Chance Encounters

On Monday we made our fourth visit to Nkoarisombu to check on their progress after the briquetting training. We went primarily to answer questions or to fix any problems that arose during the two weeks after the training. The VICOBA members did not have any issues thus far and have been working on their own compost piles at home. We also asked them about charcoal sellers in the area, as we would like to look into making briquettes using charcoal dust. The group does not have ready access to charcoal and they primarily use wood, so we will continue emphasizing biomass composting. We will meet with them again next week to take a look at their compost piles and give them feedback.

A few weeks ago, we were getting out of a dala dala and met a pastor named Sossy who worked in a town called Moivaro, close to Arusha. He showed interest in our work and said that he would like for us to visit his home before we left Tanzania. After our visit to Nkoarisombu on Monday, we headed over to Moivaro to visit Sossy and see his workplace. Sossy works at Moivaro Tumaini (“Hope”) School, a non-governmental school dedicated to providing a good education to children from impoverished families. Sossy described his frustration with government schools, many of which have one teacher for 300 students. Sossy wants to lower this student to teacher ratio in his school, aiming to have 5-6 teachers educate around 150 students. Currently, his school has 2 teachers with salaries larger than what Sossy can pay them. Most of the children’s parents cannot pay more than $1 for their child’s education, so the school is struggling to obtain funding to complete construction.  Sossy relies on volunteer groups and donations to continue construction of the school.

The school's two classrooms

Nik and Sossy in front of the multipurpose building

As his wife sat us down for coffee, Sossy explained the issues with cooking meals for the children. Charcoal is readily available to the area, but it costs around 4,000-5,000 TSH every 2-3 days. This fuel cost is very high, but Sossy and his wife have not been able to find cheaper options cleaner than wood. We talked to them about our briquetting and stoves projects, and Sossy  and his wife were very interested in both technologies. They asked us to teach them and the surrounding community about briquetting, so they might be able to save money and possibly create revenue for the school. We eventually decided that if we provided  a training program, Sossy would gather interested members from the community to learn about briquetting  and create their own program. We plan on having the training next week and will adopt a program similar to what we taught Nkoarisombu.

Inside a classroom

In front of the gate to the school

Our briquetting project goal for the upcoming week is to create a poster highlighting the most important aspects of briquetting, which we will use in training programs and plan on giving to EARD-CI so they may continue briquetting training programs after DHE has left Tanzania. We look forward to teaching more communities about briquetting, so they may cut down on fuel costs and even generate a source of income.