The Trip Comes to an End

by Dan Morrison

Wednesday November 26, 2008 at 3:53am, EST

I don’t remember falling asleep but a bump and rumble woke me up. I expected to see Yaqubbhai transfixed on the road ahead and Heenaben talking on her cell phone. After a moment of confusion, I remembered I was on my way to Heathrow after 17 days on the ground in Gujarat.

The trip was a success on all accounts. Most importantly, I got out of May’s hair and she put together our holiday drive that launches December 4th. We will tell you more about that, but we hope you can use it to rediscover the spirit of the holidays (www.1well.org/alliwant).

We visited over 20 villages. We saw the impact Sedla’s check dam (Matt & Dana) is having on Sahibkhan’s cotton harvest. We visited Jogad and spoke with the families that will have access to light because of Ariadne’s efforts. We hung out with the kids of Vera who are getting better nutrition and education because Heidi, Maia, and Gurinder funded their childcare center. And we spoke at length with the people of Dungra in Rajasthan about the childcare center they are going to build with Carolyn’s help.

We also visited Solnalnagar, Nokna, and Ahmedabad which are the sites for the 1Well holiday drive.

During these visits, I tried and shut up and listen. I was repeatedly humbled by the villagers that explained (very kindly) why some of my ideas were not practical or just plain dumb. Just because Sonalnagar can benefit from biogas plants, doesn’t mean Sedla can (Sonalnagar has ample cattle for fuel, Sedla does not). Kapurashi has ample roofs for roofrainwater harvesting, while Bacchulawand does not.

The lesson was top down plans and strategies are not going to work. There was no model village we could “create” and then scale and implement across all others and come up with a desired and sustainable outcome. The model we can scale and replicate is finding the right local partner, listening to the communities needs, offering ideas and work out issues when necessary, and matching them with someone willing to raise the funds for the project.

This piecemeal approach can have dramatic effect. Lalaben in Sonalnagar will be installing a biogas plant through the 1Well holiday drive. She will take 25 kilograms of manure produced by her cattle every day to create cooking gas. This will replace the need for her to walk 2-3 hours for wood. With this time, she will be able to work as an agricultural laborer, providing her the income to send her children to school. Not only will she not be burning wood to cook, releasing CO2 into the air, but her family will not be breathing in harmful smoke. The byproduct of the biogas plant is organic fertilizer she can use on her land. This will increase yield, reduce costs, increase income, and prevent the need to buy CO2 intensive, polluting chemical fertilizers.

Over the next few weeks, we will be bringing you new projects identified on the trip and sharing stories about the impact 1Well SVCs are making. Thank you for following me on my trip and please email me if you have any questions or just want to get involved.

Best,
Dan