Loos and luck

I really need the loo. I’ve been at my desk for well over three hours and so far have filled my body with two cups of tea, one cup of coffee and a fair amount of water too. But I have the misfortune of working on the very top floor of Practical Action’s head office, which means that a trip to the loo involves climbing all the way downstairs. And I’m so engrossed in my work (and also a little lazy – it is Friday, after all) that I really can’t be bothered….

I’m currently writing a proposal to fundraise for a hugely exciting new project that Practical Action is embarking on in Zimbabwe. We’re working with rural communities in the southern provinces of Gwanda and Mwenezi, endeavouring to reach out to 200,000 people to improve their access to clean water, ensure they have adequate sanitation and reduce their health risks from poor hygiene. The figure is massive. 200,000 people is over double the size of my home town!

Most of these people currently live several kilometres away from a safe water supply. The task of collecting water usually falls to women and children who will spend whole days carrying up to 80 litres of water. The journey can be dangerous – these women are vulnerable to mugging and rape; and the water they do collect often isn’t fit for human consumption anyway.

Furthermore, many families in Gwanda and Mwenezi don’t have toilets in their own homes as they can’t afford to build them. This means that people usually just relieve themselves outside in the bush. This morning I’ve read stories from women and girls who describe the complete loss of dignity and embarrassment they feel while doing this, especially when they’re menstruating.

Suddenly my reluctance to walk down a flight of stairs to go to the toilet demonstrates not only laziness, but complete ignorance of how fortunate I am. Wherever I am, it only ever takes me a few minutes to fetch a glass of clean water or go to the loo.

I am lucky. But it shouldn’t be about luck. Having clean water and being able to go the toilet without putting your safety or health at risk are basic human rights to which people everywhere are entitled, whether you live in Warwickshire or Gwanda.

Now I really must go – I’m desperate.

Local voices heard in Zimbabwe

David J. Grimshaw
November 18th, 2011

At a second community near Gwanda the loudspeakers, carefully placed on a wheelbarrow delivered messages about the local governance of the recently installed water pump.  The language was Sotho, so my Shona speaking colleague was unable to translate for me.
However, it was clear that the borehole and pump were transforming the livelihoods of the community.  There was a very genuine desire to learn. The knowledge sharing in local voices was clearly owned by the community extensionist, an elected member of the community.
Going beyond technology the digital extension service is building a community driven process of change.

Can you repeat that?

David J. Grimshaw
November 18th, 2011

We visited communities in Gwanda south to discuss their information needs.  They told us that water was their biggest problem. We listened to a podcast about water, in their local language.
We then asked them what they liked about the podcast and they said being able to listen again. This is something that all communities have welcomed.

Can you repeat that?

David J. Grimshaw
November 11th, 2011

We visited communities in Gwanda south to discuss their information needs.  They told us that water was their biggest problem. We listened to a podcast about water, in their local language.
We then asked them what they liked about the podcast and they said being able to listen again. This is something that all communities have welcomed.

Resilience is a state of mind

David J. Grimshaw
November 8th, 2011

Today has been an adventure. Leaving Harare our mission was to reach Gwanda where we are doing podcasting with the local communities. It turned out not to be so simple… As we watched the radiator water boil over, my sympathy was with the vehicle, after all temperatures were over 35C.  But the only concern for Lawrence was “we can’t let the communities down”.  That is true resilience…that our staff show every minute of every day.

Shelter me – and I’ll shelter you too

This week I have been researching shelter in Africa, namely Zimbabwe.

When I think of the word ‘shelter’, I think of feeling warm, safe and dry; of cups of tea, or my lovely, cosy bed, or hugs from my Mum; or that gorgeous Ray LaMontagne song Shelter, where shelter is more than just a sense of physical safety but one of emotional security too; of feeling that all is right in the world; and of my home, a sanctuary.

All too often in the world’s poorest places, your home is not a safe place where you can seek sanctuary from the evils that populate the world. In fact, your home might be the problem itself. Perhaps it’s simply physically insubstantial and doesn’t protect you from harsh weather like flooding, or natural disasters such as earthquakes.  Or maybe there are so many people squeezed inside it that the danger lurks within.

For communities in urban Zimbabwe, overcrowding and inadequate housing are very real and dangerous realities.

It wasn’t always like this. Zimbabwe used to be one of Africa’s most successful countries, ‘the bread basket of Africa’, with a strong economy, a local government system that delivered the services it was meant to provide, and with the people skilled to support those services.

The country is now struggling economically. The gap between rich and poor is widening, skilled people are migrating in search of better employment prospects, and access to basic services, such as water and sanitation, waste collection and roads, is now for many people just an impossible dream.

Hyper-inflation, very high unemployment (estimated at over 90%), a rapidly devaluating currency and a high HIV/AIDS prevalence rate (15.3%) have all contributed to increasing levels of vulnerability for Zimbabwean people. 80% of the population lives on less than 85p a day.

And in 2005, life became so much worse for 700,000 poor women, men and children who were the victims of the Zimbabwean government’s Murambatsvina Operation.  Murambatsvina (English: Operation Drive Out Trash), also officially known as Operation Restore Order or the Clean Up Operation. This was a large scale Zimbabwe government campaign to forcibly clear slum areas across the country. The campaign started in May 2005 and according to United Nations estimates, has affected at least 2.4 million people. In July 2005, UN-HABITAT estimated that 700,000 people lost either their homes or livelihoods, or both.

But the Government of Zimbabwe says the operation was launched after extensive consultations with stakeholders.  The primary objective, the Government says, was to rid the urban environments of illegal structures and unlicensed trading premises. The aim of the national clean-up exercise was meant to decongest the cities and towns and establish an environment conducive to investment.

Unfortunately, the Government wasn’t able to replace the people’s homes, with inflation then raging at 1,700,000%.

Local authorities have struggled since the ‘clean up’, with the enormous task of ensuring that poor and vulnerable people living in urban areas have access to the basics that we take for granted – clean water at the turn of a tap, toilets, where people, particularly children, are protected from the waste and have privacy, refuse that is removed regularly, streets that are clean and safe to walk in, and, fundamentally, the security of knowing you have a home that is legally yours to rent or own.

Furthermore, since the ‘clean up’, overcrowding has become a massive problem in many urban areas. Almost overnight houses suddenly had to host three families rather than one, with nothing more than blankets to separate different families’ living areas. TB and cholera are rife. Children will often sleep on the floor underneath their parents’ bed. This fact is actually a contributing factor to the high HIV rate. Children are exposed to their parents having sex just above them, and children being children, will begin to copy this from a very young age. Young girls are falling pregnant as young as 12 years old, and rape cases are on the rise. And I’ve read stories of mothers who are forced to prostitute themselves just to make enough money to pay rent and feed their children.

Practical Action is training  these marginalised communities, who have come through so much, to improve their houses, ensuring they are safe places offering real shelter. Brick by brick, people here are rebuilding their own homes, and their hopes for a brighter future.

Our approach is to help people to make the best use of their own labour and to use locally produced building materials and construction techniques that they can afford and manage themselves.  Ensuring that people have good quality homes to live in, with enough space for everyone, doesn’t just improve living conditions – it can become a catalyst for the further development of communities by creating local jobs, and an infrastructure that benefits everyone.

I sit here at my desk listening to that song Shelter, hoping from the bottom of my heart that the people in Zimbabwe with whom we are working will once more have safe homes that are full of happiness and love, and free from harm and danger. Sanctuaries.

Energising MPs

Pete Davis
June 23rd, 2011

Practical Action is all about getting things done, so chatting with politicians is not something you might expect us to be doing. However, to enable us to get more done in the future, it is worth making sure there is political support for the type of work we do.

To this end, I recently accompanied Ernest Mupunga, Director of our Southern Africa Office in Zimbabwe, to Portcullis House in London where he met with four UK MPs to talk to them about energy access in sub Saharan Africa. He spoke to Joan Walley, Ian Davidson, Pauline Latham and Jeremy Lefroy – MPs with a particular interest in sustainability, poverty and Africa.

Ernest explained that energy access is essential to improving health, education and economic opportunities.  He described how Practical Action involves communities in the implementation and maintenance of technology that provides them with sustainable local power supplies. He told stories of the transformational effect that energy can have on a poor community.  He also described the severity of energy poverty in Africa, where more than 70% of people live without electricity.

Ernest Mupunga with Joan Walley MP

It was clear from our conversations that, even amongst these international-development-savvy MPs, energy access is not a well understood issue. However, after hearing what Ernest had to say the MPs were very supportive. This is a good sign and the more politicians that understand the importance of energy access, the more support we will get.

Ernest Mupunga with Pauline Latham MP

These meetings were just a first step in raising awareness of the problem and the solutions in the UK parliament. Elsewhere, we have made more progress. The goal of energy for all by 2030 is one we share with the UN and, with your help, we are encouraging the EU to commit to it.

Practical Action has been working with hundreds of poor communities to improve their access to energy for decades. We have the technology. If we can get political will on our side, it is possible to end energy poverty.

We’ve seen the light

Ruth McNeil, Practical Action Trustee

Helena Molyneux and I visited Zimbabwe as trustees last month to see the work that Practical Action is doing there. We were particularly impressed by the micro hydro work that’s being carried out and the impact it’s having on rural communities that are isolated, poor and short of resources.

Bringing electricity, even in just small amounts, to villages that have never had it is life changing for them.

Suddenly a school can have an electric light so children can study longer; a clinic can offer mothers giving birth at night the chance to have their baby in the light, not just accompanied by a candle; a fridge can store vaccines; houses can have a radio or television that is attached to the electricity supply; people can charge up their mobile phones… a whole world of possibility and opportunity is opened up. Their lives are enriched in terms of medical support, educational opportunity and leisure possibility.

Families were proud to show us their televisions, the nurse to show us the electricity in their clinic, the primary school to show us the classrooms now lit up when light fades. The teacher was bursting with pride and excitement – all this for the sake of an electric light! We felt humbled.

The great thing about the projects is how Practical Action has worked with others to acquire the equipment to build the micro hydro systems that will power the generation of the electricity. They’ve ensured too that it is local people who help in the building of the dams and laying the pipes. We met many of these people who themselves had contributed their labour and their time to the micro hydro project – so they ‘own’ it and feel responsible for helping maintain it in the future.

Our trip was  such an inspiring one. Once again I am awed by the work of Practical Action and the ways they are working to improve people’s lives in such valuable yet practical ways.

Resume of visit to Zimbabwe – Day 4

Wednesday 13th October 2010

This will be my last day of being able to record what is happening.  There is no broadband here in Zimbabwe, electricity sometimes goes off so we cannot rely on all the infrastructure we are used to.

Today, we visited two Harare hospitals and took as gifts some blood pressuer machines and some stethoscopes with us from my husband Ian (who is accompanying us).  We were shown round by a cardiologist, a friend of Ernest Mupunga (Regional Director).

The hospitals were light and airy and looked well staffed with young doctors and older ones – but most of those middle rank have left over recent years to earn more elsewhere.  The dedication of those that remain and who have worked through the last few years is admirable.  The hospitals have so many patients who are HIV positive that risks overwhelming the service – even the most basic AIDS or asthma drugs or antibiotics are lacking.  They, like so much in Zimbabwe, need basic help.

All the better that Practical Action is working in the field to provide livelihoods, help improve livestock and food production and help keep people healthy – this is vital in a country where there is not enough money to provide good healthcare to all, all of the time.

Resume of visit to Zimbabwe – Day 3

Tuesday 12th October 2010

A day in Guruve looking at Mashonaland livelihood restoration projects.

First impressions are that the work being done in improving land management and livestock in this area, 200 miles from Harare, is making a huge difference to a number of local communities.  The project was collaborative with Africare and USAID and they and Practical Action provided materials such as peanut butter and sunflower oil processing machines, seedcorn investment (such as chickens which could then multiply) and lots of other useful inputs.  But Practical Action’s main contribution has been in providing the skills and training to support these livelihood initiatives and in helping local associations form so that they can be sustained.

We saw marvellous vegetable plots and a market garden that was being managed successfully where before there was just earth; new chicken runs built from local and sustainable materials where chickens could flourish; conservation farming using manure produced by thermo composting meaning that mechanical ploughs are not needed to produce good crops and many other marvellous initiatives.  One of the most impressive aspects was that Practical Action had introduced podcasting to allow more dispersion of agricultural and animal husbandry best practice.  Practical Action started podcasting about three years ago here; selected local farmers who become trainers of others are supplied with the MP3 player and batteries needed to allow them to hold training sessions which can be listened to by up to 50 people at the same time.  This is far more effective in reaching disparate populations than having an agricultural extension worker visit them all.  Many people from surrounding villages had come to our session to watch how to treat sick cows and later to hear about sustainable farming methods and how value could be added. 

We heard the podcast and simultaneously one of the trainers showed the farmers there what needed to be done – in terms of ammoniation for cows for instance, where this process increases the protein content of animal fodder and allows for greater milk production and for better calving.

In all, the farmers said how delighted they were to have this expertise brought to them and how their production of milk increased from 1 litre to 5 litres of milk per cow per day – this allowing them to have the money to send their children to school  More milk, better vegetable produce (from comparing best strains and treating animals using local plants as well as bought medicines) and more eggs and healthier livestock generally meant that the people we saw looked healthy and happy.  They told us however that it is tough – life is not easy for them living in temperatures of 40 degrees and with little water and few facilities.  But they are very much happier now due to the help provided by Practical Action ad the Lower Guruve Development Association.  The degree of close working between Practical Action and the local bodies was impressive and great to see.

At all the villages visited, the local people greeted us with song and dance and talked eloquently about what they had learnt and about the benefits that they had had individually and as their community.  A real African welcome.  Many of the proceedings were preceded and followed by a prayer – God is very real for many here.

Some themes emerged – the enthusiasm of the Practical Action workers and of the beneficiaries, the mindfulness of the local environment and wish to do things in a sustainable way, the collaboration with other donors or authorities to help make things happen.  All this we have learnt from our visit.  Thanks to Ernest, Patience, Lawrence and James from the LGDA who helped arrange the day and showed us around.  And to Temba who recorded much of the day’s activities.  There are so many stories that can show what Practical Action does and explain the difference that it makes.