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Informationsbroschyr om spisprojektet

Smokeless Stoves Distribution in Rolpa

Sammanfattning av slutrapporten för Rökfria & Energisnåla Spisar i Rolpa Etapp 2 (Improved Stoves for Better Health Project in Rolpa)

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I december 2021 avslutade International Nepal Fellowship (INF) ett projekt med installationer av Rökfria & Energisnåla Spisar i Sunchhahari landsbygdskommun, Rolpa distrikt, Nepal. Under projektperioden 2019 – 2021 har totalt 1 458 fattiga hushåll fått spisar installerade. Nepals Vänner, via INF, har varit en av huvudsponsorerna. I slutet av december 2021, hade 66 % (1 458 av 2 196) av de totala hushållen i Sunchhahari landsbygdskommun fått rökfria spisar installerade.

Nästan alla i Sunchhahari kommun är jordbrukare och använder ved som främsta energikälla vid matlagning. Traditionellt använder man öppna eldstäder. Dessa eldstäder förbrukar inte bara mycket ved utan bidrar också till hälsoproblem då de saknar rökgång och därmed gör inomhusluften i hemmen väldigt ohälsosam.

Projektet har finansierats av INF och den lokala regeringen samt hushållen som varit målgruppen. Den lokala regeringen valde ut vilka familjer som skulle få ingå i gruppen helt utifrån deras ekonomiska situation och behov.

Projektet budgeterades till drygt SEK 620 000. I projektbeskrivningen skulle 1 007 spisar distribueras under 3-årsperioden men projektet kunde köpa in spisar till ett lägre pris under första halvåret 2021 vilket ledde till att man kunde distribuera hela 1 458 spisar.

INF har arbetat tillsammans med s.k. självhjälpsgrupper och kommittéer för skogsbrukare. Medlemmarna i dessa grupper har även getts utbildning för att kunna installera och också underhålla spisarna.

Under projektåren 2020 och 2021 drabbades Nepal av den första och andra vågen av Covid-19. Regeringen tillkännagav då en rikstäckande lock down under 3–4 månader. Detta påverkade all ekonomisk verksamhet allvarligt och inte minst försörjningen för fattiga och marginaliserade familjer och individer som var beroende av dagslöner och jobb för sin försörjning.

Resultat och slutsatser

Med den nya spisen minskar vedmängden med 40 – 50 % jämfört med en traditionell eldstad. Det bidrar till att minska avskogning och ger en mindre arbetsbörda för de kvinnor som samlar in veden.

På grund av minskad arbetsbelastning, speciellt relaterad till vedinsamling, kan kvinnorna nu delta i de sociala aktiviteterna som möten i självhjälpsgrupper och andra typer av samlingar. I snitt har arbetsbelastningen för kvinnorna minskat med ca 5 timmar per vecka. Den långsiktiga effekten av de förbättrade spisarna i samhället kommer att följas upp genom intervjuer med människor från målgrupperna.

I hushållen är det nu betydligt enklare att hålla rent. Tidigare var köksutrymmena mycket rökiga och svåra att vistas i. Kvinnorna och flickorna, som i huvudsak är de som sköter matlagningen, behöver inte lägre utsättas för den osunda miljön vilket tidigare var den största orsaken till luftvägssjukdomar och ögoninfektioner. Enligt rapporter från de lokala myndigheterna har fallen av luftvägssjukdomar minskat med 75 % bland de som fått de förbättrade spisarna.

Spisarna ger också mer värme i husen vilket är positivt, särskilt vintertid. En riskfaktor är dock att rökkanalen från spisen skulle kunna orsaka gnistor i hus med halmtak vilket skulle kunna orsaka en eldsvåda. För att undvika detta har de lokala myndigheterna försett 130 hushåll med korrugerad galvaniserad plåt för att byta ut sina halmtak.

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Progress report no. 2. Written by Arjun Kapri, February 2020

A. Introduction & Background

International Nepal Fellowship (Nepal) has been working in Rolpa district since 2013. Currently, there are 4 projects being implemented in Rolpa. They are Rolpa Climate Change Project, Rolpa WASH project, EDUCATE Project and Community Resilience Project. The Improved Cooking Stove (ICS) Project was designed to be a complementary intervention to Rolpa Climate Change Project funded by Interact Asia. The first phase of such intervention was implemented in 2018 under which the project distributed ICS to a total of 418 households one set of ICS to each household in Seram, Uwa and Thabang communities of Rolpa.

This is the second phase of Improved Cooking Stoves Project implemented by INF Nepal with funding support from Friends of Nepal. Under the second phase, the project had planned to support with improved cooking stoves to a total of 1,007 households of 6 wards (ward number 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) of Sunchhahari RM where the Rolpa Climate Change Project is also being implemented. The plan was developed also in coordination with the Sunchhahari RM office. It was planned to distribute the stoves with improved cooking stoves in two years period (500 stoves in the first year i.e. 2019-20 and remaining 507 stoves in the second year (i.e. 2020-21).

As per the plan it was planned to distribute the Improved Cooking Stove in ward no 5, 6 and 7 in the first lot and in ward 2, 3 and 4 in the second lot.

B. Work Completion Details

As planned, the project distributed a total of 500 households with improved iron stoves, one to each household (250 in November 2019 and other 250 stoves in January 2020). The households who received the stoves were from the poorest families of the communities. This was the first lot of distribution which was done in ward no 5, 6 and 7 of Sunchhahari RM. and the households who received the improved cooking stove are now happy to use them for cooking. The households who received the stove also contributed with NPR 1,000 to 2,000 as matching fund for purchasing and transporting the stoves.

C. Progress to achievement of Project Goal/Objectives

The broader objective of this project is to contribute to SDG goal 15 and closely related to indicator 15.3 “By 2030, combat desertification, restore degraded land and soil, including land affected by desertification, drought and floods, and strive to achieve a land degradation-neutral world”

The specific objective of the project is ”To increase fuel efficiency and reduce the volume of firewood consumption of target communities of Sunchhahari in Rolpa”.

The following were the expected result of the project:

As reported above, the project has completed the distribution of a total of 500 stove by the end of January 2020. A total of 3012 (Male: 879, Female 898, Boys: 602 and Girls: 633) are directly benefited from the support. Though it is still too early to report the impact however following are the impacts or signs of impact noticed or experienced by the target beneficiaries:

The improving cooking stove has also saved their time as it is far more efficient than the traditional open stove in term of time taken for cooking meal. There is also less risk of fire hazard with improved cooking stove. The below planned activities are majorly implemented up to now.

Activity No.	Activity	Progress
	Information collection from the proposed communities	The target communities were selected by coordinating with concerned ward offices. Upon the request of the project, the Ward chairpersons organized a mass meeting in each ward to identify the needy community and also to collect the information from those communities.
	Coordination meetings with ward and RM offices	The project organized 3 coordination meetings with the RM officials, Chairperson, Vice-chairperson and ward chairpersons. During the coordination meetings the issues and information collected from the mass meeting in different wards were shared and discussed. RM office has also allocated NPR 600,000.00 for this project.
	Screening and selection of target beneficiaries	Based on the discussion with RM and Ward official, those communities were selected who had to walk a longest distance to collect the firewood. The table below shows the households selected from different wards of Sunchhahari RM: Wards Households Ward # 2 200 HHs Ward # 3 200 HHs Ward # 4 140 HHs Ward # 5 150 HHs Ward # 6 167 HHs Ward # 7 150 HHs Total 1007 HHs
	Design of project proposal and seeking for the approval	It was already done and the project is implementing
	Tender/Quotation publication	Quotation was published in Daily News Paper “Butwal Today” and “Kalpristha national daily newspaper”.
	Agreement with selected supplier/manufacturer	Through the quotation process, Jagadamba Company was selected and we signed the agreement with the supplier to supply 500 set of improved cooking stoves in the first lot.
	Follow-up manufacturing site and ensure the completion of production	The project regularly followed up with the manufacturing site to check the cooking stoves are manufactured as agreed.
	Transportation of stoves to distribution center	The improved cooking stoves were transported in two lots (250 in the first lot and 250 in the second lot) to the target communities.
	Conduct stoves distribution program	The project organized a distribution programme in all three wards i.e. 5, 6 and 7 in the presence of RM chairperson, Ward chairpersons and other elected representatives of the target communities.
	Produce work completion report and disseminate to relevant stakeholders including the funding partner
	Follow up and monitoring	It will be done in the coming period.
	Conduct annual audit of the work and disseminate the outcomes	It will be done in the coming period.

D. Event Contribution to Long-term Changes

As mentioned above, this project was designed to be the complementary intervention under already existing project Rolpa Climate Change Project. The target communities are highly vulnerable to natural disaster like landslide and land erosion. One of the major reasons for these natural is deforestation. With the distribution of the improved cooking stoves to the target communities will help to reduce the quick depletion of forest. As result of efficiency of the improved cooking stove in term of time taken for cooking meal, the time of the people especially the women will be saved which means they will have leisure time which they can use for rest or to do some other work.

Another major expected long term result is the better health. Smoke borne diseases like asthma and other respiratory diseases particularly among the women and girls are quite common in the target communities. Because they are the one who spend a lot of time in the kitchen cooking. They have open traditional stove for cooking which emits smoke a lot and there is no proper exit for the smoke. The improved cooking stoves will have proper smoke exit system and will help to reduce the prevalence of such diseases among the target communities. The use of the improved cooking stove will also help in improving the cleanliness of the house and objects in the house.

As the project is still on its half way to completion, it would be too early to claim that all these expected long term changes have been realized. However, the signs of these impacts can be noticed.

E. Story from previous beneficiary

Unimala Budha lives in Uwa village of Thabang Rural Municipality. She has a family of 7 members living together. Her kids go to school and her husband works at home. They belong to a poor family of subsistence farmer and are depending on agriculture as their major source of income. However their agriculture yield does not support family for the whole year. Thus they need to work as daily wage laborer to support their livelihood.

There are 561 households in ward # 5 and about 31 families live in her village. Previously, 100% HHs cooked in open fire places in the village. As others, Unimala engaged herself with younger kids in the smoky kitchen 2-3 times every day for hours. They were unknown about the adverse effects on health of daily facing thick smoke. According to Unimala, minimum of 50 kilogram firewood was daily consumed in her kitchen for cooking and other purposes. Therefor she had collected large amount of firewood for cooking fuel. This was the general practice of every household in the area.

Only 32% of the total area is covered by forest but that is depleting every day due to the excessive use of firewood. It is not only causing the depletion of forest but also contributing to occurrence of landslide and soil erosion. Actually, the geographical structure of Rolpa is very sloppy and highly vulnerable to soil erosion and landslide.

As all most all households used the traditional open stoves for cooking which not only consumed excessive firewood but also contributed to causing smoke-borne diseases by the smoldering smoke in cooking room as these stoves did not have the smoke exit. The burn injuries and fire out-breaks were also often attributed to being started from such open fire places.

While we visited her house, there could be easily seen that her dirty and black dress, dark black walls and ceiling due to the smokes produced by open fire stoves. She also said, ”My clothes, ceiling and walls are turned into black within 2-3 days and add me additional work in cleaning them up and repainting the walls.” Unimala was representing of all families residing in the area as shown in the above picture.

Last in 2018 March, INF supported 249 stoves among them 31 stoves were supported in Unimala’s village in Uwa named Nokobang. There were two self-help groups and all SHG members got that improved iron stove and have been using it properly.

During our follow-up visit, again we visited in her house, there could be easily seen that her dirty and black dress, dark black walls and ceiling were cleaned at the moment. She also said, ”My dirty clothes, black ceiling and walls are turned into clean and added my additional work for cleaning clothes and repainting the walls has been utilizing for my agricultural work.”

From this year, Rural Municipality office and ward offices are initiated to reduce deforestation and conserve existing forests. They have the common objectives of declaring smokeless stove areas to

Sunchhahari RM within 2022. Hence, the contribution from their side is NPR 600,000.00 for this project.

F. Feedbacks

The project organized a formal programme to distribute the improved cooking stoves in which the RM chairperson was invited as chief guest. Some households who received the stove have built a separate kitchen and installed the stove in their new kitchen. Other HHs have installed in the same room by replacing their traditional open stove. All the beneficiaries are very happy to receive the stoves. The RM chairperson is also very impressed from this support provided by the project. “I have travelled in many places of the Country and saw different types of stoves. But what INF Nepal has distributed is the best one that I have ever seen”, shared the RM chairperson. He also expressed his gratefulness for all the project that INF Nepal is implementing in Sunchhahari RM. He committed to work in close coordination with INF Nepal in the future too.

A social worker from the target community (Mr. Chandra Bahadur Budha) is also a user of the improved cooking stove provided by the project. He called project team and expressed his gratefulness to the project. He shared his vision of making his village traditional stove free village and thanked INF Nepal for supporting with improved iron stove which has contributed to the fulfillment of his vision. He also shared the views he received from his community members about the improved cooking stoves they received that they are really happy to receive the high quality improved cooking stoves. Those households which were not covered by this project, they are also in the process of buying such stoves on their own.

The other communities which have not received the stove from project also have requested INF Nepal to provide such stoves to them. Ward no. 5, Jaimakasala has allocated NPR 200,000 budget for Jaima village and requesting INF Nepal to buy other stoves from that supplier. So the project will have a meeting in RM very soon for further discussion on this matter.

G. Finance Report

The total Income received for this project during this period was NPR 1,745,255. Total expenditure during the period is NPR 2,709,250. There is a negative fund balance of NPR (963,995) as of mid-January 2020.

A separate financial report will be provided shortly.

H. Beneficiaries

Category	Number of people	% of those involved
	Direct	Direct
Adult males of marginalized group	879	29 %
Adult females of marginalized group	898	30 %
Boys of marginalized group	602	20 %
Girls of marginalized group	633	21 %
Total	3012	100 %

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Progress report no. 1. Written by Arjun Kapri, December 2019

A. Introduction & Background

International Nepal Fellowship (INF) Nepal, a Christian organization, has been working in Nepal for over 67 years and in Rolpa District since 2013. It has been serving the poor and marginalized people of Rolpa District through Community Health and Development (CHD), Water, Sanitation and Health (WASH), Climate Change and Community Resilience (CRP) projects. These existing project/s are trying to address the major problems related to holistic development which covers the sub-sectors like gender issues, increasing infections with HIV/AIDS, social discrimination, insufficient crops, agricultural productions and food security, insufficient income status, lack of safe drinking water, awareness on hygiene and sanitation, malnutrition, lack of medicines and basic health facilities, disability issues, deforestation and climate change issues, literacy ratio, and natural disasters.

On the project span, we received feedbacks from community people about their suffering of various smoke borne diseases and infections, particularly in women, elderly people and small children. The root cause for that was assessed to use of traditional fire-place and uncontrolled smoke coming out of it. A concept note to address this issue through the distribution of improved smokeless iron stoves was developed after discussing within our team and approached to our generous funding partners. On the acceptance of our funding partners to finance the intervention, the event of distributing the iron stoves was intervened in aforementioned project areas of INF Rolpa Branch with the first focus to financially weak families.

Recently, 250 stoves were supported in Sunchhahahri Rural Municipality. In this fiscal year 500 stoves will be supported so remaining 250 stoves will be supported within a month and left will be supported in 2020.

This is not a full report, however the following sections will give the progress of this project up to now.

B. Work Completion Details

As stated above, the distribution of improved smokeless iron stoves was focused to benefit the households from financially weak families. The project was designed and agreed in March 2019 and it is under the progress. Right now we successfully distributed 250 stoves in ward no 6 and 7 of Sunchhahari RM. The stoves were purchased from a supplier that is recognized and authorized by Nepal Government and provides 50% subsidy in purchasing. A total of 250 households of that category got smokeless stoves and are now happy to use them for cooking. From the smokeless stoves, the community people (particularly women) are fully satisfied as the stoves have helped them maintain cleanliness of their kitchen, utensils and clothes. According to them, the stoves consume less firewood, cook the food quicker and create almost no fire hazards.

C. Progress to achievement of Project Goal/Objectives

The broader objective of this project is to contribute to SDG Goals 3: contribute to good health, Goal 15: closely related to indicator 15.3 “By 2030, combat desertification, restore degraded land and soil, including land affected by desertification, drought and floods, and strive to achieve a land degradation-neutral world”

The specific objective of the project is ”To increase fuel efficiency and reduce the volume of firewood consumption of target communities of Sunchhahari in Rolpa”.

The proposed project after the implementation is expected to bring about the following results as part of its impact in a long run:

a. Decrease in firewood consumption by 30-50%

b. Utilization of time in productive works that is saved from firewood collection

c. Decreased women’s workload

d. Decrease in rapid depletion of existing forests

e. Decrease in respiratory diseases and smoke borne infections

f. Maintained cleanliness of household kitchen and premises

g. Increase and conserve the forest products

Among 1007 stoves, we just supported only 250 stoves in this November 2019 and the project period will be ended in December 2021 so it is quite earlier to achieve the project goal however looking following completed activities it can be said that the project is going its right direction.

The below planned activities are majorly implemented up to now.

Activity No.	Activity	Progress
	Information collection from the proposed communities	Done
	Coordination meetings with ward and RM offices	Done
	Screening and selection of target beneficiaries	Done as given bellow: Wards Households Ward # 2 200 HHs Ward # 3 200 HHs Ward # 4 140 HHs Ward # 5 150 HHs Ward # 6 167 HHs Ward # 7 150 HHs Total 1007 HHs
	Design of project proposal and seeking for the approval	Done
	Tender/Quotation publication	Done for 500 stoves
	Agreement with selected supplier/manufacturer	Done
	Follow-up manufacturing site and ensure the completion of production	Done
	Transportation of stoves to distribution center	Done for 250 Stoves
	Conduct stoves distribution program	Done for 250 Stoves
	Produce work completion report and disseminate to relevant stakeholders including the funding partner	It will be done later
	Follow up and monitoring	It will be done later
	Conduct annual audit of the work and disseminate the outcomes	It will be done later

D. Story from previous beneficiary

Unimala Budha lives in ward no 5, Thabang Rural Municipality, Uwa. She has a family of 7 members living together. Her kids go to school and her spouse works at home. They belong to a poor farmer’s category and are depending on agriculture as major source of income. As the production does not support family for whole year, they earn from laborer works and hardly manage daily food and other expenses.

Unimala Budha cooking food in improved iron stove

From this year, Rural Municipality office and ward offices are initiated to reduce deforestation and conserve existing forests. They have the common objectives of declaring smokeless stove areas to Sunchhahari RM within 2022.