In Kaule / Nepal – Kaule e.V. – Organisation for socially sustainable Agro Projects

News from Kaule, March 31st – April 20th, 2009

Jens Neumann and Jana and Alissa Nehrlich arrived from Cologne to Kaule in order to get an idea of the project on location and to assist energetically. They have helped to renovate the club house and the demonstration centre. They could gather many impressions of Kaule and made contact with the locals.
Amongst many things, they have taught the children how to colour easter eggs and how to play sack race, egg race and racing on three legs.

News from Kaule, April 3rd, 2009

The dogs gathering every day around the club house have been dewormed and vaccinated against hydrophobia.
To that end, a veterinarian has arrived from Kathmandu. Sadly, the offer to the other villagers to also vaccinate their dogs has not been accepted.

News from Kaule, March 16th, 2009

NAF and Kaule e.V. make a joint visit to the agricultural holdings of the project participants, in order to examine the hotbeds which have recently been built by the farmers.
We found that all participants have already set up their hotbeds and the seeds which were distributed have started to sprout.
Several little imperfections in the design of the hotbeds and in the treatment of the seeds could be corrected during the visits and after thorough discussions with the participants. In general, the first results are very satisfactory.

Last week, Kaule e.V. visited every single family of the project participants, and distributed scales and a notebook to each of them.

With the help of Raju, one of our Nepalese translators, an exemplary recording of the operating income and expenses have been outlined in Nepalese in these notebooks. The farmers will use this example and Raju’s help in order to keep track of their revenues as well as their expenses. The data is meant to illustrate at a later stage how the financial condition of the families will change in this project. Raju will visit the farmers on a weekly basis and assist them should there be any difficulties. Additionally, he will translate the data into English. In the past, some data has already been collected of several households, which proved very useful for the project planning. The crop yields are weighed using the scales. Thus, the yield before and after the recronstruction of the farms can be compared.

The head of the Soil Science Laboratory of the university campus in Rampur (part of Tribhuran University), Assistant Professor Rajan Ghimire, and Alina Schick cooperate on scientific grounds. Prior to the reconstructions next spring he will take soil samples at the sites in Kaule to create a soil profile of the area.
Rajan and Alina plan on jointly publishing the data collected on vegetation and soil.

During the last week, Kaule e.V. has surveyed the land of 7 out of the 15 farmers with GPS, which is designated for the project. From these data, in Germany land surveyor Martin Kämper will draw the maps for the remodelling. The land areas of the remaining 8 enterprises/farms are going to be surveyed from October 14th, 2008 onwards.

Last Wednesday, Kaule e.V. has met with VDC caretaker Kiran Mani Shresta and informed him about the project. In return, Mr. Shresta has promised support for Kaule e.V. if it is needed.
To the enquiry, where to find adequate rooms for the English classes and the accommodation of volunteers, Mr. Shresta suggested a house which is under the management of the VDC office. The building has been built ten years ago for disabled children by a today unknown organisation. It has never been used, but is in good condition and offers enough place for class and bed rooms as well as a kitchen and bathroom.
Yet, an investment of 500 to 600 Euros would be necessary to install water, gas and electric power supply and renovate the sanitary facilities.

Kaule e.V. is trying for a cofinancing and already has the promise of Mr. Shresta for a financial cooperation. In return, Kaule e.V. could use the premises rentfree. The distance to the agro-forestic business is five minutes by foot.

On October 13th, 2008 Kaule e.V. met with a development counsellor of the German Embassy in its residency in Kathmandu in order to on the one hand inform there officially about our project and on the other hand to gather further information.
The embassy has given a sealed letter to Kaule e.V., that shall facilitate the opening of a bank account in Nepal. Furthermore, the association has gotten some telephone numbers of organisations, which have already been through the process of registration and have agreed to advise newcomers.

In the following week each household will be instructed on how to monitor the expenses and the income of each farm. For this, new forms were developed. Raju Ghising, a young Nepalese who lives near Kaule, will coordinate the collection of data during the next three months for which he will receive a small fee . He will make weekly visits to the participating households and will make sure that the data is collected in a comparable way. After the end of the project this data shall show the range of increase in income through agroforestry as well as the range of decrease of overhead expenses.
Next week Kaule e.V. will hand out scales to the farmers with which the harvest will be weighed. This data shall also serve to compare the amounts of harvest before and after the project has been carried through.
Kaule e.V. has made a list of the cultivated plants and trees and has searched for further possibilities for cultivated plants. Thus, together with the GPS data the reconstruction plans for next year’s workload can be finished.

Kaule e.V. has gotten in contact with German organisations on location, in order to inform about the project and to get valuable information in return.
Thereby, information to administrative circumstances are especially helpful, such as for the registration of the association and the project and the set up of a bank account in Nepal. The DED has indicated at the programme “Weltwärts” of the Ministry of Development, which places interested young people as volunteers for one year in development projects. The DED, which coordinates “Weltwärts”, has offered for Kaule e.V. to hand in an application for the assignment of a volunteer.
The meeting with the GTZ is planned to take place in early November.