Sunday, February 23, 2014

Green Tech Vision Trains Sanyang village Welder men on cooking stoves production


(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.
She pointed that “what a man can, a women can do it, depending on one’s interest”.

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