Changing Lives……how your support is

making a difference

Pra

ctic

al A

ctio

n S

udan

Why I support Practical Action.I support Practical Action because…

“It does what it says on the tin! Small projects that involve local people and make a big difference.” Julia

“Right solutions and approaches for right problems.” Terry

Thanks a 1.1 million!

In the last year Practical Action has worked with over a million people in some of the poorest and most remote places in the world.

And your support has made these amazing transformations possible.

Because of you, thousands of people have clean water for the first time, thousands of children now have toilets that are safe to use, whole villages now have electricity and thousands of farmers can now feed their families and make a living from selling surplus products.

Lives have been saved by preparing for natural disasters, children are being educated, women are being empowered to make a living and the poorest of the poor are being given the help they need to lift themselves out of a life of poverty.

But it’s not just about this year…the impact of your support is more significant, you see you are helping to shape the next generation and improve the future for millions of people for many, many years to come.

On behalf of all of the communities we’ve been able to work with this year, thank you.

We’d love to tell you about just what a difference you have made to all of the mothers, fathers, children and grandparents who you have helped this year. Let us introduce you to just a few of them who want to share their story with you…

The cloud forest in the Chinchipe river basin, high up on the Peruvian and Ecuadorian border is typical of its kind – tropical and humid with a low cloud cover. The stunning and environmentally significant landscape is subject to the devastating consequences of slash and burn farming: large areas of forest being cleared every year, leaving infertile land behind that is worthless for the crops that the communities living here rely on to survive.

Chana is 21 and is a subsistence coffee farmer in San Rafael. Starting at the age of 10, her father and mother taught her how to work the land.

When our village settled in this area, we could still eat partridges, peccaries, deer

and pacas that lived in the forest, but my people followed the mestizo custom and cut down all the trees so now these animals live only in the deep forest.

If there is no forest, we have to go out to get things and that costs money and if we do not have money, what can we do to live? We do not live on rice; we live on chonta, suri, sugarcane, cassava, and banana. Eating rice makes us feel tired and it is not nutritious.

Chana worked with Practical Action to learn a new agroforestry system which enables crop production underneath reintroduced indigenous trees, grown from seedlings.

“ ”

Francis Salis

How you helped rebuild a

life for Chana…

”

“

In total, in the last year, you helped improve food security for over 500,000 people. Thank you.

To find out more about our food and agriculture projects, please go to our website www.practicalaction.org/food-and-agriculture

Now we began to plant trees to reforest the area - we want the forest to grow back so

that the animals will return. Before we used to only cut trees down. Now if we cut down a tree, we plant another.

Thanks to the training we have received, we now know how to cultivate, nurture and take care of our crops and can sell the surplus. Before we only had enough income for the expenses of the family. Now we have enough to invest money in the education of my sister and to support my mother

And it’s not just Chana who has benefited from improved food security, to the right are a few examples of the people you have helped us to reach…

• In Zimbabwe, 30,000 farmers now have access to a wider range of seeds enabling them to diversify their crops and increase productivity

• 30,000 people in Northern Bangladesh can now produce enough food through the training and introduction of simple technologies such as fish farming

• 20,000 people in Nepal have improved their food production through projects implementing integrated rice and duck farming and micro-irrigation

• Almost 150,000 farmers and pastoralists in the Kassala, Blue Nile and North Darfur regions of Sudan improved their access to food and resilience.

Guava leaves highlight the deadly presence of arsenic in the only water available to residents of Chalkbazer slum in Faridpur, Bangladesh. It’s a simple test. The leaves will turn the water black if arsenic is present.

Munna lives in Chalkbazer slum. Despite knowing that the water is not safe to drink, she had no choice but to use it. Travelling to the only source of clean water

would mean a long and treacherous walk.

Women and children often suffered from skin diseases which would reduce their capacity to work and increase medical costs.

With your help, this and many other communities have had

support from the Safer Cities campaign and have simple filters that use sand and charcoal to remove the contamination and provide clean, safe water to drink.

The community are seeing not just improvements to their health but also income benefits, which Munna explains.

How you brought safe

water to Munna…

Mat

t W

enha

m

Skin diseases have reduced in our slum; we are leading a healthy life. We are happy.

We used to pay money every month on medical costs but now we are not as sick we can pay more attention to our business and this is significantly increasing our income.

Practical Action also works with communities to improve access to sanitation services. Over a third of the developing world doesn’t have access to decent sanitation facilities and in urban slums; lack of access to household sanitation is a particular issue for women. Transmissions of water-borne diseases such as cholera are also exacerbated by environmental pollution and low levels of personal hygiene.

And it’s not just Munna who has benefited from our work to increase poor communities’ access to safe water and sanitation, to the right are a few examples of the people you have helped us to reach…

• In Bangladesh, 2,500 slum dwellers now have access to safe drinking water and 1,500 have benefitted from new drainage systems and walkways

• 6,500 people in the slums of Kitale in Kenya now have access to safe and affordable water

• 1,600 people in Peru now have access to safe drinking water

“

”Eliz

abet

h D

unn

In total, in the last year, you helped give access to water and sanitation to over 140,000 people. Thank you.

To find out more about our water and sanitation work, please go to our website www.practicalaction.org/water-and-sanitation-14

The children in the Himalaya community in Zimbabwe’s Mutare district are all smiles after the micro-hydro and irrigation schemes were switched on in May. This is all thanks to your support.

They have watched their parents and the community work with us to construct the scheme. It’s not been an easy task and everyone has helped. The terrain in Himalaya is so hilly and this makes it even difficult to do any sort of construction work. Women had to carry sand, cement and stones on their heads up to the top of the mountain. Men worked on tasks such as lifting

and laying of the heavy pipes, hauling electric cables to erect the electricity supply grid and digging trenches to lay irrigation pipes.

Cornelius is just one of the children who can look forward to a better future thanks to your support.

I am so happy because it will also help generations to come including myself. I wake up

every day and walk to school 5 kilometres from my house. It is far but the fact that I want to be educated and become someone in life keeps me going. Before I go to school I eat sadza and any food available that day. My parents can start to grow potatoes now that there is plenty of water being powered by electricity, so that I will be able to eat healthily before I leave for school in the morning. I study agriculture at school so when I grow up I want to be a farmer, own a piece of land here and develop my community.

“

”

Mar

tha

Mun

yoro

How you made the future

bright for Cornelius…

One in five people worldwide have no electricity, and nearly three billion people depend on wood, charcoal or dung as fuel for cooking. Fumes from these fuels kill over four million people every year.

Access to modern energy services enables people to work their way out of poverty, providing better access to education and other basic services including clinics that improve health and wellbeing – in particular for women and children.

And it’s not just Cornelius who has benefited from access to modern energy, below are a few examples of the people you have helped us to reach…

• In Sudan, low smoke liquid petroleum gas (LPG) stoves helped over 8,000 people who were previously cooking on wood or charcoal fires

• 3,500 people have benefited from micro-hydro schemes in Nepal. Power generated through the local streams is providing power for lighting, rice-mills and radio

Dre

w C

orby

n

In total, in the last year, you helped improve access to modern energy for over 100,000 people. Thank you.

To find out more about our energy work, please go to our website www.practicalaction.org/energy

On the night of August 14th, heavy rains in Nepal started to fall. By the early hours of the next morning the Karnali river had risen to nine metres and was in serious danger of flooding.

This was not the first time Bardiya district has been in danger of flooding but it was time to put the early warning system put in place at Chisapani to the test.

As soon as the flood gauge at the station showed that the river had hit nine metres the amber alert was triggered. A cascade of telephone calls across the Rajapur area sent a warning so that community leaders could start evacuating people and livestock to safety. Families collected their belongings and, in the dark, moved to safer ground.

The rain continued to fall and within just a few hours the river had reached 12 metres which sent the red alert. Within an hour the river had risen a further three metres and the worst flood in

history had devastated the area.

Thousands lost their homes and whole villages were devastated across the Bardiya district. But in contrast to other areas in the Kanali basin, in Rajapur, where Practical Action had established early warning systems, no lives were lost.

Manakala lives on the bank of the Rapti river where an early warning system is making a big difference to the community.

Pra

ctic

al A

ctio

n N

epal

How you saved lives like

Manakala’s…

In the past, the floods brought along so much loss and grief. Many lives

were lost and each and every one suffered great economic loss as we could save none of our belongings. These days when the flood is about to come, we get a warning at least four to five hours before. The flood does not scare us now, says Manakala.

And it’s not just Manakala who has benefited from disaster risk reduction, to the right are a few examples of the people you have helped us to reach…

• In Kenya, integrating disaster risk reduction into water and sanitation projects in arid regions of the country has helped 18,000 people deal with the effects of climate change

• In Nepal, 10,000 people have benefited from the improvement of the safety of buildings in the event of earthquakes. This includes eight schools

• The installation of monitors to provide early warning of landslides has helped to

protect more than 3,000 people in the remote Cusco region of Peru.

“

”

Pra

ctic

al A

ctio

n N

epal

In total, in the last year, you helped reduce the risk from disasters for over 280,000 people. Thank you.

To find out more about how we’re reducing the impact of disasters, please go to our website www.practicalaction.org/disaster-risk-reduction

How your continued support will continue to change people’s lives…Over the next 12 months, your support will do so much. Below are some of the exciting projects which, with your support, will transform people’s lives.

• In Bangladesh, we will continue to improve the quality of life for people living in slums by implementing new water and sanitation programmes

• In Kenya, we will be expanding our work to provide toilets and clean water to slum dwelling communities

• In Malawi and Zimbabwe, we will embark on transforming whole communities by implementing micro-hydro and solar energy schemes to improve food production, health and education

• In Nepal, we will be working with women to reduce deadly smoke inhalation from open stoves and provide a clean energy solution

• In Peru, we will be working with the remotest of communities to reduce the risk from landslides and give them access to electricity for the very first time

• In Sudan, we will be working with rural communities to improve access to water and increase food production.

Practical Action, The Schumacher Centre, Bourton on Dunsmore, Rugby,

Warwickshire CV23 9QZ

T: 01926 634400 W: practicalaction.org E: practicalaction@practicalaction.org.uk

Reg Charity No. 247257

Find us on facebook.com/practicalaction twitter.com/practicalaction

flickr.com/photos/practicalaction Front cover photo: Andy Heath

Visit www.practicalaction.org/annual-report-accounts to download our annual report.