Our friends over at the Rotary Club of Vermilion have provided us with an update on the solar driven borehole project.
Mathang Support Group was formed in 2010, and has a membership of 13 with the goal of supporting the sick (HIV/AIDS), needy orphans and the aged. Membership is comprised of 5 men and 8 women. It estimated that, out these members, 80 individuals of their family members will get direct benefits from the project. Eventually about 500 people may benefit in the village of Qopo. The goal is to improve livelihoods of members and community groups. There are 11 villages.
Project activities of the Group are installation of a solar-driven borehole for open and protected agricultural production. The Rotary Club of Vermilion, with the overseeing and implementation by the Rotary Club of Maloti-Maseru. The Government of Lesotho provides support through Smallholder Agricultural Project (Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security) which contributes 60% of the costs of a greenhouse for vegetable production. The Group has the following assets: hired crop field (5 acres), wheelbarrow (10), digging fork (1), spade (1), harrow (1), watering cans (10), 200-l drums (2), 25-l containers (6), individual’s hoes. A stone-built water tanks (20,000 litres in size) was constructed by the group with the support of the Ministry of Forestry and Land Reclamation which provided technical know-how, supervision and supplied cement; members provided labour and collected stones. The Group also runs a small poultry unit of 157 layers assisted by the United States embassy in Lesotho.
Implementation:
The Group had approached Rtn Tessa Bell, of Rotary Club of Vermillion in Canada, for a helping hand in 2012, for water supply for irrigation of their vegetables. She, on behalf of her Club, asked the Rotary Club of Maloti for joint implementation of a solar powered borehole installation project, with all funds from their Club amounting to $13,000 (M120,000). The project was, therefore, implemented by Service Projects with active involvement of the President of the Club; regular updates were sent to Canada. Excess funds would be used as deemed appropriate by the community group. They have proposed purchase of pvc pipes for supplying water from the water tank to the greenhouse and unprotected fields. The Group described major challenges as animal trespass, hail, frost, and drought. However, with the assistance from Rotary Club of Vermilion in Canada (borehole) and government (30x 10 metres greenhouse), and extension service, they will be able to overcome them.
Do you know of someone with an interesting story, an interesting career, or maybe somebody that has been somewhere unique?
This year, I, Jason, your incoming president, want to look out into our Community and find some interesting speakers and topics; the more unique the better. The one thing that I have seen during my short time with Rotary thus far, is that when it comes to speakers, we tend to hear quite a bit from local charities, philanthropic needs, and fundraising requests. As a club, we certainly want to support as many charities as possible and we do very good at this, however, I also feel we need to diversify our speaker program. I want to hear from the guys at Ribstone Creek about their brewery, I want to hear from somebody that is more into drones than I am, I want to hear about someone's unique hobby, I want to hear from Jim over at Rock Creek on how he decided to jump into that type of business.
These are just examples that I thought of while typing this little piece and I'm quite sure there are many other ideas out there. If you have any, please share them with me and we will try and fit in as many as possible.
This week's photo is submitted by Jason Whiting. If you missed it, on the morning of Friday February 12th, mother nature dazzled us with these big and bright sundogs.
Reminder, if you have a photo(s) that you would like to submit, please do so!
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