An Update From Kenya

My name is Abdi Ma’alim. I’m quite new to ILF, I only joined this project here in Hagadera camp in January 2010.  I’m 27 years old, and fled Somalia with my parents when I was just 7 years old. So I have pretty much grown up in this camp.  I’m a stove monitor for ILF.  I go out into the household blocks and do assessments of who needs a stove. We would like to give them to everyone, but we do not have enough! After identifying our beneficiaries, I invite them to our shed on a specific date. When they come there we train them on how to use the stove in the right way so as to maximize its efficiency. We then give them the stove.

I also do follow-up monitoring, to see if our stove is being used right and to gather feedback from the beneficiaries.  I also try to do awareness creation, making my fellow refugees understand the benefits of using a fuel efficient stove (like our rocket stove) compared to cooking on an open fire which is culturally what we are used to.  I’m quite glad to be a part of this project and I like my job a lot!

Abdi Ma’alim
Stove Monitor
Dadaab, Kenya

"Keep Your Stick On Ice" - Initial Perceptions of Haiti from Lifeline's Newest Team Member

My first two weeks in Haiti have been informative and compelling. The people are beautiful and the language is both familiar and distant: the familiar romance of French intertwined and sharply contrasted by the distant rhythms of Africa. Haiti seems to be a country like many equatorial countries: full of contradictions. And with the elections approaching those contradictions are even more evident.  Almost daily Port-au-Prince experiences, what Haitians refer to as “manifestations” These come in many forms:
political rallies, clashes with the police, and often-violent clashes with the U.N. military.  This polyrhythmic city is restless and frustration grows.

Yet outside the city, in sharp contrast to the smog and pancaked structures of Port-au-Prince lies the immense beauty of nature.  Haiti is a mountainous country that is at times reminiscent of tropical Asia, at other times of equatorial Africa, and yet others, the deserts of Mexico. I am consumed by the smoldering question of what landscape in this tiny country looked like at birth.  By first impression it was desert. Yet a voice brought forth from the inner most soul of this varying landscape speaks of great forests of trees, immense and huge. Dense forest canopies coupled with colorful creatures and competitive undergrowth whisper from the soil. This is what speaks to me, the old souls of long-felled trees. The deforestation that has taken place is far reaching here. I wonder if something can be done to reverse the tide; to hold onto what is left and replace what is gone. ILF is one small organization that can contribute to this battle. And I hope my time here will be rooted in this changing tide.

Brian Martin
Environmental Program Consultant
Haiti

A Community Meeting in Omito Parish, Uganda

After a fifteen minute drive through rural farmland, the dirt roads narrowing at every turn - as if the natural landscape is willfully reasserting itself in advance of our 4x4 pick-up - we arrive at our destination. The homestead of Rose Ojok, Local Council Chairwoman for Omito Parish, is well kept; a series of tidy thatched out-houses offsets their principle residence, a small but welcoming metal-roofed farmhouse, and the open spaces are covered by carefully tended green clover. A good omen, I think.

Women look up from the work of preparing food as our vehicle pulls up and one or two lets out the now-familiar ululation of happiness – we’re welcome here. As the team prepares for the crowd that we hope will soon be arriving, Rose insists that I take a look at the stoves she’s currently preparing lunch on
– two ILF rocket stoves from our previous visit. I duck under the low lintel and enter into the hut, fully prepared to be engulfed in a cloud of smoke – I’ve seen the pictures of the thick smoke from indoor cooking and the reaction is unconscious. Surprisingly, I breath in cool air, and after my eyes adjust, I can see that only a small tendril of smoke is rising from the corner, even though the two stoves are burning at a full roar. I can’t help but smile. You’ve tested these stoves yourself in a lab, so you KNOW they work, I tell myself, but still, seeing is believing – this is the reason you’ve left my home behind for the next year, and it’s a beautiful sight!

Rose cooking with her stove

Rose's stove

Rose is overjoyed with the stoves, but I’ve figured that out even before the translation comes. In the opposite corner of the hut sits an elaborately constructed Lorena Stove – an intervention from some previous NGO. It’s a nice design, and I know it works well in other countries, but it’s clearly not meet Rose’s cooking needs - the proof is quite literally written on the wall. Not a single soot mark to be seen. Well intentioned, I think, but a testament to the complicated world of cook stoves – even a good stove won’t perform well if it doesn’t meet the needs of the targeted culture!

Rose’s niece Jennifer is outside chopping wood, a task I’ve grown familiar with having lived the last year and a half heating with firewood in central Vermont. I stroll over to lend a hand – how different can it be! Quite, is the clear answer of the dull axe as my first blow glances violently off the twisted branch that I’m trying to split. The second connects but gets so deeply imbedded I can’t pull it out. Finally, after much wrangling, I get the hang of it, but after 15 sweaty minutes I’ve still only managed to create a small pile - compared to the swift work of Jennifer, I’m clearly an amateur. My only consolation are the gaping smiles that paint everyone’s face when I look up. Good for a laugh, at least! I think, with a smile.

Jennifer chopping wood

After cooling down I glance at my watch. It’s been about an hour since our arrival. I’m enjoying myself and the setting is idyllic, but a feeling of apprehension is starting to build deep down in my gut. Where’s the rest of the community? It’s a feeling I’ve felt before - as a campaign organizer for the Obama campaign in 2008, I would arrive in advance of every community meeting with one question racing through my head, “will they show up, will they show up”.

One hour becomes two, and the nervous glances at my watch grow more frequent. All of this planning and nothing to show for it! The list of questions starts growing in my mind - maybe we’ve chosen a bad location, maybe we’ve chosen a bad day. Did we post enough fliers? Maybe people just aren’t interested… I’m stopped mid-thought as a young mother appears from the main path, her child bundled tight to her back and fast asleep in his perch. Another arrives, this time an elderly woman whose bare feet tell me that she’s no stranger to walking. Then a man on a bicycle, a well worn grin on his wrinkled face. Two more by foot. After the sixtieth villager, I stop counting and just sit back to enjoy myself. Its going to be just fine.

The community meeting in Omito Parish in action

 One of the children at the community 

meeting with stove bricks before mudding

Trainers of Trainers (ToTs) showing the community how to "mud"
their stoves.  ILF sells or gives the bricks, the base component of
the stoves, to community members and they then "mud" the stoves
themselves to make them fully operational.  

A ToT Trainer 

Three hours later, we pile back into the car. The road seems less wild in leaving than coming, and the voices of the team, talking excitingly behind me in Luo, echo the pleasure of my own thoughts. Over 80 participants! A list of over 180 names submitted to us by Rose, all people who want a stove! The community’s excitement after we announced our plan for a new delivery! 9 newly elected community trainers and dates set for their training. And I thought the community election was going to be a nightmare to organize! A clear date set for our return. We did it!


A hand falls gently on my right shoulder, startling me from my thoughts. “That is ‘African Time’” Patrick says, laughing from the back seat. I turn around, and for the third time that day, I smile.

Nicholas Salmons
Environmental Program Coordinator
Uganda

Fundraising, Lifeline Style

            6:30 had come and gone and I was just returning to Deborah and Dan’s house to change my clothes and go back to the gallery to actually attend the fundraiser I had spent the past six weeks planning.  As I had hurriedly showered, changed clothes, and sucked down a glass of white wine I was truly looking forward to attending the event.  More than the fundraiser, however, I was looking forward to the coming days when I could leave behind the world of caterers, art galleries, and printing costs and focus on writing grant proposal, reading reports from the field, and becoming more involved with Lifeline’s various programs.  Sounds a little crazy right?  Fortunately, I don’t think that I am alone in this sentiment.  Lifeline is made up of a group of people who would rather talk about how long it takes a fuel-efficient stove to boil water and how many boreholes in Uganda need to be visited and repaired than catering menus and event programs. 

           

That being said, there is no us without you.  We wouldn’t be able to sit in our office in DC and celebrate the latest figures from Haiti (our institutional stoves have the capacity to save schools with 1,000+ children $20/day) without the people who support our programs.  300 stoves couldn’t be distributed every month in Dadaab refugee center without those of you who have attend Lifeline’s fundraisers.  4,500 families in urban camps in Haiti wouldn’t have stoves without those of you who have donated.  Nearly 40,000 people in Northern Uganda wouldn’t have access to clean water without those of you have told your friends about the work we’re doing.  There would be no Lifeline without your support and for that we are forever grateful.

            For those of you who were unable to attend, the fundraiser was a blast.  As we joke at the office, we may not be great businessmen (and women), but we know how to throw one hell of a party.  There was dancing, drumming, singing, drinking, eating and what kind of non-profit event would this be without speeches?  We heard from the Department of Energy’s Assistant Secretary for Policy and International Affairs David Sandalow, author of the best-selling book Slave Hunter Aaron Cohen, and of course our founder and the man who makes it all happen, Dan Wolf.  Around 10:00 as the guests trickled out, the wine stopped flowing, and we all hurriedly cleaned up before the gallery kicked us out, we all breathed one large, collective sigh of relief.  Despite the fun we had had, the message we had been able to broadcast, and the money we had raised we were all ready to buckle down and get back to work.  That’s just our style at Lifeline.  But, like I said, there is no us without you, and for those of you who attended this year’s fundraiser or who have been able to donate, we thank you.  

            As the lights were turned off and the last person exited the gallery we unanimously decided that next year in an effort to raise more money and reach out to more people, we would hire a professional event planner.

Rachael Reichenbach

HQ Intern 

Lifeline and Invisible Children Work Together to Improve Access to Clean Water in Uganda

Read Invisible Children's blog post to learn more about the joint initiative between Invisible Children and Lifeline to drill 20 boreholes and provide clean drinking water for 24,000 Ugandans over the next three months.

A Dispatch from Haiti

Port-au-Prince, Haiti
October 29th, 2010

Every Home Needs a Stove – An Improved Stove!

In early February 2010 International Lifeline Fund (ILF) arrived in Haiti to provide emergency relief to victims after the devastating earthquake that struck the island on January 12th 2010.  ILF came to Haiti to share their experience and passion for alternative cooking technologies.  ILF knew that, more than ever, after the earthquake families would need safe and efficient stoves to help them rebuild stable and sustainable lives amidst the rubble.  Whether living in a tent, under a tarp or repairing a broken home, improved stoves offer families daily savings on cooking fuel that can make the difference between eating two meals instead of one per day or being able to send a child to school.  ILF has witnessed that even small fuel savings, of 50 cents per day, add up to meaningful differences in the lives of our Haitian brothers and sisters.  

I (Elizabeth Sipple) joined the ILF team as the Haiti Country Director in May 2010.  I have lived and worked in Haiti full-time for over four years.  In 2002, while completing a GIS research and mapping project in the rural mountains of the Artibonite Valley, I was confronted by the incredible challenges that rural Haitians face (lack of health care, schools, infrastructure, technical assistance, food security).  I was struck that almost every family I met hoped that their children would have the opportunity to receive an education so that at least some of the children could find work away from the land.  Farming was so hard with so little profit that the younger generations were losing all interest in working the land; farming was no longer a respected profession.   It was painful to see that the farmers felt minimized by society, by the very society that they were nourishing through their labor.  I believe strongly in the abundance that nature can offer when stewarded correctly.   I also personally feel a deep respect and awe for the capability of those who work the land tirelessly to feed their families.  After my initial experience in rural Haiti I had already hatched a plan to return and as soon as I returned to the United States I decided to redirect my studies to the science of Agroecology. I choose Agroecology because I wanted practical tools to address what I felt were critical challenges in Haiti.  Overtime, I have come to better understand the complexity of the challenges that Haitian peasant farmers face, many being political and not agricultural.  In Haiti I have worked with people to achieve small sustainable victories (private tree gardens, small community nurseries, the strengthening of community organizations…) and I continuously learn how to work more effectively in a country full of complexity.

On January 12th I was in Port-au-Prince to experience the horror of the earthquake – the shock, the rush to action, the sadness.  I must say, however, that what will always stay with me is not the chaos or the sadness but the solidarity and the sense of hope that I felt all around me in the days following the earthquake.  In a time of so much need I saw giving and sharing everywhere.  Under the pain of all the loss there was a vein of deep hope that this tragedy would be a catalyst for change – that all the lives would not be lost in vain but instead remembered as the foundations of a new beginning for Haiti.  It is now 10 months after the earthquake and dramatic change is not readily apparent but I keep the hope of the people that there will be meaningful change.  Through my work with ILF I am personally committed to laying bricks in this new Haitian foundation, which must be built sustainably with the ability to endure overtime. 

Since the earthquake ILF has been working with its Haitian team to identify the best alternative cooking technologies for the Haitian people – technologies that are culturally acceptable (user-friendly), fuel efficient, offer families economic savings, are clean burning (healthy) and durable.  ILF is especially interested in stoves that are able to use alternative fuels that eliminate the need for charcoal and wood completely.  Haiti is less than 2% forested and deforestation for fuel wood is the major culprit. With deforestation comes soil erosion, floods, lowering water tables, disappearing springs, unpredictable rainy seasons and draught – and all of these phenomenon lead to diminishing crop yields and disappearing rural livelihoods.  Every year thousands of farmers abandon the rural parts of Haiti for the urban centers with the hope of finding work and a living that the degraded agro-ecosystems can no-longer provide.  Those who stay in the rural areas struggle to eke out a living on the denuded mountain slopes.  The deforestation of Haiti affects everyone in the country through high food and fuel prices, food shortages, over crowded cities, flash flooding… and yet every day more than 8 million people rely on burning wood or charcoal to cook their food.  This is the vicious cycle that ILF is working to intercept with improved stoves.  Through our work ILF is looking to promote two forms of sustainability: The first form of sustainability is environmental sustainability - by decreasing the demand on wood-based cooking fuels that lead to deforestation.   

The second is economic sustainability for families – by helping families decrease their cooking fuel expenses. On average our urban beneficiaries were spending 57.27 gourdes ($1.4 US) per day on charcoal before they received an improved stove.  With the StoveTec stove that ILF has distributed to earthquake victims our monitoring results show that families average daily expenditure on charcoal dropped to 29.47 gourdes.  On average displaced families are saving 27.8 gourdes ($0.69 US) per day due to fuel cost savings from their StoveTec stove or 778.4 gourdes ($19.4 US) per month.  To give you an idea of what 778 gourdes can provide a family we have listed some common items and their prices below:

• One gallon of oil = 250 gds
• One 25 kilo sac of imported Tchako rice = 750 gds
• One 25 kilo sac of local beans = 1,200 gds
• A Trimester (3 months) at a mid-range primary school = 2,000 – 2,500 gds (667 – 833 gds / month)

I would like to personally thank those who make ILF’s work in Haiti possible through their generous donations.  Without you ILF would be unable to provide improved stoves to Haitian families– 4,500 stoves and counting!!!   Thank you very much for your generosity and your solidarity with the people of Haiti. To learn more about ILF’s work in Haiti please visit the Haiti section of ILF’s website (www.lifelinefund.org).  

With love from Haiti,

Elizabeth Sipple

Haiti Country Director

E-mail: esipple@lifelinefund.org

Tel.: 011 (509) 3 622 6228