Feb/Mar 2007

31st March 2007

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TianPingZi Bridge Project in Daying Village

The bridge of TianPingZi is one of main routes in and out of Daying village. Some villagers of Heima township, Ganluo County, use this bridge to get to market. The picture on the right shows how difficult it was for the villagers to use this bridge. The old bridge was made of several logs, two of which had rotted. In the low water period, it is safe to cross, but it is dangerous when the stream is in flood. Sometimes the old bridge would be covered by water; sometimes it would be even swept away. Local school students are the main users of this bridge travelling between school and home. During the flood period, their parents needed to collect and deliver them so as they had to leave the farm work. At that time the swollen river water was extremely dangerous causing the loss of life to several Daying villagers.
As suggested by the villagers, DORS decided to help them build a stone bridge using large stones instead of wood for the main structure. We invited engineer Hao Keguo and He Fangming, from the Construction Headquarters of Hanyuan to make a study on the spot and design and plan the construction of the new bridge. With the help of an engineer from Traffic Bureau, engineer Hao and engineer He helped us to make the final design. All this work was provided free-of-charge, which is greatly appreciated and for which we thank them. After thorough discussion with villagers, they agreed to construct the scheme by themselves and a management group of three has been set up. Qui Fuzhong who is Village leader has been chosen as management group leader and is the guarantor for the whole project. DORS provided all project funds for the materials which were purchased and transported for the construction of the bridge. All the villagers in Hamlet 4 have prepared sands, stones and essential tools, and have provided the labour free-of-charge. During the bridge construction process, Bai Shihai of DORS provided technical guidance and supervised the project frequently. The picture on the left is taken on March 23th, 2007, which shows the new bridge.

Income Generation in HuoDi Village

On March 6th, 2007, DORS held a meeting, in the home of the Huodi Party Secretary, about Income Generation Projects for demonstration households. We signed contracts with them for raising honeybees, growing giant arum, angelica and also paid the first installment to them. This kind of small demonstration project will encourage interest among the villagers which DORS anticipates will prove helpful when implementing further Income Generation Projects in the whole village. From these projects, villagers can find methods of increasing their income independently. At the moment, villagers have started to purchase materials for construction. DORS will continue to monitor the project.

Demonstration Stove Project and Forestry Project in ShiQuan village

Demonstration Stove Project has been started. There are 5 stoves that have been finished by two technicians who are trained by DORS. Trainees have learned stove building technology through the construction of 5 stoves. So the remaining two stoves will be built by themselves independently. The guide, LiYude, had received earlier training from DORS. He comes from one of our other project villages, DaYing. He also took part in our forestry training, so he helped Shiquan villagers to graft walnut and cherry trees before teaching them to build stoves. The Big Cherry saplings were provided free-of-charge by DORS staff member Wang Zhifang and her family.

GuLu Village

YongLi township is an Yi minority autonomy area located in southwest of HanYuan County, and is one of the most remote townships, being a three hour drive from FuLin to the township seat. There are 6 villages, GuLu is most difficult one to access. This village is very remote from the township government, for on all sides there is a sheer precipice. Therefore it is unsuitable for the construction of a road. However, nature has created an incredible gorge view, named 'YiXianTian'. In 2001, the government invested 200,000 RMB to help to construct a two-meter wide mule path on the cliff face. It was a difficult to construct such a mule path and it takes three hours to walk from ChangHeBa to Hamlet 3, which is most densely populated in GuLuBThe only way to carry goods is by horse, mule or people's back.
DORS had visited GuLu village in 2002. At that time , DORS considered the road to be too dangerous and too much problem for staff security, so DORS, temporarily, gave up thoughts of including this village in our projects plan. DORS has been invited many times to YongLi township by the government leaders and Teacher Deng. DORS staff accompanied them to carry out a second inspection on the February 5th and 6th 2007. So far, the village have no access to electricity. They have enough water to drink but water pipes were seriously damaged. On one side of the path, a protection ridge has been built, although the protection ridge is not big, it has reduced feeling of fear to some extent. The township leaders are promoting infrastructure construction activities. If DORS will choose YongLi township as one of our Income Generation project townships, it will be able to help promote village's economic development.

Demonstration stove project in Shuangmacao village

At the beginning of March, DORS signed a demonstration-stove contract with SMC villageVillagers had already prepared the materials and now the busy farming season is over they are waiting for skilled technical assistance before they are able to start. We plan to train two new technicians.

Livestock Project in Sanshihu village

On the February 2, we went to SSH village to make a comprehensive inspection of the sheep growth situation. The project started in August 2005 and DORS supported 175 ewes. These ewes gave birth to 104 lambs in 2005 and 154(not including 4 dead lambs) in 2006. In the whole village, the sheep are growing well, except one ewe that died. After checking, we repaid the guarantee to 33 households, altogether totaling 3300RMB. There were 2 households did not get their guarantee returned as we had not examined their sheep.

DORS news and information

With deep regret, we have decided to postpone DORS 10 year celebrations (these were due to be held on 11th and 12th April 2007) because some important reason.
We are still completely committed to holding the celebrations, but we cannot set a new date yet (and we may not be able to fix a date for some time). We will continue to prepare for the celebrations so that we can go ahead smoothly when everything is well.

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