[Stoves] MUST CHARCOAL BE A CAUSE FOR CONCERN?

Crispin Pemberton-Pigott crispinpigott at gmail.com
Fri Oct 15 14:47:31 CDT 2010


Dear Frank

You know this is a very big issue among the stove promoters:

>I'm thinking our customers are NGO like Shell and the like as they are the
ones fronting the money. 
>They are the ones picking out the stove to distribute(?). I would think
they would only want to 
>distribute a safe stove as defined by our (the West) standards because
their reputation is at stake.

Appearances can be everything. I don't need to dwell on it but Richard's
technologies are to some too 'simple', shall I say? I refer to briquetting
presses. The press Apolinario is using in Maputo is mindlessly simple. Yes,
funders want to be seen to be bringing decent technologies to beneficiaries.

My experience of Shell is they that are pretty laid back in the sense that
they understand that things might not look snazzy or be high tech. However
they do have an internal definition of what improvement is in their own eyes
and there's nothing wrong with having an opinion, especially if you are
paying and the money has to be accounted for to others who wanted some
benefit delivered.

There was in the old Transkei a programme of 'improvement schemes' which
when they tried to roll it out (villagisation) in Pondoland, was resisted
full force. People said, "We don't want to be improved! Take your
'improvement' somewhere else!"

Moving people into a village before delivering schools and water was the
plan. It was of course a disaster as people were now miles from their fields
which were nearly abandoned in the places where villagisation was
implemented. And the water didn't come. 

The plan was to deliver clean water and education. The result was iffy and
the Pondos knew it. One man said, "If I send my children to school, they
will teach them to hate rural life. Then they will grow up and move to town.
In town there are many bad things and everyone is miserable. I don't want my
children to be miserable. I don't want them to be 'improved' and have an
unhappy life. They can stay right here and be happy. Take your school
somewhere else."

Outside people were paying for the schools, and toilets, and stoves, and
books and so on. It was the outsiders who set the standards. Producing
students who would be happy in a rural area was not on the list of products.


Cecil Cook (who had a stroke yesterday and is fortunately stable)
interviewed more than 3000 people for employment at the Transkei Appropriate
Technology Unit in Umtata. Each was asked what they would really like to do
for a living. Only 3 answered, 'Farming.' 

The Pondo man was at least partly right.

Regards
Crispin






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