Cyclone in Tamil Nadu

I just received from M Govindaraju this information :

"... the cyclone depression and cyclonic wind coupled with heavy rains affect the entire coastal districts especially tsunami region.The houses constructed by SEVAI for tsunami victims are safe.The neighbourhoods dalit homes are surrounded by floods.There is a cyclonic effect in Tamilnadu and I herein attach a few press clippings of the Poompuhar coast heavy rains with wind, and also Trichy region,which is under floods,houses damaged.

SEVAI team sets it up a Community kitchen in Thirnagari Dispensary area in the coast and Allur in Trichy and feed around the flood victims especially old, and pregnant women and children and undertake basic firstaid for them.We could not do anything more than this for want of funds.

The Trichy area is also facing severe rainfall and the low-lying areas are affected by floods,we had also started a community kitchen in Allur for elderly people those who live in and around Allur low-lying areas.The roads leading to Trichy from neighbouring towns were cut-off.The Amour and other SEVAI centres are safe till this morning without flood damage,but all schools have been closed for the fifth day.This is for your kind information.
Yours sincerely,
K.Govindaraju.
SEVAI.

Volontaire : un sponsor pour financer votre mission?

... si vous souhaitez nous rejoindre pour travailler sur un projet bien défini de SEVAI validé par OFI et que vous avez des amis imposables, ceux ci peuvent vous aider à financer la mission (billet d'avion et autres frais) et bénéficier du reçu fiscal de OFI.... ils bénéficieront de 66% de déduction d'impôts.
Merci de me contacter pour les formalités.

Vademecum du nouveau volontaire

... vous souhaitez rejoindre SEVAI pour 1 , 2, .... x mois? alors voici quelques conseils des "anciens":

• Si vous n'avez jamais voyagé hors d'Europe, ce n'est peut être pas la toute première expérience à tenter ... ou alors pas trop longtemps! Autant vous le dire clairement, le choc culturel est fort.
• Si vous le pouvez, essayez de partir à deux, c'est plus facile pour travailler et réfléchir sur ce que vous vivrez car la communication avec les équipes n'est pas toujours facile: ils sont tous extrèmement gentils mais leur anglais est approximatif et parlé par peu de personnes à SEVAI.
• Apportez votre ordi: vous acheterez sur place l'abonnement mensuel de connexion à Internet "Reliance" pour environ 15 euros / SEVAI vous fournira la carte.
• Apporter votre tel portable: on vous le "débloquera" sur place, et vous acheterez des unités, c'est moins cher qu'en France .
• Apportez quelques livres en français, vous pourrez les laisser et contribuer à étoffer la bibliothèque des volontaires ...

La santé :

• traitement antipallu : ce n'est pas obligatoire mais si vous decidez de le faire, prenez de la malarone, moins d'effets secondaires.
• si problème de santé sérieux, vous irez à l'hopital de Trichy: très bien, avec un médecin qui parle bien anglais (Dr Velmorgan). Evitez l'hopital local d'Allur.
• si vous restez plus d'un mois, pensez à apporter des compléments alimentaires ( calcium...)
• vérifiez votre assurance rapatriement

Les transports autour de SEVAI:

• les bus fonctionnent bien et pour très bon marché
• si vous souhaitez louer un deux roues, il vous faut le permis international, mais evitez absolument de conduire en ville ! c'est tout simplement kamikaze.

Le premier brunch des amis de SEVAI

... nous nous sommes retrouvés à 7 dans le studio de Pauline, entassés et assis par terre pour manger des croissants en évoquant SEVAI avec nostalgie.
On a bien ri aux récits pittoresques des uns et des autres: les réunions avec "le directeur", les préparatifs de fêtes, les conditions de vie conviviales mais spartiates à Allur, les facéties de Panir à Amoor, les balades dans les villages en moto avec Devindran (le roi du vermicompost!!!), l'ambiance studieuse à Shanti school, risquer sa vie sur les routes indiennes, expérimenter les hopitaux de campagne (...an injection, sir!)... même les 42° à l'ombre nous ont paru agréables alors qu'une triste neige mouillée tombait sur Paris.

Nous avons échangé nos idées et nos projets, refait la stratégie de la microfinance mondiale et fait des plans pour nous retrouver ici ou làbas un jour.

J'ai bien noté toutes les remarques et conseils des anciens pour les futurs volontaires, que vous retrouverez dans le chapitre "vademecum".

C'était un bon moment de rencontre, merci à SEVAI de nous en avoir fourni le prétexte!

Save C02 emission with economic stoves!

Sebastien started this project last year, following the research on the solar cooker which are still to be finalized.
This economic stove saves wood and produces less smoke than a chulla or 3 stones, the traditional cook stove.
The chulla efficiency is around 8% and this stove should be more than 20%.

Due to this difference, we can economise wood, around 70%, that means less CO2 emissions and less smoke for the cookers.

Moreover, this stove answers to the cookers expects: 2 opening fires for indian cooks and a production of less smoke.
The project is to implement this stove in rural family who are below the poverty line, in the Musiri Block in first.
The project , the stove will be financed by the carbon credit (90%) and the family (10%). the average cost is 800 Rs.

Actually, the CO2 reductions can be buy by one foreign brand as suggesting in the Kyoto Protocol.
SHG will take in charge the production and the distribution of the stove.

By this way, we will give technical skills to population in marketing, project monitoring and environmental awareness.

This is a prototype .

In order to be mobile, we need to reduce his weight. We will imagine a new box. But the first measurements show us a good opportunity. We have efficiency around 25 %. That means we can reduce CO2 emissions to 1.5 tCO2per year and per household.

It is still in process.

Goals of the blog

Greetings to all!! Past, present and future friends of Sevai!!!

The idea of starting this blog came to me during a conversation with Jonathan, who volunteered at Sevai for three months, working for a microfinance project and an early childhood education project. He told me about the Indian team there, but also about the other volunteers who traveled to Tamil Nadu to help with Sevai projects.

Amongst others, Marie-Anne and Marion worked with him on the microfinance project, four young students of Supelec helped rebuilding the Sevai website or working with Indian workers in the fields, and the young people from ICHEC in Brussels, as they do every year, financed and worked on a large housing project.

Yesterday, while I was talking to Govindaraju via Skype, Clemence, a young film director, was with him; she will be projecting popular films in the villages near Trichy, including in each one of them several commercials promoting HIV-AIDS prevention… When I was at Sevai in February, Sebastien, a young engineer, was working on a solar oven project launched by a Sevai team two years ago. Every one of these encounters are important to me, to the volunteers and to the people of Sevai, as, beyond the humanitarian projects, they were encounters of friendship and of exchange.

I started wondering where these people were and what they had become, and I thought that they too might be curious… Thus this blog could be a place where we could all exchange news about our lives after Sevai, about the projects we worked on and what they have become, who is working on them now… It is a way of keeping this chain of solidarity that was created around Sevai together.

For the last eight years I have known Sevai, thanks to my friend Benjamine who has been working with them for the last 20 years, I have been thoroughly impressed by the number, the diversity and the great quality of the volunteers that have met with Sevai’s path at a precise moment of their lives. I realized that every year for the last 20 years, there are more than 20 people who go to Sevai for a few days, a few weeks, a few months, or even years… Not forgetting all those who did not have the chance to travel there, but who help us morally and through financial help!

This is the extraordinary wealth I would like to bring together as a, organized network with this blog: beyond the articles that will be written to inform you about projects or fields of work and research (construction, solar oven, agriculture, microfinance, health, education…), my idea is to put together a directory of Sevai friends, and a vade-mecum for the new volunteers (including information about accommodation, food, transports, health issues when living and working at Sevai).

I hope that you too will have the time to add your touch to this blog. Please contact me to get the code.

I will ask M. Govindaraju to give us direct news, as well as to inform us of his doubts, questions and problems.

Let us not forget that your donations (via OFI in France for example, see links) are more than welcome!!

Thanks you for your comments and propositions!!!

... and thank you to Jonathan for his translation....

Dimanche 23 novembre : premier brunch des Amis de SEVAI à Paris !

... voilà , on ne fait pas que parler ou écrire, on va aussi manger!!!
Je vous propose qu'on se retrouve le dimanche 23 pour un brunch à Paris, on réfléchit au lieu... ce sera en fonction du nombre de personnes !!!!
merci de répondre ici, dans les commentaires ....
A bientôt !