A Chinese Biogas Update from Madagascar

I love this volunteering experience here in Madagascar and feel so good! It is great to be outside almost all of the time! Malagasy people are eager to build biogas as most villages we visit have no electricity and the charcoal based cooking stove that they use are not very efficient.

Nearly 3 biogas digesters have been finished this week. During this week, Chen JiaHai also had a chance to give the technicians here further training.  

We feel the farmers and project leader are both very eager to get this biogas project going. The project Leader of FLM in Fianarantsoa, Alfred, said a reporter of a local newspaper is going to write about the biogas project. 

Both Chen JiaHai and I enjoy working with Stine. She is doing a good job translating between English and Malagasy. Chen JiaHai is happy to see that the biogas sites are working very well.

We did hiking this morning and it was very nice.

We eat well and sleep well! 

This update is written by Jane Ren. She has travelled from the wonderful Middle Kingdom to volunteer in Madagascar as a translator in the International Biogas Programme that seeks to transfer the biogas success from China to Madagascar. She is translating for the biogas technician Chen JiaHai from YongShun in Hunan (in China).  

Good reasons to have biogas in Madagascar (and around the world):

1) To protect the blue sky as God's creation

2) Every day you see people push carts of charcoal on terrible roads for hours. By using biogas, you do not need to use charcoal!

3) To stop cutting down trees. In this country, trees are in danger.

4) To change the inefficient and smoky ways of cooking into a clean and efficient gas stove

5) To give light through the biogas lamp (especially nice as many people have no access to electricity here)

6) To get enough organic fertilizer for the field.

7) To save expenses for farmers in order to improve their living standard! 

Perhaps you can think of other good reasons?

This article is written by Jane Ren (see picture). She has travelled from the wonderful Middle Kingdom to volunteer in Madagascar as a translator in the International Biogas Programme that seeks to transfer the biogas success from China to Madagascar. She is translating for the biogas technician Chen JiaHai from YongShun in Hunan (in China).  

Dreaming about a life without wood picking

The brothers Zandritiana Jean Martin (15 years old) & Zafinantenaina Jean Roger (14 years old) lives in Fianarantsoa province in Madagascar. Their mother, Raharivelo Soaimalala (36) and their father, Razafinantenaina Jean Philibert (37-my age!) are really interested in biogas because they have heard that the use of biogas radically reduces the smoke in the kitchen and because the organic fertilizer increases the yield of their crops by a lot!
For these brothers, on the other hand, the main appeal of biogas is the increase in their free time. Both of them gather wood at least one hour each, every single day independently of the weather (in the scorching sunshine, or the rainstorms that they are facing this week).
Just now, the two first biogas installations are being built here in Fianarantsoa province. With the help of our partner organisation in China, where NMS have run many biogas projects, we hope to be able to give biogas to 500 homes in Madagascar and a similar number in China in the course of the next 3 years. This family is one of the many families in Madagascar that is dreaming about getting biogas in their home.
Would you like to help make the dream of Martin and Jean Roger into a reality? You can give a biogas digester in Madagascar for Christmas to someone you know. You can also buy “carbon offset” for any flights you have taken in 2012 by supporting this project. If you are interested, please send us an e-mail.  

These are the twigs that each of the brothers need to pick every day. Zandritiana Jean Martin (15 years of age) is wearing the blue jumper and Zafinantenaina Jean Roger (14 years of age) is wearing the green jumper. To pick this amount of twigs and sticks they have to pick sticks for at least 1 hour each (every day), as it is now quite difficult to find sticks where they live.