Village Survey : Project Update

Dear Readers,

It has been a while since the last update. Most of the team has been busy with assignments and exam preparation but have been committed to attending meetings and undertaking project tasks. Thank you all!

Accounts - April/May

(Click for a better read)

Registration

We are currently awaiting word from ARC with regard to the status of our Off Campus Community Grant. I was told last week that the amount to be granted was still being discussed and that we'd be contacted when it is confirmed.

Beyond this, our attempts to get corporates on board has been rather disappointing. The topic of recent meetings has been the registration of "Empower" as a not for profit organisation in Australia. This would make donations to the project tax deductible and also make us eligible for formal grants. We made a call to the Australian Tax Office on Thursday and Haaris is following up the legal requirements with Fair Trade.

Kirigalpotha Survey

(Questionnaire)

Asoka emailed me on Friday regarding progress at their end with the survey process. They held a village meeting and a core group of 9 villagers (in picture) were chosen to lead the mobilization process. What this means is that these 9 villagers are trained with respect to certain tasks (interviewing and filling questionnaires in this case) so that they conduct these activities themselves. This is a more participatory approach and allows for a greater deal of comfort.



The Energy Forum has been notified that the 9 mobilizers have completed the task of doing a preliminary survey of the selected sites. Asoka also informed of the fact that women's social status in the community is strong, as indicated by the fact that they compose the majority of the core group. An excerpt from his email;

Villagers decided to initially establish two biogas plants (one each) in village hamlets [Kiriglpotta Asvadduma (15 households) and Pitapola (9 households)] under this proposed project. The mobilization program should be done by stages. We trained the selected core group to do the survey and yesterday they informed that they have completed the household level data survey. The filled forms will reach us early next week. Then only we will be able to analyze the data.

Asoka highlighted that there are over 700 Jak Fruit trees in the area that are currently underutilized due to the lack of a market for the fruit. He suggests that we focus on this as a form of income generation. Sounds very interesting!

I was sent a copy of the survey (in Sinhala) and it does a good job of covering the basics like demographics, primary forms of energy used as well as future intended uses.

Well that's all for now.

Shanil