Moving Along

Greetings Readers,

The last week was spent focusing on our registration with ARC, the student union in UNSW, as well as sending out briefs.

Registration with ARC ought to be complete by mid-March latest. The team will then be eligible for various grants that we hope will fund a significant portion of the project. Empower will have an AGM on the 10th of March. While it is essential that existing members are present, those interested in joining are most welcome. I will post up the exact meeting details when I get them.




Another piece of exciting news on the financial front is that the Founder of Simple Wisdom (a Sri Lankan NGO), Mr. Florian Palzinsky (My former boss), is willing to contribute between $1000 -$2000 to our cause. He made no promises but he told me that he'd look into gaining more support for our initiative.

This is a valuable contribution though we need to spend even more time trying to strive for a minimum of 50% of the project cost before we can give our partners in Sri Lanka the go-ahead.

On the administration front, Leesa and myself are trying to structure out the interactions between the Energy Forum and the University of Moratuwa team.

Spread the Word

Thanks to Imtiaz of Ozlanka, Empower has been able to secure an article on the website. Ozlanka is a popular website portal for Sri Lankan news and events. With approximately 1.5 million hits per month, an article on the website could provide the project with valuable publicity and encourage donations and financial sponsorship.


The article is already online and can be read at - http://www.ozlanka.com/feb08/empower.htm

Shanil

Funding

The main focus over the last few weeks has been on securing financial support in order to initiate village confirmation and installation of the digesters. This has been very challenging due to the technical nature of the project itself and the fact that it is overseas.

We have currently pursued five main avenues for funding:

1) UNSW - Through the Business Faculty and the Student Union (ARC)
2) Corporates in Australia - e.g. BP, Caltex, Unilever
3) Corporates in Sri Lanka - e.g. John Keells Holdings, Dialog G.S.M.
4) Aid Organisations and Foundations - e.g. UN Orgs, Oxfam, The Red Cross.
5) The Sri Lankan Business -Chairty Community - e.g. Lak Saviya, OzLanka

All these avenues have been pursued to some extent but as a team we need to put a lot more effort into spreading the word about our project and generating enthusiasm that could fuel potential sponsorship. This is a vital element that we need to focus on as the entire project's progression.

Our meeting with Jane Westbrook and Prof. Chris Adam of the Australian School of Business (UNSW) left Leesa and myself rather disappointed. The outcome being that the University did not have financial allocations for such projects and had liability + risk concerns as they had not encountered a student initiative of this nature before. They advised us to pursue registration with the student union and gave us some assurance that they would assist informally with the sponsorship process.


We had admittedly placed a lot of reliance on the Australian School of Business (UNSW) providing us some financial support. We are still hopeful that the student union registration (ARC) will give us access to some grant funds that can fuel the start of the project. Despite this setback, I personally feel that a stronger, direct effort to directly contact people through all the listed avenues will bear some fruit, even if a delay in project commencement seems inevitable.

I am personally looking into funding by the Sri Lankan Community in Australia and Sri Lankan Corporates. Mr. Ben Roche, formerly part of the Faculty of the Built Environment Outreach Programme , was able to give us some useful advise with regard to direction and some useful not-for profit foundations for us to approach.

Here's hoping the team's efforts will be rewarded soon.

Shanil

Empowering

Empower’s meeting for this week was held on Sunday 27^th January 2008. The meeting was attended by Shanil, Muniba, Leesa and Haaris. The other members were unable to make it for the meeting. During the meeting, it was officially decided to join Arc UNSW i.e. register Empower as UNSW’s one of the new clubs. Haaris will be responsible for completing the process of registration. He will be having meeting with Sophie Harmington who oversees the registration of new societies with ARC, on Tuesday 29^th January 2008 to finalize the details and process of the registration. The registration would be completed by Friday 1^st February 2008.

During the meeting, Muniba was delegated a new task. She has been made responsible for developing an Engineering panel at UNSW. The panel would consist of postgraduate students and lecturers of the University. The panel will act as resource for consultation for UOM. The UOM will be providing the quote for the project within this week. The team would be formally confirming the village chosen by UOM over the next two weeks and the team structure of UOM would also be finalized.

Empowering Others To Achieve Success

On the sponsorship side, e-mails have been sent to KPMG, PWC, Caltex, Shell, BHP Billiton and Dilmah. Energy Australia has already excused itself since it doesn’t finance or support programs outside Australia. It is also expected that 50% of the funding will be met through Sri – Lankan sources so that the project's groundwork can be staretd. Shanil is looking into securing the financing from Sri – Lankan sources and in that regards, he will be contacting Uni – Lever and Dilmah in Sri – Lanka. He will also be updating the project brief and power point slides based on the details provided by UOM.

Meetings and More Meetings

Empower had two meetings in a row, one Admin meeting on Sunday and one sponsor meeting today (Monday). The admin meeting was attended by administrators of the project; Leesa, Shanil and Muniba in which the three discussed the project strategic direction. During the meeting it was decided to look into the University of Moratuwa’s (UOM) offer of undertaking the installation of project since they have consulted the volunteer undergraduate and postgraduate students who are willing to implement it. The most likely possibility is giving the go ahead to UOM. Energy Forum would no longer be in the picture because of their high quotes for the project.

At the moment, we are only waiting for an official quote for the project by UOM which is expected by this Wednesday. The name of the village will also be finalized by next week. On the financing part, the project brief has been e-mailed to various multinationals and Australian companies that include Procter and Gamble, BP, Energy Australia and Caltex. Some more companies would be added to the existing list.

Today’s meet up was more of a formal since three of the project members; Shanil, Leesa and Haaris had series of meetings with University Office bearers. The first meeting was with Associate Professor of Australian School of Business (ASB); Prem Ramburuth. During our meeting with her, we walked her through the project; she was very much fascinated by the idea and suggested us to affiliate the project with ARC, the university’s official student’s representative body. She also suggested some names within ASB to identify the sources of funding for the project. The next meeting was at Faculty of Built environment and we got some good leads over there. The leads would be explored further by Shanil.

The last meeting was at ARC with Sophie Harrington who oversees the registration of new societies with ARC. She provided us with all the necessary documentation for registering and also told us the benefits of becoming a part of it. After the meeting, it has been decided to initiate the process of membership with ARC but at the same time seek financing from companies as a private project. ARC won’t be able to offer anything before March which would delay the project. However, keeping in view the long term perspective, joining ARC would be beneficial for all the project members.

First Meeting of the Year

Empower UNSW had its first meeting of the year yesterday. The meeting was attended by Shanil, Leesa, Wallace, Gong, Johnson, Jessica and Annie. The team welcomed its new member Haaris Ali, who officially joined as journalist of the project after a long delay. The other project members were unable to attend the meeting due to their various personal commitments.

During the meeting, the issues related to financing, a trip to Sri-Lanka and allocation of tasks were discussed. The local partners of the project in Sri-Lanka are University of Moratuwa (UOM) and Energy Forum who would be identifying a village for setting up of the project. So far, UOM has suggested a village called Kurunegla which is three hours drive from capital, Colombo. The team is also contemplating on who should be managing the project i.e. either UOM or Energy Forum. The decision in that regard would be made within a week.

Team Having a Chat after the meeting

While back in Australia, the project team members assigned to identify and follow up with prospective sponsors is in contact with various companies and University of New South Wales as well. The University would be informing the team hopefully by this week or next week while other sources are yet to reply. So far, Five Hundred Australian Dollars have been managed by one of our project members through her personal efforts. It was also decided in the meeting to stop working in teams as it hasn’t turned out to be really effective. From now on, each member would be responsible for an individual task. The details of the each member’s tasks are as follows

Haaris : Will be our Journalist. Responsible for uploading the blog with pictures, videos and articles.

Olivia: Photography and video.Will pass the material to Haaris.

Dev, Pattiya and Johnson: Work on survey and develop specific questions individually and then coordinate with the team.

Jessica, Annie and Wallace: E-mail and follow up calls to prospective sponsors individually and then inform the team.

Shanil: Leading the project and coordinate with all the stakeholders.

Gong: To look at alternative rural finance organiztions.

Leesa: Send draft contact letter to Jessica, Wallace and Johnson. Follow up ASB and look into partnering with another part of the University. Collect everyone's availabilities for meetings next session.

Pooling Some Talent together; Wallace & Gong

What is Biogas anyway?

So... the Empower project is going to introduce a renewable source of electricity to a rural community. What does this mean exactly? What is biogas? How does it all work? What's all the fuss about?
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What is Biogas? How is it made?

Biogas consists mainly of a naturally produced gas called Methane but also contains Carbon Dioxide, Hydrogen Sulphide and Hydrogen Gas. Biogas is produced as a product of the decomposition process. When any type of organic waste (e.g. Manure, Vegetable Waste, Fats, Dead Plants) are kept in anaerobic conditions (without oxygen), bacteria that thrive in these conditions break the waste down. This process results in the production of Biogas and a solid slurry that can be used as an organic fertilizer.

Therefore, the principle of a Biogas digester is to replicate these anaerobic conditions and create a vessel that can continuously produce Biogas. Biogas is versatile as it can be used as a cooking fuel and can also be used for heating and electricity (which the Empower Project aims to do).

What is a Biogas Digester? What does it look like?

Source: Institute of Science in Society

Most modern Biogas Digesters allow for waste to be continually fed and range from being specific with regard to the waste input (grass, rice paddy) to being versatile (human waste, animal waste, plant matter, oils). Different types of waste produce different ammounts of Biogas upon decomposition. The community needs to be trained on how to maintain the right levels of waste to produce the required capacity of biogas for electricity generation. The actual structure is a simple sealed vessel (often concrete) as illustrated above. The main bit of maintenance requires the built up slurry/sludge to be removed (typically after 6 months to a year). This as mentioned, is a good organic fertilizer.


Electricity?

The Biogas that is produced from this digester is collected and sent to a generator. These generators are often commercially available and run on fuels such as Diesel, Kerosene and Petrol. Relatively simple modification can allow an Electricity Generator to run on Biogas instead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BDF0azPGvM

Source: cobweb.edn.purdue.edu

So why Biogas?

There are numerous advantages to using Biogas as a source of energy. Reliance on depleting fossil fuels contributes to Global Warming. As an alternative to these depleting, damaging sources of energy, we are forced to shift towards renewable, sustainable sources that have a limited effect on the earth and its atmosphere.

Wind and Solar Power are also viable renewable energy sources. However they are expensive to set up in most rural communities and require specific conditions. Biogas in comparisson, is cheaper and more versatile. The temperatures in tropical countries are ideal for faster anaerobic digestion.

Furthermore, Biogas production is carbon neutral. Only a comparatively small amount of Carbon Dioxide is produced as a result of digestion and this can be easily absorbed by surrounding trees and foliage. The waste sludge can be used as fertilizer.

In fact the production of biogas utilizes waste that would otherwise pollute the surroundings and add to the Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere by decomposing under normal conditions.

Finally, the Empower project seeks to create employment and communal trade in relation to how the digester is fed (farmers supplying waste, people maintaining the digester and generator).

Shanil