August 2022

Project #341 – 2022

For more than 20 years, TRAS has supported the 500 students and staff at Munsel-ling School in the Spiti Valley in northern India. Residents of Spiti Valley experience harsh winter conditions, with temperatures often plunging to -30°C and below.

For the students at Munsel-ling, staying warm is a daily challenge for many months of the year. In mountain deserts like the Spiti Valley, firewood is expensive and hard to come by. Although the smoke-free, fuel-efficient rocket stoves have massively improved the living conditions at Munsel-ling School, the temperatures in the Spiti Valley are so frigid that polythene sheets were laid along the side of each

building each year to generate solar heat. Because new sheets needed to be purchased and installed each year, this was not a sustainable solution.

TRAS is fundraising to support the installation of a passive solar wall to heat the junior girls’ dormitory, which houses around 80 students. This fixture will create an 80×8 ft. buffer zone of stone, concrete, and very large windows, which will heat the interior of the building and provide a bulwark against harsh winter winds.

Being a desert, there is little precipitation during the coldest months, but lots of sunshine. When the dormitory was built, the long wall was positioned to face south; the new buffer will act as a conservatory to warm the actual dormitory building. A similar wall has already been built against the boys’ and senior girls’ dormitories with great success.

TRAS was able to send Munsel-ling $18,436 CAD to help with this project. Thank you to all of our donors that made this possible.