Nkoarisombu Briquetting Training

Nik and I visited Nkoarisombu (Lulu VICOBA) on Monday morning to hold our intensive briquette training session for interested VICOBA members. Naomi from EARD-CI came along with us as a translator, and was very helpful at translating for the four hours of training.

We began with discussing how the group plans on gathering materials for their briquetting program. Each member will be bringing materials from their home to their meeting location. After establishing the group's source for raw materials, Nik and I reiterated the general briquetting process. We then went into details about material processing, including material grinding, decomposition, and mixing. We took the group outside for demonstrations as we explained each process. We brought materials that had been composting for the past 3 weeks to show the group how to compost and how to tell when the biomass is ready. With help from the Legacy Foundation's instruction manuals, we taught Lulu everything we knew about briquetting, emphasizing the group's role in knowing how to compost different materials and develop new mixtures at different seasons. We wanted to ensure that once the DHE Summer group left, the VICOBA would be able to adapt once new materials such as coffee husk came in harvesting season. Nik and I explained to them the "ooze", "spring back", and "shake" tests, and had the group make their own biomass mixture with sawdust, paper, and rice husk Nik and I prepared the week before.

 After going over material processing, Lulu members were eager to press briquettes out of the mixture they had just prepared. We went over briquette production, explaining pressing and drying of the briquettes and press maintenance. The group continued to make briquettes until they were out of mixture, and then brought out the sawdust and banana leaf mixture they had prepared earlier. This mixture was not suitable for making briquettes (and now they knew exactly why), so they added some paper as a quick fix so that they would be able to make more briquettes once Nik, Naomi and I left. We thanked the Lulu members for taking the time to attend our training. Nik and I will be returning in 2 weeks to give them feedback on the compost piles they  are going to create. We will be traveling to Lushoto this Wednesday and we hope to use the information we learn about briquetting on our trip to improve Nkoarisombu's briquette program and DHE's briquetting project overall.