The Project Plan

Here you can find our project plan.

Our mission and the scope
Portrait of the organisation
Summary of desk research
Analyses of the problem
Project structure
Project organisation
Intended presentation and continuation
Management of risk and contingencies, alternative scenario’s
Assessment of safety and security
Development goals
Cultural dimensions

Our mission

To design, build and transfer knowledge about sustainable solar powered food dryers in cooperation with the local population to overcome the hungry season. Expand this article to see the scope of the mission.

The scope of the mission:
This results in developing a durable solar dryer with use of local materials. The capacity should be higher and the costs should be lower than those of previous generations. This needs to be done in cooperation and co-production with the local population, making use of traditional knowledge. The know-how of building of this second generation solar dryer needs to be transferred to local farmers, NGOs and vocational training centers. At the same time the market needs to be explored to ascertain how the marketing of the produce can lead to an increase of income and to business opportunities for the introduction of the solar dryer.

These solar dryers will not be given to the local population. The solar dryers which are build will be sold via Kairoh Garden.
Portrait of the organization

Our client is Barbara Somers. She has given us the following task: to build a sustainable, durable, cheap and mobile solar dryer with local materials. She also emphasizes the cooperation with the locals. Listen to their needs and make a solution together.

Kairoh garden is an organisation in Gambia, that offers guestrooms for rent and trips through Senegambia. With the profit they make, they help orphans. The owners are Barbara Somers, a dutch women who lives part time in Gambia, and her husband Kawsu Sillah. The following biography is taken from their site, www.kairohgarden.com.

Barbara Somers

All her life Barbara is interested in other cultures and has travelled widely. With the Garden Kairoh she will give people the opportunity to be closely connected with the African life. From own experience she knows that a short or long period of living and working in another environment give many new inspiration and energy. She combines her work as a personnel and organizational consultant in her own company in The Netherlands with a part time in Africa.

Kawsu Sillah

Before Kawsu starts to build Kairoh Garden in 1999, he worked seven years in the Casamance (southern Senegal) to help to set up a campement. He loves to connect visitors with the African way of life. Kawsu would really like to do something concrete for African children who have no parents who can take care for them. With The Garden Kairoh he wants to make this possible.
Summary of desk research

Social economic context

The Gambia, the so called “smiling coast of Africa”. A country in west Africa bordering Senegal and the Atlantic Ocean. The country consists a relatively narrow strip along the Gambia River. It’s about 250 Kilometers long and a couple kilometers wide.It’s the smallest country in the African mainland.

Even though the tourist economy in the Gambia has grown the past decade. It remains one of the weakest economies in the world. 61.3% of the population lives below the poverty line. What does that mean? That means that half of the population on an average amount of $2 a day.

Food and drinks

The Gambian cuisine is quite simple which usually consists rice with fish, meat and vegetables in sauce. On of the most famous dishes in the Gambia is called Domoda. This dish has peanuts as main ingredient. Other typically Gambian dishes are Yassa, Caldo and Pepeh soup.

Even though most of the population is muslim, is one of the most famous drinks in the Gambia the Julbrew. A beer brewed in the capital Banjul.

Previous Group

In 2013 there was a group that travelled to the Gambia for the same project as ours. In the time being there, they built two Solar Dryers. They sold one of the dryers to My Farm, the other to Kairoh Garden. Despite their design was good, there were also some faults.

First the Dryers were way to expensive for the local people because they used a lot of expensive materials like steel. This lead us to the second fault which is that the Dryers weren’t sustainable. They used a lot of imported materials. Despite this the dryers broke very fast.

There is also an other project addressing the same problem by Fred van Hessen. He is also investing in the building of Solar dryers but the difference with our project is that he tries to build way bigger dryers meanwhile we try to build smaller and transportable ones. Despite this difference we are positive that he could help us with a lot of things.
Analyses of the problem

The problem is quite simple: A few times a year there is loads of food in the Gambia. For example when the mangoes are ready to eat, this happens in a very short period of time. There is such an large amount of mangoes that many of them are not even eaten and rot away. This would not be such a problem if there was enough food trough the whole year. Sadly, this not the case. Other times of the year there no fruits and vegetables available because nothing grows those seasons. This causes a lot of hunger in Gambia. This is extra cruel because all the excess amounts of the other periods have rotten.

There are two ways of solving this problem. The first one is to import food when there are no fruits and vegetables available. This costs a lot of money and is not sustainable. This actually a very common solution in rich parts of the world. Gambia is not a rich country, on the contrary, it is very poor. Therefore this is not a good solution to the hunger problem.

The other solution is to preserve food. Fruits and vegetables can be preserved by drying them. This were our solution, a sustainable solar powered food dryer, comes in place.
Project structure

Our project is divided in 3 stages. Stage one: collecting information, stage two: building the solar dryer and the final stage: knowledge diffusion.

Stage one: collecting information.

The subject of week 2 and 3 is collecting information about the available building materials as about the needs and requirements for the solar dryer from the women groups in Tanjeh and Kuntaur. We’re going to visit local shops and interview the women groups. Milestones are the weekly meetings, occuring on friday. The deliverables: a document with interviews from women groups and a report about the available buidling materials and their costs. Both will become part of our final report.

Stage two: building the solar dryer

We are going to use the information we collected in stage one in stage two, week 4 till 7, in which we’re going to design and build the solar dryer. Depending from the different kind of building materials and requirements from the locals, we build multiple concept solar dryers and test wich one is the best. Just like stage one are milestone the weekly meetings. The deliverables are the concept design(s), the solar dryer(s) and a report about the realization from the chosen solar dryer.
In week 8 and 9 we have scheduled a break.

Stage three: knowledge diffusion

The theme of the last 3 weeks, week 10 till 12, from our internship is the diffusion of the knowledge from the solar dryer to the women groups in Tanjeh and Kuntaur. This are we going to do by giving workshop. Milestones are the weekly meetings. The deliverables are a report of the knowledge diffusion, including interviews with participants from the workshop.
At the end of our internship, we will sent our final report to the next group of students, coming from the ROC Tilburg.
Project Organisation

The project organisation can be divided in two sections, the internal and external organisation. Within this article we will clarify these organisation.
The project organisation can be divided in two sections:
- Internal organisation
- External organisation
Internal organization

For the internal organisation certain responsibilities are divided among the group members.

Management

Casper is mainly responsible for the management of the project. This includes monitoring the group process, keeping track of the progress and keeping the group focussed on the project. Also he will be responsible for the communication with the external organisation. All the important decisions will be discussed with the three group members.

Building & Design

Sef has the most experience with designing and building products, therefore he will have the main responsibility for activity. This also involves the responsibility for communication with the local craftsmen and Fred van Hessen.

Public Relations

Kizjè will be responsible for the communication with those who are not in the project organisation. This involves the following organisations and channels:
- Students 4 Sustainability
- Gingerresearch
- Facebook
- Kelly Smeets of MyFarm
- ROC Tilburg
Time schedule

The planning is a crucial element for the project, the activities must be organised and guidelines have to be followed. Kizjè has experiences with project time management, that why she will be responsible for the planning.

Workshops

As well as building the solar dryers, sharing knowledge is a main goal of this project. Workshops are the main activity for goal, Kizjè will have the main responsibility for this.

External organisation

Otto Kroesen

The project is a part of the minor International Entrepreneurship & Development, which is coordinated by Otto Kroesen. He also coordinate this project and is our mentor for this project.

Barbara Somers

Barbara Somers is already introduced in ‘Portrait of the organisation’. She is the client of our project. She leads the external organisation during our time in the Gambia. To keep her up to date we will have weekly meetings and contact through mails and calls.
Intended presentation and continuation of the project

One of our main goals is that the local people understand the building proces and thereforewill be able to build the dryers on their own.

After we leave the Gambia we want the local people to continue the building of the solar dryers and drying the food. Therefore they need the knowledge of building the solar dryer and how to repair it. Maybe the locals will come up with their own alternative themselves. That’s why we will work with a technical school in the Gambia. These are young and fresh-minded kids. They can spread the knowledge even better than us and pursue the building of the solar dryers.

Another way we want to create the continuation by spreading the knowledge is handing out manuals. These manuals will be as simple as possible with pictures on how to build a solar dryer. You can think of something like an IKEA manual.

Like we discussed in project structure, will we sent our final report to the next group of students, coming from the ROC Tilburg at the end of our internship, They will keep up the building of the Solar Dryers with the locals.
Management of risk and contingencies

By sketching alternative scenario's, we try to foresee potential problems.
The question we asked ourselves: what if?
- 1. Their are very few sustainable products available for producing the solar dryer.
- 2. The locals are not satisfied with the final design of the solar dryer.
- 3. The locals don’t like the dried food.
There are very few sustainable products available for producing the solar dryer

One of the requires of the assignment is to design a sustainable solar dryer, in terms of building it with locally available products. But what if the locally available products are not useful for our project? Or the quality is too bad? In that case, we will discuss the problem with our client. There are 3 solutions; don’t build a solar dryer and try to find another way to extend the expiration date, look for new building materials that we can introduce to the market or build a solar dryer with imported materials. The last solution will not fit in this sustainable minor, but if we can save lives, we might can make an exception.

The locals are not satisfied with the final design of the solar dryer

For example; it’s still too expensive, the drying of food makes too much time, it’s not durable enough, not moveable enough, too heavy. It is possible, despite all our effort, the locals are not satisfied with the design. The only thing we can do, is to note everything and give make a recommendation with design improvements for the (possible) next group students from the TU and for the students from the ROC Tilburg.

The locals don’t like dried food

We have designed, built and tested the solar dryer. We’re giving the workshop to the Gambian people and it turns out that they don’t like dried food. This is a very likely scenario, because the idea of drying food is new in the Gambia. We can discuss this problem with local cooks. Maybe they can make tasting dishes and make others enthusiastic about dried food.

If this is a problem, it’s a big one. For succeeding the concept of drying food, it is essential that the locals like dried fruit/vegetables.
Safety and Security in the Gambia

These are the accidents with biggest risks of happening: theft, illness, corruption, and traffic accidents. Thieves that come into your house or pickpockets. It’s very likely that somebody become ill, due to eating polluted food or drinks. Also there some social and political norms which we have considered.
- Social economic situation: The Gambia is a very poor country. The (youth-) unemployment is very high. A big part of the young population wants to leave to Europe to get better lives.
- Culture: The official language is English. People are friendly and relaxed. If you have an appointment, don’t be surprised that he/she is late. On the contrary they do expect that we will be in time.
- Religion: 90% Islamic, 8% Christian, there are also some old African rituals intertwined in these religions.
- Climatic condition: Hot and humid in the rainy season, 30 degrees Celsius.
- Health: You can only drink water if it is from a sealed bottle. Also, you have to be careful with what you eat, because it might be that it is prepared with polluted water.
  Basically: Boil it, cook it, peel it or leave it!
Development goals

With our project, we aim to contribute to the development of the following aspects: health, knowledge and economics.

Health

As mentioned above, during the year there are hungry seasons in which people have little or nothing to eat. By stimulating the use of solar dryers and showing the benefits, we are trying to prevent the lack of food and improve the health.

Knowledge

In order to ensure that this can be a long-term solution, it’s essential that Gambians understand the design for reproducing, or even better, improving the solar dryer. We will try to transfer the knowledge withworkshops.

Economic

If we succeed in the previous objectives, some may see opportunities for starting a business. The design has to be good, the people has like the produced food, they have to understand the design so it can be rebuild. If everything fits, people can start a business, and will the (local) economy be boosted. Building materials have to be bought, make and sold.The same goes for the solar dryer. When there is produced more fruit than is eaten, it can be sold to others. With the money that has been earned, new projects can be established.
Cultural dimensions

The cultural dimensions are analyzed with Hofstede and Trompenaars theory. This theorie has 11 contrasting terms in which a culture can be explained. The previous group TU Delfts students have studied the terms and came to the following result.

In the Gambia, hierarchy plays a large role. The head of the village is a good example; he makes important decision and is in charge of the money of the village. Just like most important ranks, can’t it be earned by achievements but by position. The title is passed through families. In the householding, hierarchy also can been noticed. The younger kids have to do a lot more chars than the olders.
Relationships and family are very important in the Gambian society. This is shown in the high scores for ‘affective’ and ‘particularism’.
Probably the biggest difference in cultural dimensions with the Dutch society is that Gambians do things more synchronously instead of sequentially. This can be difficult if we want to make an appointment or want to schedule something. It’s not totally clear how big the difference with the dutch society is, but we will find out.

At the end of the minor, we have our own input and can compare it with the results from the previous group.