Thursday 01.08.2013
Kept looking for cooperation from international charities and approached the banks to get knowledge about their loan opportunities for the project, in case everything else fails.
Friday 02.08.2013
Went to the Immigration Office to have all my nightmares come true. Even though I have everything and more papers I had collected the past two weeks, they still came up with one more - a certificate of my studies from the Engineering Institute. This stamp would cost me 550ZMK, which I could not afford at the moment. So proabably just have to change the title of what I'm doing from Environmental Engineer to something else I don't have to bribe.. I mean pay officials for.
Saturday 03.08.2013
Lazy day just enjoying life... and doing 8 hours work on proposals to marketing companies to help us promote our cause by benefitting from the cooperation and to use it in their Social Responsibility programs. Went to eat in the evening to our friend's Jamie's place and oh boy.. he was a great chef! Smugglers behind Intercontinental hotel, we will definately come again!
Sunday 04.08.2013
Went to the Agriculture Exhibition in Showgrounds to see the fuzz. Was rather nice with all the activities and people! Found some really nice Nitrogen Fixer and Organic Pesticide Plant seeds and Agroforestry information from Green Living Movement's stand. Bought Tephrosia Vogelli, Sesbania Maclantha & Jatropha (food/organic pesticide) seeds to plant to Pia Manzi and surrounding communities.
List of Nitrogen Fixing Trees:
1. Sesbania Macrantha
2. Sesbania Sesban
3. Glyricidia Sepiam
4. Lueceana Lucosphala
5. Cajanas Cajan
6. Tephrosia Vogelli / Candida
7. Acacia
Wood Lots
1. Indian Ash
2. Pine
3. Toona Chilata
4. Eucalyptus
5. Senna Siamea
6. Senna Spectabilis
7. Flamboyant
8. Jacaranda
9. Colophospermum mopane
Also went to discuss with Bank of Zambia representatives, who admitted they don't keep record on total debt, only loans and deposits (who cares about annual ~18% interest effect on the economy..) and got invited to Rural Electrification Agency's office to discuss about our hydropower raft design. Hopefully we get some fruitful cooperation set up!
Saturday 24.08.13
Update for the happening during the last two weeks.
We failed to support the funding for the 125 000 ha nature conservation area and it's moringa plantations. At least we tried everything from Nature Conservation Organizations to Government Departments, Foreign Embassies, Private Investors, Bank Loans, Corporate Sponsorships, Stand Sales, Crowdfunding & Lottery. Didn' work out, no can do. We sadly leave behind the IRDI's year work of planting 500 000 moringa trees. We left the plantations to be maintained by the local people, but without proper irrigation equipment I doubt most of the young plantations wont survive to rainy season.
Also our funding applications for composter equipped permaculture food gardens to orphanages, crop diversification projects to four rural starving villages & e-education prototyping in the same areas were rejected by all the five organizations we applied funding from.
We have now helped Jhpiego with the Birth Center Design development for nearly two months but they still have not managed to fulfil their part and trasfer the money they received a month ago to IRDI. Relationship and trust is crumbling down towards them.. We are going to finnish our design with or without collaboration with them anyways. Applying bio-intensive conservation cultivation, Paddy-Cum-Fish Cultivation to rice plantations, nutritious plants to replace the medicines that are not available, basic processing equipment to increase agriculture output value & preservation, soil & water examination for proper water treatment, plant guild design and tablet softwares for measurement records to patient database with communication platform to Medical Guidance HQ will significantly and cost-effectively improve the quality of health services in rural areas.
We started to plan a small scale agro-processing plant to treat moringa & baobab powders to be safely distributable. Since we cannot secure our own safe production we are buying raw materials from rural producers. This usually means that there is a need to treat the materials to provide 100% hygiene safety. We plan this plant to be a stepping stone from growing the organization activity from the grassroot level. We will be left to see if it is possible to get investment or loan for this either.
UNZA (University of Zambia) Electrical & Mechanical Engineering Departments agreed to start a collaborative project with us to develop the hydropower raft design to be manufacturable in Zambia. We are together improving the design, building a prototype & designing the manufacturing process.
www.careermate.com CEO also took contact and we started a collaboration to keep improving the education service platform. Mr. Yese Bill already has wast amounts of valuable data from Ministry of Education, Wikipedia, E-libraries and lecturing teachers. Combining my findings of free lectures, e-books, education games & network of web designers & content specialists I believe we are able to deliver an extraordinary efficient data distribution service to Zambian education system. Addin related educational materials to the school curriculum, introductions of careers with professional interviews, information about the existing schools & their educational services and marketing channel for educational services we are going to create a great platform to help students and their teachers in professional guidance and preparations to the professions. We wish to get funding for the work from Ministry of Education, but have also developed other revenue models in case the plan A is not going through.
Only 1% of Zambia's GDP is aimed to educational services, so we want to make these services much more cost-efficient and with external funding if the government is not helping. Proper education, nutrition & health care are the only ways children here can be provided with the necessary tools to be prepared to get the country out of poverty, famine & corrupted suppression.
So struggle continues!
