Education Myanmar Project #24825

Myanmar Youth Sustainability Training Centre

by Whispering Seed

Project Report | Aug 5, 2019
6th Report for Myanmar Youth Training Centre

By Jim Connor | Project Leader

Getting trees to take back for planting at farm

Dear Friends and Family,

With the onset of another long monsoon season here on the Shan Plateau we focus on our design work and strategic planning for the our new training centre in Sha Bin village 12 km from Kalaw.

Kokopelli Seed Saving Video about Whispering Earth
A while back we had the pleasure of meeting Alexia who brought with her to Myanmar an enormous bag of life….seeds, seeds, seeds!!!! She donated the seeds to us on behalf of Kokopelli, a seed saving organization based in France who had put together a variety seeds to be shared here in Myanmar. Along with this wonderful gift, Alexia also made a wonderful video to raise awareness about Whispering Earth and the work we are doing. We are working on planting the seeds and sharing the seeds with other groups. Please see the link below for the video!

Massive Tree Planting
Over the last month, with a long list of trees we wanted for planting at the centre, we traveled to several government nurseries between Kalaw and Taunggyi, the capital of Shan State. Between the nurseries, friends and collecting cuttings from local trees around Kalaw we just completed a massive tree planting of over 600 trees!!! It has been challenging work, especially with travel in and out of the farm on bad roads in wet and muddy conditions, but we are so happy with the outcome. An enormous variety of fruit trees, medicinal trees, flowering trees, hard wood trees and more.

Design Work for Farm and Buildings
We continue the design work of the land using Permaculture principles and mapping out specific areas of the farm. We have been slowing watching the land and adjusting our design work as the seasons change on the land over the last year. We are also continuing design work on the buildings which we hope to start in November of this year. Design work will also include our first rocket mass heater which we very excited about building and will share more once the building work begins.

Search for 4x4 Vehicle
As some of you may know, the distance to the farm is only about 12km, but due to bad conditions of roads, it can take us 45 minutes to 1 hour to reach the farm. We have been using motorbikes to haul everything out to the farm and are in desperate need of a vehicle to help us safely transport ourselves and materials. As we get further into the design and building of the centre we will need a 4x4 truck. Luckily we have found a rugged Toyota 4x4 pick up truck and are aiming to raise funds to purchase the vehicle. This will make it possible to start the building work once the rains stop in November.

We are thankful for all the support we have received and looking forward to sharing more updates in the next report.

Warmly,

Whispering Earth Team

Taking a break-beautiful day from tree planting

Trees headed out to farm for planting

First water catchment container preparations

The 4x4 truck we are trying to raise funds to buy

Links:

Introductory video to the farm and seed saving project

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Apr 29, 2019
5th Report Myanmar Youth Sustainability Centre

By Jim Connor | Project Leader

Long road coming into farm needs more work

5^thReport for Myanmar Youth Sustainability Training Centre

Dear Friends and Family,

We hope this finds you all well. We have been so busy here in Kalaw with the move of our home and Sprouting Seeds Training Centre, Café, Bakery and Eco Shop. As you may know, sold the house we lived and run the project out of. Unfortunately, it took a very, very long time with lots of challenges to find a new place. We have spent the last few months making the transition and fixing the new building and property.

Due to this our forced move from our home and training centre in town, all of our energy has gone into this. Our work on the development of Whispering Earth Training Centre out in the village has still continued but we have not been able to move forward as quickly as we had hoped.

Forest Fire Burns the Farm
A few weeks back, we had a call that there were many forest fires in the local area around the farm. This year in Kalaw and surrounding areas have been the hottest and driest ever! This combined with the local practice of burning underbrush in the middle of dry season causes horrible forest fires. The nights are filled with glowing fires in the surrounding mountains.

Unfortunately, the neighbors were burning their fields while strong winds and the fire spread into our farm. The fire burned the majority of the land, but the villagers were able to help and stop the fire from burning the top half of the land and the main bamboo house.

This has been a huge setback for us. Along with all of the energy spent on the move to the new café space and continued work on making it look nice, now we also have so much work at the farm.

The majority of large trees were not burned and some of the young trees that were just getting established also survived. However, many of the trees we planted during last rainy season were destroyed.

It has been a lot to deal with and now we work to set up the water system and continue to clean the property in order to prevent any further burning. We also continue to work on the nursery so we are ready to plant as soon as the first rains start to fall in the next month.

We are just so happy that no one was injured during the fires and we are working hard to re-green the space as soon as possible.

Nursery & Living Fence
We continue work on the development of the nursery here in town at the café project. Once the rains begin we will transport all the young trees out to the farm. We also have been working on the living fence at the farm. We have planting several species of plants along the border of the property in order to create a barrier to help keep out neighboring water buffalo.

The plants started almost a year ago are already taking root and with the coming rainy season we are hoping for them to really take off and cover some of the exposed areas around the border of the property.

Continued Road Work
We have continued road work on the at the farm to allow easier access into the farm during rainy season. With a little more work and a truck load of gravel we should be able to enter into the farm much easier over the next 8 months of monsoon season.

We are so thankful for all of your support for our work in the development of the new farm and Whispering Earth Sustainability Training Centre. We are excited to share the news as we progress into the rainy season over the next few months!

Warmly,

Whispering Earth Team

Young nursery trees waiting for transplant in rain

Forest fire burns a large area of farm

Dry season forest fires burn parts of farm

Young edible borage flower plants getting ready

Road work continues in prep for rainy season

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Jan 15, 2019
4th Report for Myanmar Youth Training

By Jim Connor | Project Leader

Site of the first welcome lodge at the farm

4^thReport for Myanmar Youth Sustainability Training Centre

Dear Friends and Family,

The cold season has arrived here in Kalaw and even colder out at the new training centre in Sha Bin village 1,500 metres!! We made it through our first rainy season and now trying to keep stay warm as we wait for the hot season over the next few months.

As some of you may know, our main project in Kalaw, Sprouting Seeds Café, Bakery and Eco Shop Training Center has to move to a new location. The building which housed the project and also our family has sold and we have been given 2 months to move out. This is our biggest priority at the moment as it is directly linked to the farm and all of our work with Whispering Earth.

Although we are focusing our energy for the next month and half on the move of the café and home, we are still very excited about the progress we are making out at the farm.

We are working with local villagers and have the 4-5 months of dry season to really work on parts of the project while the weather is nice.

Vehicle for projects
We have spent the last week with one of our Board of Directors making lots of for all of the projects for the upcoming year. We are so excited for all the plans we have ahead of us. We have identified the importance of having a vehicle that we can use for all of the projects. It is crucial at this stage to have a vehicle in order to safely get ourselves, materials and volunteers from town out to the farm and for uses with the other projects.

Adobe Brick Making
Within the next week we will organize a team of local villagers and start our workshop on adobe brick making. We have arranged a large truck of rice husk and rice straw for the bricks and to start the first building. This will be a unique opportunity for the first time for villagers in our this area to learn how to make adobe bricks.

Green House and Shading for trees
As you all may know, we have planted many trees over the last few months of rainy season. Now with the cold weather and dry season ahead of us, we are focusing our energy on protecting the trees with natural mulch and shade cloth. We are also starting a small greenhouse space to prepare seedlings and young trees and veggies to get them ready for planting in this coming rainy season.

Road Repairs
Because the road going into the farm is new and we had some erosion in the rainy season, we are starting road repairs over the next week. We will have several workers maintaining parts of the road and some trucks of gravel will be dropped to make it easier for travel in during the heavy rainy season.

Water System
We are ready to set up the first large water catchment tank on the farm. Once this is in place we can begin to set up smaller tanks to use gravity to drain down in order to water all the young trees and allow us to be able to make the adobe bricks. We are very excited to have a basic water system set up soon on the farm!

We are excited to share more photos with you as we make progress on the farm over the next few weeks!!!

Thank you for all of your support!!!!

Whispering Earth Team

Bamboo welcome entrance to be built this month

Road in need of repair after first rainy season

The only way to get materials out to the farm

Ohhh....the muddy, muddy roads!

Links:

A short video about the new farm and seed saving project

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