A Womans Determination to Improve Her Familys Life: Irshads Story from Nankana Irshad belongs to a small village in the district of Nankana Sahib, where she lives with her husband, daughter and mother-in-law. Her house is one of four houses in the village that have recently installed a domestic biogas plant. She first saw one of PDBPs biogas plants in one of her neighbors homes. “I really wanted one as well,” she said, “I could see how easy cooking was on a gas stove.” However, Irshads husband is a wage laborer, and could not afford the cost of the material and labor involved in building the plant, which was a little over 60,000 rupees. But Irshad was determined. She spent over a year saving money from household expenditures wherever she could. She also participated in a small-scale form of traditional saving, committee bachat, with some of her friends and family, in which each person would deposit 2000 rupees with a different member every month and that member, could use the money. When it was her turn to receive the committee, she combined it with her household savings, which gave her just enough to afford the plant. “It wasnt an easy process” says Irshad, “but it was worth it. Now my house is always clean because I dont make dung cakes. We dont have flies or smoke from wood fire either.” “Right now we just use it for the stove, but in the winter it will be even more useful,” says Irshad, describing her plans to connect the plant to her geyser so that her family can have hot water. Domestic biogas plants such as the one in Irshads house have made life much easier for women, who no longer have to spend hours in unhygienic conditions preparing dung cakes. These plants also prevent the health hazards which result from excessive smoke inhalation when wood is used to fuel kitchen stoves.
Posted on: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 08:15:00 +0000
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