have a good future after graduation from school.

Drinking Water Project

1. Extended 700 meters water pipeline to supplement the water supply for Daping Yi village to solve the problem of water shortage during winter. During the dry season of January, especially this winter, only people living in the lower position of the village could receive drinking water, others have to fetch water with bucket. Villagers approached  DORS and asked for support to extend the water pipeline to get water from a new found water source. On 12th January, Mr. Bai went with villagers to check the new water source site and calculated the length of pipe needed. After evaluation, DORS decided to support them by providing  the pipeline and some materials. Villagers will provide labourers to install it themselves. Each household provided one labourer, and 86 labourers were put on this project. Finally, the original water site was connected to the new water source in middle of January, and 86 households of the village benefited from this project. The nearby village of 100 households (about 300 people) also benefited from this project indirectly.

2. In order to better distribute the water to households, DORS assisted the Hamlet 2 of Tazishan Yi village to replace the broken water pipeline and pipe fittings. There are two reasons for water shortage in the Tazishan settlement: one is that the size of the drinking water pipeline which is connected to the reservoir is too small, so that it couldn’t carry enough water flow to each household. The second is that the water is insufficient in the original water source. The drinking water management team in Tazishan called for all villagers to look for a  new water source,  after he participating in the experiences sharing workshop in December. Now the village has applied for this project and work to solve the water shortage problem. Therefore, DORS provided technicians and materials such as 90PE pipeline to replace the 50 PE, and changed the size of 32# into 75# as well as the pipe fitting accordingly. Each household provided one labourer, 82 households participated in this project.

3.DORS supported 8 households of Hamlet 1 of Tazishan village to build a micro drinking water system, 35 villagers benefited from this project. Due to no suitable water source and lack of labour as villagers were out at work, villagers in hamlet 1 are lacking drinking water. They have had to go 6oo meters away to fetch water for 2 years. In this January, DORS met villager Mr. Jishilasha who knows about construction skills and is willing to work with DORS to organise villagers to work on the drinking water project for Hamlet 1. Villagers were very keen to work on this drinking water project although the construction required a lot of labour as the water source is in a very low position in the village. This project started on 8th January and was completed in late January, and DORS provided technical and material support. Villagers provided 120 labourers in total.

4.DORS assisted 5 households of Hamlet 5 who were living in old houses in Tazishan to solve the water shortage problem. The 5 households had to go 200 meters away to the Han village to fetch water. DORS went with villagers to look for water source and discussed the way to build water channel. DORS provided technical support and materials, villagers provided labours. The project started on 20th January, and was completed on 24th January, with 10 labourers. It took 5 days  and the drinking water project was finished and the water shortage problem  finally solved .

Mister Bai and the villagers look at the water source together

  

     Water mouth                              A deep dig                                             Water in the hospital

Household Health Clean-up Competition in Tazishan Village

In January 2018, an activity of “Household Health Clean-up Competition” was held in Tazishan village, 58 households participated in the activity. A week before the activity, all households started to clean up their houses and the area around them, which included living room, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and courtyard. On the competition day,11th January, 4 staff from DORS and 4 villagers went together to check all the house hygiene one by one, and gave a score from high to low to encourage villagers to keep a good environment.

                             A neat home                                                                 Award winning family

Tea garden management technical training

On 22nd and 23rd of January, 2018, DORS invited Ms. Wangqingbi, coming from Tea Factory of Tashan to give our villagers a training session on tea garden management in Daping and Tazishan respectively. 57 villagers in the two villages participated in the training. The training was mainly on soil management, fertilizer and pest control, tea garden environment maintenance, when and how to pick tea leaves to strengthen the villagers’ awareness on organic tea garden management. This trainer who is a tea buyer from  a tea factory was responsible for tea purchasing and selecting in Daping village, so she knew the current cultivation situation of the tea garden. The training targeted villagers’ needs. According to our evaluation, most villagers could understand the key point of the training, some women and elders were not able to get the meaning, so DORS project assistant Shenji illustrated the training content for villagers. Most of villagers thought the training was useful to help them improve the tea quality and thereby increase their income. They asked for further training for different tea garden planting management, and the tea factory told us that they are willing to do this.

Health slogan posters in villages

In order to improve villagers’ awareness of the personal hygiene and good habits in the village, on January 16, 2018, DORS provided indoor and outdoor health slogan posters to Daping and Tashan village. 6 outdoor slogan billboards were given to the 2 villages, and each household were given 3 posters for indoor use, with total of 414 posters.

        

Winter clothes delivery

In January and February, DORS called for staff to collect some second-hand winter clothes and send them to Daping and Tazishan communities for those who needed them especially for the children and elderly living in the old houses. We sent 5 deliveries to villages depending on what had been collected.   

Project management experiences sharing workshop

On the last two days of January, DORS invited Professor Dengweijie from Sichuan University to come to Xichang city to provide a project management experiences sharing workshop for 24 social workers of 4 communities of Yingjing county and Xide county. In addition, the government officers from Yingjing County, Poverty & Immigration Bureau, Poverty Alleviation Association and Security Department of Xide county also participated in this workshop. This workshop aimed to share experiences and constraints encountered during the project so as to assist the social workers to find out the ways to solve the problems they met and also to illuminate DORS work methods, procedures and mission for social workers to better know about DORS.

At the training meeting,Professor Deng explained clearly the national targeted poverty alleviation policy in connection with DORS’ poverty alleviation projects. President Xi said,  ’People’s desire to have a good life is the target of our party’. For DORS, our mission is the same as the  government’s which is to assist villagers to have a better life. Professor Deng used some special cases to analyze the key points and challenges of poverty alleviation according to the difficulties encountered in the 4 communities.

In addition, DORS’ Director, Guoyumei, gave all participants a presentation on project time-scales, DORS working processes, project requirement for the communities and so on.

At the end of the training, each community selected a training topic to draw up their action plan. In the feedback,the First Secretary coming from Daping village of Yingjing County said, ‘The training was very practical and useful for grassroots work. Women’s team leader Ms.Wangxia of Tazishan village said, ‘The training gave us a clear outline on how to arrange our work,and also how to budget.

Fuel-efficient Stove Project

Machang Village: In early December, we visited the fuel-efficient stove project in Machang Village. In late December we received from the village the applicants name list for the third batch of stoves. As the road to the hamlet 3 was damaged due to the storm, all project materials couldn’t be transported to the village, which affected the project progress. Machang villagers managed to fix the road surface so that all materials could reach the village in order to complete the stove construction before the frost season came. However, the project progress was slow due to only one stove technician being in the village. DORS checked and accepted the construction of 56 stoves and paid the project fund to villagers in early February.

DORS also signed the third batch project agreements with 32 households in Jan

Siguojue Village: in late December, DORS received the names of applicants for the 3rd batch of stoves, and signed the project agreement with villagers for a total of 12 households. We also checked and accepted the 75 stove which had been constructed and paid the project fund to villagers.

Hongxing Village: DORS signed stove project agreement for the first batch with the village leader Mr. AXiZiPo in early December. In total 24 households participated in this project. Considering the coming frost season, the project was extended to April 2018. DORS project manager Mr. Baishihai gave a set of stove construction tools to 2 trainees who were recommended by the village for free, and showed them the instructions. We visited the project on 20th December and checked the stove sample made by the local technician, which was the same as the sample DORS provided. DORS sent a technician to Hongxing village on 26th December to train the local villagers to build stoves.

In January the 2 trainees were well trained and built 22 stoves by themselves. DORS checked and accepted the 24 stoves, and paid villagers the project funds according to the agreement. Villagers were satisfied with the stoves and the effect. Some villagers were keen to participate in the next batch, if possible.

Qietuo Village: in January DORS signed agreement with village for the first batch of fuel-efficient stoves. With the Chinese New Year coming, villagers need more time to prepare the building materials. DORS selected the trainees and sent a technician to train them in the stove construction.

Other Projects

Ladder Project

In December DORS helped Daying village to sign the ladder project agreement with the supplier. All ladders were sent to the village and delivered to all project participants after they had all received the training on how to use and maintain them. Afterwards, we evaluated the project effects;  all villagers were  satisfied with the quality of ladders, which were better than the previous ones they bought by themselves. 74 households participated in this project and  villagers and DORS provided 17560 yuan respectively, in total 35120 Yuan.

Sale promotion for village agricultural products during Chinese New Year

After Lu Jiaming finished the village agricultural product project action plan in early December, DORS invited the volunteer Dongyibo from Eagle Plan organisation to take film and photos for village agricultural product. With 2 days’ filming, we have collected a lot of nice pictures, which could be used for a campaign and e-commerce promotion. We also assisted villagers to apply for food licenses and business accounts.

In early January, we helped villagers to prepare for the product introduction, packaging and filming. Then all agricultural products were ready for sale. On 10th January, all product on-line selling was launched with the help of ‘wechat’ and ‘wechat shop’ to promote it. The selling campaign lasted for 25 days, 60 consumers bought the products for a total of 11500 Yuan. Villagers sold 75kg sausages, 20 kg pork and 30 kg bacon, which were about 9000 Yuan, and villagers earned 2500 Yuan. 2 households involved in this campaign knew all about the e-commerce selling, another 10 households were interested in this project and were willing to participate .

Cooperatives Exchange visits and capacity building

In order to strenthen the networks of local cooperatives,  we arranged an exchange workshop  of "Cooperative opportunities and challenges." in late January. At the beginning of the workshop, all participants were confused on how to find out the opportunities and what the challenges are. When all constraints and resourses were listed on the table, our stakeholders were clear on the issues. Villagers from Ranmo are very active and have drawn up a plan, Wanping villagers also have some ideas for the future.

After discussion with Mr.Xiaoqing we have drawn up a cooperative capacity-building training actionplan which included the time and place. In early February, DORS organised the first cooperative capacity building training in Hanyuan County. All participants first visited the Yangping Sweet Orange Special Cooperative of Shimian County to have a concrete view on how to run a cooperative. and then a training was held on the cooperative management, policy and future development for participants to set up their own cooperative in the village.

Health Care General Knowledge Training in Siguoju and Machang Village

On December 20th-21st, DORS organized the first women’s health and hygiene training in Siguoju and Machang Village respectively. In order to include more women,this training was with cooperation from village kindergarten and invited children’s mothers to participate. We shared the prevention and treatment methods of pediatric diarrhea, fever and coughs with parents and showed them how to use the thermometers and formulate salt water with sugar. The participants and their children also received some bonus (household goods) through the activity games. All of them were very keen to participate in this training and would like to attend in the future. 

Learning/Communication/Contact/Visit

Annual Summary

During 2017 December to 2018 January, DORS finished the 2017 annual summary report and the work plan for 2018,all reports have been submitted to the Provincial Bureau of Poverty Alleviation and Immigration,and the Provincial Public Security Department. In January, Sichuan Yongle Accounting Firm conducted the 2017 annual audit for DORS.