Projects

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.

Please consider donating to TRAS to support the health, education, and wellbeing of these children.

Total funding required: $18,436

Will you help?

To donate to the Passive Solar Heat Project click here

For more than 20 years, TRAS has supported the 500 students and staff at Munsel-ling School, located in the Spiti Valley region of northern India. Residents of Spiti Valley experience harsh winter conditions — with temperatures often plunging to -30°C and below — which results in annual road closures between neighbouring towns for up to eight months of the year. The remoteness of Munsel-ling School means that self-sufficiency is of the utmost importance.

This year, TRAS is fundraising to support the purchase and installation of 68 rocket stoves, which will replace all of the iron stoves at Munsel-ling School. These rocket stoves are made locally in Himachel Pradesh and installed by a merchant from the nearby town of Kaza. The iron stoves that are currently installed will be sold for recycling.

The need to fund these rocket stoves is twofold. First, the rocket stoves will decrease the amount of smoke within the school, which will have a positive influence on the respiratory health of students, staff, and volunteers. Second, the rocket stoves are more efficient than their iron counterparts, which means that fewer resources, like wood and cow dung, need to be expended in order to heat the classrooms, dormitories, and staff quarters at Munsel-ling School.

Health

Woodsmoke pollution has been shown to increase the risk of respiratory disorders and genetic defects in children. In mountain deserts like the Spiti Valley, communities often burn cow dung because wood is a scarce resource. This also affects lung health, as up to 25% of the arsenic found within cow dung can be absorbed into human respiratory tracks when it is burned. All of this may increase susceptibility to serious respiratory illnesses, including COVID-19.

The rocket stoves that TRAS is fundraising for are 90% smokeless. As it uses 50% less materials to produce the same amount of heat, less cow dung can be used to fuel Munsel-ling School during the frigid winter months. This means healthier lungs and happier kids.

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Sustainability

Spiti Valley is located in a mountain desert with little forest cover and sparse vegetation. As a result, the region is not conducive to lumber production or cattle raising, meaning that firewood is expensive and cow dung is hard to come by.

The rocket stoves TRAS is fundraising for consume 50% less materials than the iron stoves currently installed at Munsel-ling School, while producing the same amount of heat. Because the stoves contain a secondary combustion chamber, less energy and heat are lost, making it a far more efficient alternative. The replacement of these stoves therefore promotes both environmental sustainability and economic efficiency.

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Project Report September 2021

Total donations needed: $20,322

A shocking statistic: Although there has been great improvement in recent years, Nepal continues to have one of the highest maternal death rates in the Asia Pacific region, with 279 women dying per 100,000 live births, according to recent UN data.

For more than 20 years, the Innovative Development Education Academy (IDEA) in Pokhara, Nepal, has been running an 18 month midwifery education/training course for girls and women from remote areas of Nepal which will help to save lives of mothers and children in those areas.

The Academy is well established and well regarded.  Many young women from cities like Kathmandu and Pokhara receive training there, paying their own way – but inevitably they look for work in urban settings.  So IDEA looks for international support to help pay for the young women from rural areas to receive this vital training.  Most of these graduates return to their own villages and do sterling work in helping to save the lives of mothers and babies. 

In 2019, TRAS partnered with IDEA assisting 4 underprivileged students in paying for their 18 month Midwifery course.

See Page 6 in our December 2019 Newsletter to see how the 4 students are doing.

Early 2020 all students were sent home due to the Covid-19 pandemic, with kits to help people in their home villages, while studying as much as possible online. This raised a question: how would they be able to study online? The cost per student, to purchase an iPad or smart phone, internet service and data plans has been about $600; so TRAS has offered to pay $2,400 for the four students we are sponsoring.

Donations needed for 2021: $2,400