With four children and a startup business, it often feels like I don’t have time to turn around and there can be days when I get to the end of it and don’t know what I’ve done in the hours I’ve had. But my life is easy compared to that of so many around the world. If I want water I turn on a tap. Power is at the flick of a switch. I have heating, can cook, have fresh food in my fridge.
My children have access to computers, phones, all manner of toys and gadgets. We have a garden they can run in and an allotment that this year, I actually will do something with.
But I don’t need to. If we have another summer short of water, I don’t have to carry buckets and water crops to stop my children going hungry. I can’t quite imagine what that must be like, to know that if the rains fail, there is no fall back, no coop down the road.
They know very well in Nepal. I’ve been talking with a friend on social media about a charity called Renewable World, that is working to make changes to the lives of women and children in Nepal, by investing in projects using renewable energy to make a real difference.
From their press release:
Take Sumina as an example. She lives in the Dhading region of Nepal and faced some of these problems. Her community didn’t have access to water for crops and their land stood empty while the people suffered from poverty and malnutrition.
Working with local partners in Nepal, Renewable World helped build a hydraulic ram pump to move water uphill so that Sumina and others in her community could water crops. As a result, they are able to grow more nutritious crops, the families are better fed, the women are empowered because they’re working for a better future for everyone and excess crops are sold at market to bring money in to the community.
Sumina feels more confident than before and is able to access the resources to uplift the family life and make her children’s future brighter.
I don’t even know what a hydraulic ram pump is, but it sounds like a good idea. No more carrying water, better crops, more time to do other things. Like get an education.
Or what about dealing with waste? So often we don’t make full use of every resource we have, instead squandering energy that we can’t replace. Not so in Phulping.
In Phulping, Renewable World provided funding for a biogas plant that will deal with two health and environmental problems. The biogas plant will use animal and human waste and convert it into useful energy for cooking and heating. As a result, it solves the problem of disposing of that waste and the gas is clean energy. It will mean that women in the community don’t have to collect firewood or buy expensive canisters of gas.
Krishna and her neighbours have also received enterprise training to help them understand how they can use their dairy farm and the biogas plant to generate an income, which can then be invested in their families and their futures.
Krishna has bought a cow and is selling some of the milk. She is starting to make a small profit, which she will use to educate her children and invest in her business so they have a future in the community.
If you’d like to know more about Renewable World and what you can do to help, there’s a BBC Lifeline programme on in just a couple of hours time, at 16.20 Sunday 17th February on BBC One. (You can find it on iPlayer afterwards, and it’s repeated later in the week too. I’ll have to watch it on iPlayer as we don’t currently have a working television.) It’s fronted by Gethin Jones, ex Blue Peter presenter. This is him, with Sumina and her crops.
This has not been a sponsored post, I’ve received precisely nothing but good karma for posting this. Please feel free to share it or spread the word any other way you like about Renewable World and their work in Nepal – the hashtag is #RWNepal. Thank you.
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