Zimbabwe

Project Mission: 

Our international project connects our members to the Nyadire United Methodist Mission in Northeastern Zimbabwe. This partnership was established in 2015 after one of our members traveled to the community as part of a local Pittsburgh organization, The Nyadire Connection. Since then, our chapter has worked with the community to identify their most pressing needs. The first major challenge that the community faced was safe transit at night. When this project reached completion, with installation finished in September 2017, we again worked with the community to identify their next most pressing need. In the time between our initial visit and today, the Zimbabwean government has cordoned off regions of the country where trees can no longer be cut down in an effort to combat deforestation. This poses a major logistical threat to the Nyadire Primary School, which relies on firewood to cook meals for their students. For this reason, the next critical project for the community is relieving their dependence on firewood. After considering many alternatives, such as LP gas, ethanol gel and solar power, we came to the conclusion that biogas would be the best alternative for the primary school. Over the last trip to Nyadire, in January 2019, we discussed the changes that will be made with the community members that will be impacted by the switch from firewood to biogas. We spent the last year researching and brainstorming considerations (materials, human elements) for the implementation of a biogas system for the primary school to replace the use of firewood and sending proposals to local contractors in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe has been struggling with Covid including challenges with travel because of government restrictions and general access to healthcare, but we are working with contractors with a tentative schedule to install the system in the Fall of 2021.

Progress:

• Stakeholder Diagram
• Feedback on Avonworth Student Presentation
• Presentation at Energy Week Best In-Person Presentation ($250)
• Topic group research
• Efficient Waste Conversion, efficient waste collection
• Waste/Energy generation calculations
• Lawrence Foundation Grant Application
• Request For Proposal
• Impact CMU presentation: Most innovative ($200)
• Sent RFPs to potential contractors
• Identified a contractor to help us design+implement the digester
• Planning remote implementation

Goals:

• Send RFPs to potential contractors
• Explore economic opportunities in implementation
• Fundraise and grant writing
• Maintain connections with Avonworth

Join Our Project:

• Katherine Nie <yuxiangn@andrew.cmu.edu>
• Fanqi Yi <fyi@andrew.cmu.edu>
• Shivank Joshi <shivankj@andrew.cmu.edu>

Below are our Crowdfunding campaign videos from 2018 and 2020