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| (Pic Source: observer.gm} Participants |
1 Green Tech Vision, with funding under the UNDP Global Environmental Facility (GEF) -Small
Grants Programme (SGP) project, organized training for welder men in Sanyang
village in Kombo North, West Coast Region recently on cooking stoves
production.
With the
UNDP GEF-SGP supported project, Green Tech Vision aims to tackle environmental
challenges and improve livelihoods in the local communities of West Coast Region;
Green Tech Vision is the only Gambian innovative company that produce briquette and make it affordable to Gambians
at a low price.
The training
aimed to enable welders in the villages of Tanji, Sanyang and Gunjur to be able
to reproduce the cooking stove in large quantities so that local
communities can have easy access to the product which in turn will save our
forest, as less firewood will be used.
The project
is designed to introduce fuel briquettes, fuel-efficient stoves and alternative
fish smoking technologies in the coastal villages. It is also meant
to tackle deforestation, loss of biodiversity and climate change and also
to improve livelihoods through the protection of natural resources,
reduction of smoke exposure, saving of household finances and income
generation.
To implement
the project successfully, Green Tech Vision signed a one-week contract with eight welding
workshops in Sanyang to prepare four different types of improved cooking
stoves, with the option of extending the
contract if Green Tech Vision is satisfied with the work.
Speaking to Mansa Banko at the training Lenja Guenther, the chairperson of GreenTech Vision,
spoke at length on their activities saying that Green Tech Vision is out to help
Gambian communities to use fuel efficient cooking stoves and save the forest
through provision of alternatives to firewood. In improved cooking stoves, one
can cook a meal for 12 people with only 2kg of briquettes, if trained how to
use the innovation..
Giving
background information about Green Tech Vision, she said that Green Tech Vision
was established in 2012 to promote improved cooking stove and fuel
briquettes adding that the fuel briquettes are made from groundnut shells,
which are waste products, turned to energy with the aim to save the
forest.
On the importance
of the forest, she stated that the stove could be very instrumental
in the protection of the environment and forest covers as well
as save families resources and energy.
Madam Guenther
revealed that the project aims to distribute more that 300 stoves in each
of the intervention villages and those stove will be produced by the welders in
the villages.
She urged
the trainee to use their skills and ideas to support the development of the
stove according to the local needs and share the knowledge among themselves.
‘’Share with others in your workshop and other workshops in your area. It is
not about competition, because we realize that the more stoves are out there
the more people will demand it”.
For his part
the Forestry technical assistant Lamin O Sanyang, said that protection of the
forest and the environment should be the duty of all. He highlighted the
importance of the forest to socio-economic development of the country and its
people, adding that saving the forest will save the country from the danger of
climate change and shortage of rain.
“The way people are destroying the forest
is alarming, if we are not careful it will affect us in the future, this is why
GreenTech came with this idea to save our forest and we all need to embrace the
idea and welcome it with open hand.”
Speaking on
behalf of the welder, Mr. Folonko Bojang, a Welder, said that improved cooking
stove will be very helpful not only in protecting the forest and the environment
in general, but also the welders-and the general public in earning income and
saving energy.
He assured Green
Tech Vision that they [the welder’s] would do everything that they can to be
able to replicate the stove in helping Green Tech and funders of the project to
achieve their goal.
He added
that it is their duty as welders to help produce more of the stove for people
to have access to it and they will surely do that. He assured.
For her
part, Miss Lenna Jammeh, the only female welder trainer and a student at Gambia
Technical Training Institute (GTTI) expressed her satisfaction on the training.
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