Wednesday 12 December 2012

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.