Juntos Stove and help with Shell Foundation

["Paul S. Anderson" <psanders@ilstu.edu>]

Stovers,

I hope that many of us will be applying for the Shell Foundation grants,
and that at least several of us receive funding.  

I offer my assistance to others who are applying, and I request
assistance in whatever way you might be able to provide it.  This
includes writing into the grant proposals some activities by others of
us.

My focus is on the Juntos stove.  If you want any Juntos aspects
into your grant proposal, contact me.

Information about the Juntos stove is found at:
http://www.repp.org/discussiongroups/resources/stoves/   
and go to the links for Paul Anderson - Juntos Stove, and see the
February 2002 posting.

And what I am seeking from you and others is any of the following:

a.  I must have scientific testing of the Juntos stove. 
Emissions testing, energy efficiency, and other scientific stuff that I
do not yet know that I need.  Several of you have offered to test
the Juntos stove for free.   Well, if Juntos gets a Shell
Grant, there can be some money to pay for some, part or all of the
testing.  But Shell wants ADDITIONAL PARTICIPANTS, and that could
include you and your agencies.  The value of what you
"donate" is offset against the hard-cash costs that need to be
covered for what you will do.

Tami, Ron, Tom, Tom, Mark, ETHOS, etc:  What should be tested and
what would be your cash needs and what would be your
"contribution"?  Should more than one place do similar
tests?   You are NOT competing with each other, at least not
while in the preliminary application stage.

Assume that an appropriate Juntos stove is provided to you.  Assume
that YOU will have the various fuel types to be tested (or ask for fuel
money if that is an issue).  Assume that you have the equipment and
personnel (no money for new equipment nor for training of testers). 
Assume there are 10 or 20 types of fuels and 5 or 10 configurations of
the Juntos stove that need testing.  (10 x 5 = 50 test runs, plus
replications;   20 x 10 = 200 test runs, plus
replications).   And how many measurements of what done where
and done when (how many times) during the burn.

I (and others who could be preparing applications) need answers (or at
least some questions to guide us as we try to prepare the
applications.)  Maybe I do not have a clue about what I am asking
about.

Remember:  THIS IS JUST THE PRELIMINARY LEVEL OF
APPLICATION.   I (we) need some ball park
figures!!    What will US$5000 get
accomplished?    or $10K,    or ? do you
need more??  ( $30K would be 10 percent of the total grant.)

And what would be the additional value that could be placed on the budget
representing your "contribution" to the project?

b.  Juntos stove construction issues:    Here I look
to Crispin and others who can MAKE things, including some of the design
issues.  Crispin has the inside track here because my application
work is focused toward southern Africa.  

BUT I am interested eventually having the Juntos stoves made in Kenya
(ELK), Papua New Guinea (ATprojects), Philippines (REAP), India
(Karve's), Latin America (Aprovecho and Legacy), and
elsewhere.   That might not mean production in all of those
places in the initial part of the grant period (max is 3 years), but
perhaps......      The Juntos stove design is so
simple that we do not need to sit on the designs and experimentation for
very long.  In fact, when I see Crispin in about 5 days from now, I
hope that we can accomplish much is a short period.

Assuming he wants it, Crispin would be written into the grant in a
significant way to get over the initial production hurdles, many even
prior to the deadline for the preliminary grant submission "Concept
Proposal Form" on 25 April.

I am spending the rest of March in southern Africa.  I will build
stoves and burn with them frequently and know much more by 1 April. 
I am openly building up my "sweat equity" in the Juntos stove
project as part of the contributions brought to the party.   I
expect that the Juntos stove will have made major advances even before
any Shell Foundation decisions are made.

So, when the grant (IF received) starts in Sept 2002 or later, assume
that you and your agency might want to be included in some early work
with your rice hulls or coconut husks or biomass this or biomass that in
you region of the world.  What would be needed is to
"empower" your project to conveniently produce some Juntos
stoves (several designs?) for local modifications etc, and
experimentations.  You will be "contributing expertise",
and we would assist you with cost of materials and instructions and
????     If you are interested, I need to hear from
you with proposed uses and with numbers for hard cash and for
"contribution by participant organizations."   This
is a clear part of the "#13 Other Partners" part of the
application.  I WANT your involvement, and I am prepared to request
funding that will go to your organization to help determine and "to
ensure that other key stakeholders or partners will support project
implementation".  

In short, how much money do you need in order to ACCOMPANY (not totally
replicate) the Juntos project (albeit from afar) and to provide comments,
etc?   We are not talking about big sums, but 5
locations/organizations times US$4000 each is $20K.   What
would your NGO or agency be willing to do along these lines for $2K, $4K,
$6K, or $???.

Note:  This does NOT turn over to you the funding for the other
focal work of the grant that deals with "social marketing" and
education and micro-enterprise and other things.  You could do those
things as part of your own activities (and you might have great funding
for that), but the Juntos Shell grant that I will submit does NOT have
sufficient funds to do all of that in so many areas in such a short
time.   My focal area is Swaziland, southern Mozambique, and
northeast South Africa.

c.  External examiners:  There needs to be some independent
evaluation of the project (apart from the emissions testing discussed
earlier).  Reasonable knowledge of southern Africa and the
socio-cultural-economic realities of poverty (and of stoves/cooking/etc)
would seem to be essential in the credentials, but that could be
debated.  Probably 2 trips to southern Africa (unless currently
resident there) for a couple of weeks each time.   Who wants
the job?   And I need to get a cost for that in terms of both
real cash and/or "contributions by agency".   Such as
airfare, room and board, plus honorarium to be hard cash, but
professional expertise associated with the person's regular salary that
he or she would be receiving anyway could be a contribution.  
Just guessing.

d.  Volunteer service:  Example, would the Scouts of Mozambique
provide person-power for making briquettes?  I believe in the power
of volunteerism.  You are invited to consider getting involved (or
getting others involved.) 

e.  Financial support:  I will be seeking assistance from other
agencies and individuals.  Can you assist in finding additional
real-money contributions?  If so, would the funds be for any
appropriate purpose, or for a directed / specific purpose?  For
example, someone or some agency might only make a donation if directed
toward some specific location (e.g., Guatemala) or some specific aspect
of the project (e.g., burning of coal).  The project is potentially
so large that what places or aspects receive special attention in the
initial years can be influenced by the availability of funding.

I hope that others who are considering applying can also benefit from
this request for assistance.  For that reason, if you are going to
offer assistance and want it to be considered by any and all possible
applicants, then please post your message to the Stoves list
serve.   But if only specific to the Juntos stove project that
I am preparing, please send it specifically to me.   

Time is short.  If you do not hear a reply from me to your specific
message and you expect an answer, please re-send it to me just in case I
lost it while in Africa.

“Juntos” means “Together”.   I hope that many of you will find
a way to participate in the Juntos stove project with me.

Sincerely,

Paul

Paul S. Anderson, Ph.D.,  Fulbright Prof. to Mozambique 8/99 - 7/00

Rotary University Teacher Grantee to Mozambique >10 mo of 2001-2003

Dept of Geography - Geology (Box 4400), Illinois State University

Normal, IL  61790-4400   Voice:  309-438-7360;  FAX:  309-438-5310

E-mail: psanders@ilstu.edu - Internet items:
www.ilstu.edu/~psanders