One Step Closer to Empowering Chrauk Tiek.
We are pleased to announce that the Friends of the Grady Grossman School has received a $7,000 grant from the PRBB foundation for our alternative cooking fuel training. The price of LP gas is skyrocketing in Phnom Penh and putting even more pressure on our students to drop out of school to chop down trees and sell cooking fuel to the city. What a mess. But we hope to turn the tide with the production of biomass briquettes. It’s like putting a finger to the damn but we’ve got to start somewhere.
Our old village leader, Bun Vanna, who was ousted by corrupt officials a year ago because he was too adamant about protecting the forest, has agreed to manage the cooking fuel production, stage one of The Abundant Forest Life Skills Training Center. We are excited to have Bun Vanna on board, a man with no teeth but more integrity than anyone I’ve ever met in Cambodia. We hope that this new skill will not only help economically empower the community to support education in their village, but also strengthen the leadership role Bun Vanna already holds, despite the efforts of corrupt officials to silence him.
The training will be conducted by one Sanu Kaji from the Foundation for Sustainable Technologies in Katmandu, Nepal. There are only 3 people in the fuel briquette network that I’ve found in Asia, one is a Burmese refuggee stuck in a camp in Thailand, and the other an expensive academic group from Indonesia. Sanu is our only option, and he is taking time out of his busy schedule to help us.
The Foundation for Sustainable Technologies is a finalist in the World Challenge 2007, a prize sponsored by BBC, Newsweek and Shell Corp for innovative solutions to tough development challenges. You can see his work here. Please watch the program and cast your vote for “Cooking Without Gas” to help Sanu’s organization win the prize and gain the publicity to help Nepal convert to using sustainable resources for cooking. There are 9 days left to vote. The prize is announced December 10, then we will know for sure when Sanu can join us in Cambodia.
We will be the first to introduce this low cost, innovative solution to Cambodia. Our villagers are very excited about the market potential of biomass briquettes.
Kari will be reporting the progress of the training on this blog in January. Stay tuned.
Woud you like to support the children of Chrauk Tiek in their desire to create sustainable future?
