Amanda Ross
Amanda is Communications Assistant in Practical Action's UK head office.
Recommended reading: http://www.practicalaction.org.uk
Posts by Amanda
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It rained all day here in Warwickshire yesterday, but one of the top stories on the news was the hosepipe ban in the south and east of England. We take an instant supply of clean water for granted, because most of the time we have more than enough rain in the UK. How would we feel if we had to carry every drop into our homes ourselves? I for one would think twice before taking a bath!
In the Mukuru settlement in Nairobi, Kenya, residents pay more than 5 times as much for water as we do in the UK – and they don’t have the luxury of a piped supply into the home. Water has to be collected in containers from a communal tap – often some distance away. And, in times of scarcity, water prices inevitably rocket. In many rural areas of Africa, women and children walk for miles to collect water from wells.In the UK we struggle to reduce our use of water and government water saving advice mainly covers non essential activity such as washing the car and watering the garden.
In contrast, according to this article, Kashmiri children resort to shaving their heads when water is short so that their hair doesn’t appear unkempt. I can’t see this being a popular piece of government advice here!
Practical Action has innovative ways of helping people gain access to clean water. By developing a partnership between local people and the utility company, improved access to clean water has been achieved for many thousands in the Mukuru settlement. Restricting our supply may help us to appreciate just how good (and comparatively cheap) our water is and encourage us to do a bit more to help the 1.3 billion people who lack access to safe water.
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Sustainability or quick fix?
February 6th, 2012Temporary restrictions to energy supply, nationally or internationally are a frequent occurrence. I can recall energy shortages caused by striking miners in the 1970s, the OPEC embargo of 1973, the Iran/Iraq war in 1980, the 1990 invasion of Kuwait and last year’s Fukushima nuclear reactor shutdown in Japan to name just a few.
Renewable technologies use freely available resources such as wind, water and sunshine and are not dependent on the fluctuating world price of carbon intensive fossil fuels. It seems an obvious solution to focus our investment on these.
But the prevailing wisdom amongst developed countries is that quick fix high tech ‘geo-engineering’ solutions will solve the problem of global warming.
There is a history of environmental disasters associated with meddling with our planet’s ecosystems in unproven ways. Cane toads were introduced to the sugar plantations of Queensland, Australia in 1935 to control a pest called cane beetles. Over the years, with no natural predators, these toads have become a much greater pest than the original beetle. 
The Nile perch was introduced into Africa’s Lake Victoria for food and sport fishing. It has already eaten its way through 200 native fish species, and is still going. I could go on….Developed countries already make too many demands on the resources of our fragile planet while a third of humanity lacks access to modern energy. We should surely be concentrating our scarce resources on improving this situation rather than lavishing time, money and scientific expertise on unproven vanity projects. Practical Action has a wealth of experience to show that small scale renewable energy drives development.
2012 is the UN year of sustainable energy for all – we must ensure that is exactly what is does.
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Planting trees in memory of Wangari Maathai
November 7th, 2011Tributes have poured in from world leaders for Wangari Maathai, the environmentalist and Nobel laureate, who died in October. One of these was from Practical Action’s patron, HRH Prince Charles, who said:
“There are few people who have had such a profound impact on the future direction of humanity than Wangari Maathai. Her understanding of the link between human poverty and the quality of the natural environment undoubtedly influenced a generation of environmentalists and policymakers.”
She was a shining example for many of us who work at international development charity, Practical Action, so this week we planted two trees, and oak and a silver birch from the Woodland Trust, in the grounds of our office at Bourton on Dunsmore in her memory.
At the ceremony, Practical Action’s senior policy advisor, Patrick Mulvany said:
“She was an amazing woman, who I had the privilege to meet several times in London and Kenya, where she invited me to her home and we planted trees with local women. She saved forests, campaigned for poor women, political prisoners and activists in Kenya.”
The second tree was planted by Irina Pleva who had previously worked on the United Nations Billion Tree campaign, inspired by Wangari Maathai’s work.
The Green Belt Movement, established in 1977 mobilised hundreds of thousands of women and men worldwide to plant more than 47 million trees, restoring degraded environments and improving the quality of life for people in poverty. This work is closely in tune with Practical Action’s approach, which focuses on using technology to improve the lives of poor men and women without destroying our planet.
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That ‘eureka’ moment
October 18th, 2011
On a recent holiday in Sicily I visited the tomb of Archimedes, engineer and inventor of the 3rd century BC – famous for his ‘eureka’ moment. Born in the rich and powerful city of Syracuse, he benefited from the financial support of its ruler Hiero II.
He was considered the greatest mathematician of the ancient world and was responsible for many important discoveries. The Archimedes screw is still extensively used throughout the world as a method of raising water.
His home city of Syracuse was at war with Rome and under siege for two years with the result that Archimedes was obliged to devote a great deal of his time to the design of the machinery of war. He proved remarkably good at this. But imagine what he might have achieved if his work had been devoted to inventions for human good rather than human destruction.
In our sophisticated modern world we still devote a disproportionate amount of our budgets and great scientific minds to the pursuit of war. The technologies in which we invest most in the developed world are designed either to provide us with an even greater level of comfort and ease than we already enjoy or to destroy our enemies. And we expend vast sums in the destruction of our beautiful planet. Only a small proportion of our enormous wealth is devoted to finding solutions to the basic needs of more than a billion people in the world who live in poverty.
This is a great injustice and one which Practical Action is determined to address. Providing clean, sustainable energy systems, more easily accessible water supplies and better sanitation give poor men and women the opportunity to live healthier and more rewarding lives. Surely that’s worth fighting for?
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Schumacher at Oxford and engineering at Bradford
September 13th, 2011In mid-September, Oxford University held their annual alumni weekend, where a Schumacher centenary lecture was one of the events on the programme. This was held at Rhodes House, where Schumacher was enrolled as a Rhodes Scholar in 1930. Speaking to a packed house, Dr Donald Markwell, Warden of Rhodes House outlined details of Schumacher’s time at Oxford and his subsequent career, concluding that the Foundation had chosen very well when they selected him as a Scholar.
Schumacher’s daughter, Barbara Wood, author of his biography ‘Alias Papa‘, talked about her father and some of the influences that formed his philosophy and shaped his work.
Other speakers were Practical Action’s Simon Trace, who described how Practical Action is putting Schumacher’s ideas into practice in the developing world. The final speaker was Ann Pettifor of Advocacy International, who talked about the world’s current economic woes and the need to revisit the principles expounded in ‘Small is Beautiful’ to tackle our current crises both financial and environmental.
A lively crowd of science buffs came together on 14th September to discuss how engineers can help tackle poverty in the developing world. This event formed part of the British Science Festival which this year took place in Bradford and was one of a series of events that Practical Action is organising to celebrate the centenary year of our founder, E F Schumacher.
Taking as their starting point Schumacher’s ideas in ‘Small in Beautiful’ published nearly 40 years ago, Simon
Trace of Practical Action and Sacha Grodzinski of Engineers without Borders (EWB), led a lively discussion of technology options for poor communities in the developing world.
Technologies debated included biogas for cooking, animal vaccination programmes and the transport of crops across the mountains of Nepal. The audience were full of ideas and technical wizardry to solve these tricky problems, during a game of technology bingo.
Simon Trace introduced the audience to a range of Practical Action’s work and they were particulaly intrigued by the recipe for lollipops for cows and growing pumpkins on sandbars in Bangladesh.
Sacha Grodzinski then described how EWB harnesses the expertise of engineers from the UK to assist with projects in the developing world. Their programmes enable engineers to volunteer in projects in the developing world which take in account the a sustainable use of natural resources and minimise impact to the local environment by adapting existing low risk technology and using modern engineering methods.
Animated discussions were ongoing as the crowd departed for their next event at this exciting exploration of science and its impact on the world.
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Halted by the bell
May 24th, 2011By a delicious irony, the centenary debate at Portcullis House in London last Wednesday was halted by a division bell in the localism bill. MPs Martin Horwood and Alan Whitehead were talking about EF Schumacher’s influence on them and the relevance of his ideas to today’s economic crisis. Both men dashed from the room to vote in the House of Commons, bringing the debate to a rather sudden conclusion. The upside was that it left more time to share ideas and memories with each other.
Martin Horwood MP
Practical Action organised this celebration with the Schumacher family to mark this year’s centenary – Fritz Schumacher would have been 100 on 16th August 2011. More than 100 people, including family members, old colleagues and recent Schumacher converts gathered to discuss his contribution and to promote his ideas for addressing some of the problems we face today.
Schumacher's colleague, George McRobie
Schumacher set up the Intermediate Technology Development Group in 1966 which later became Practical Action and many other organisations including the Soil Association were inspired by his ideas. Barbara Wood, his eldest daughter, spoke warmly about her father and Schumacher quotes were flying thick and fast in the room.
We have come a long way since Small is Beautiful was published to wide acclaim. The coalition government’s localism bill, for all its faults, shows just how far, with even David Cameron being inspired by Small is Beautiful! There’s still a long way to go and we’d like to encourage you to share Schumacher’s ideas more widely – you can find out more on the centenary website. We’ll be holding more events around the country this year, why not join us at one or organise your own?
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Preserve and survive
January 24th, 2011
I spent some of last weekend making marmalade – an excellent activity for a cold winter day. Listening to Sir John Beddington on the Today programme this morning talking about ways of reducing food waste set me thinking about my weekend’s labour.
Many of our favourite foods have come about because of mankind’s need to preserve a glut of ingredients in an edible format that will keep. Yogurt, bacon, cheese, pickled onions and of course jam have all been developed in response this need.
In rural Africa, the absence of refrigeration makes food preservation techniques all the more vital. Practical Action has been disseminating information on simple food preservation and processing techniques for many years. Fascinating and useful technical briefs are available on Practical Answers on a wide range of items from ricotta cheese to pineapple jam.
The zeer pot is another simple technology, promoted by Practical Action, that helps to extend the life of fruit and vegetables, making the crucial difference to poor families in Sudan.
The answers to feeding the growing population of the planet do not always lie in the laboratories of the rich world, sometimes we need to be reminded of the simple techniques that have been used for centuries by farming communities to preserve the fruits of their labour.
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A solar lamp ends the history of the world
October 25th, 2010
If you haven’t already heard the final episode in Radio 4′s ‘A history of the World in 100 Objects’, I’d urge you to listen right now. The final object selected was a solar powered lamp and charger, an object not unfamiliar to any of you aware of the energy related work of Practical Action.The programme’s description of the benefits of energy for communities not connected to the grid, strongly echoes the message we have been emphasising for some time – that energy drives development. Lack of energy severely curtails people’s ability a to communicate, to earn a living and to study after nightfall. The health and economic drawbacks of kerosene are also clearly articulated. This example of a successful technology shows what a difference scaling up Practical Action’s renewable energy work could make to the world.
I don’t know if Neil Macgregor, the presenter, is aware of Practical Action’s work, but we couldn’t ask for a better advocate judging by this series. His dulcet tones draw you into the fascinating stories woven around the 100 objects, which has covered 2 million years of human history and spanned the globe. The variety was breathtaking and each 15 minute broadcast skilfully gave you a glimpse into the lives of the people associated with the object. This series has been an outstanding collaboration between for Radio 4 and the British Museum and I, for one, am pinning my hopes on at least 100, if not 1,000 more objects.
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Don’t panic
August 23rd, 2010
The stories of Noah’s Ark and the lost city of Atlantis reflect the long memories societies hold of disasters in their distant past. Today, with modern technology we see the evidence of catastrophes in faraway places and view the suffering of communities in our living rooms. We feel their pain and rightly help by giving money to appeals.
At Practical Action we aspire to change our world for the better. One of the ways we do this is by helping poor communities become more resilient to disaster, so that they can be in a position to say, like Corporal Jones, “Don’t panic!”, when disaster strikes.Practical Action projects feature a whole range of activities, from building flood proof or earthquake resilient housing, raising the height of wells so they are not polluted by flood water, to reinforcing the banks of rivers with stone gabions to reduce erosion.
But one of the most important aspects of this work is education. Just as regular fire drills in the workplace have reduced the number of fire related deaths in the UK, preparation for the moment disaster strikes can make a huge difference. Early warning sirens and tall watch towers give precious time to evacuate, with life jackets and boats to prevent drowning. Shelters on high ground provide safety for valuable livestock. Community meetings, drills at school, radio programmes and posters all raise awareness of the risks and give practical advice about how to react.And finally, when the flood waters recede or the rubble is cleared, training in alternative livelihoods helps to ensure that poor families can generate the income they need to rebuild their lives.
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The end of the world or the beginning
February 16th, 2010An article in last Sunday’s Observer reminded me of a conversation in the office recently. Apparently a growing number of people in the USA are preparing for the possible breakdown of civilisation by acquiring skills more familiar to us from ‘The Good Life’. Along with growing your own veg and keeping a pig, goes the generating your own power – just in case the worst happens. And the reason we were talking about this is that these groups often download information to help them from our very own Practical Answers.
In the UK, I think, we are a bit more laissez faire about such things, perhaps because the pioneer spirit is less deeply ingrained in our genetic make up. So to us, it all smacks a little of over reaction. But we might do well to consider the advantages of self help for simple, easily maintained power generation.
For 1.5 billion people in the world, the opportunity to generate their own power would make the difference between survival and a productive life. Lack of access to energy blights the lives of thousands of remote rural communities in the developing world. Most are too far away from centres of population ever to have hope of connection to grid electricity. For these communities, it’s not a question of preparing for the end of civilisation but for the start of a new life.
Access to electricity enables children to study after dark (which arrives pretty early in equatorial regions), to operate a fridge to store vaccines or to start up a small business such as carpentry or welding. Practical Action has some amazing stories of communities transformed by the arrival of power – projects that ensure that the technology is both appropriate and sustainable. This is hope for the future in the developing world in stark contrast to the pessimism prevalent across the Atlantic.
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