All the funds from the GFMe crowd funder have been transferred to the bank account in Nepal of the AgroForestry Resource Centre (AFRC) in Deusa, Solukhumbu, and much of the required equipment has now either been purchased (some of it already stored safely at the AFRC) or is on order from India.
Four quotations were received from different suppliers in line with Nepal Government procurement procedures, and the cheapest supplier was accepted.
Four pieces of the more major equipment – the coffee hulling machine, the grading machine, the roasting machine and the coffee grinder – are on order but are scheduled to be supplied by 16 August, 2024. EcoHimal and the AFRC will then receive specialist local assistance to install and test the equipment, establish the roastery and train the necessary staff in Mukli, where the Thulung Dudhkoshi Local Municipal Government has kindly provided us with spacious accommodation.
Many thanks indeed for your donations large and small – all very much appreciated. Once the roaster has been established and is up and running, we will then send some pics!
We are recruiting
A message from our UK Co-Director, Ruby Glasspool:
The Glacier Trust is recruiting. We are looking for a new Executive Director to lead the organisation and take forward our work enabling climate change adaptation in Nepal.
Full details are available on our jobs page. We encourage you to take a look and to help spread the word, we want a long list of talented candidates to interview.
Richard Allen, who is based in Kathmandu, is our Project Liaison (Nepal) and will continue the vital role he plays in nurturing our relationships with our NGO and University partners.
Richard will be on hand to support our new Executive Director throughout the year. We're confident this structure will help TGT to flourish and grow in the coming years.
As for me, I am moving on to new projects and will remain an avid supporter of The Glacier Trust. I will be on hand as much as required to support the new director in the transition.
I want to take this opportunity to say thank you to everyone who has supported our work. It has been a privilege to lead The Glacier Trust in that time and your support has made our achievements possible. Thank you.
If you would like to come and work for us, please take a look at our new Executive Director position and make your application. I can tell you from first hand experience that it is an incredible position. It will teach you so much, and take you to some of the world's wildest and most wonderful places.
The closing date is September 18th, we are interviewing on Wednesday 27th September 2023.
Handing over
It was a delight today to welcome The Glacier Trust's new Executive Director, Ruby Glasspool to the team. I spent the afternoon with her up in Bristol, going through the history of our work, our current projects, our special projects, and all the nuts and bolts that go on behind the scenes to keep everything ticking along.
Ruby is hugely impressive, she's going to take TGT to new heights I'm sure of it. She's got all the right experience, dedication, intelligence, and values that a job like this requires.
It’s a bittersweet day for me, one of the most incredible chapters of my life has come to an end. It's been an amazing six years, it has changed me in more ways than I could ever have predicted. I've been to beautiful places, met wonderful people, eaten food - straight off the branch - that you can't find anywhere else in the world, and seen what climate change is doing to the most innocent of victims, but also what can be done to enable communities to adapt.
I'm staying involved - half a day week - as our volunteer 'climate change adaptation adviser'; and I can't wait to watch and learn from Ruby.
Please continue to support TGT, the adaptation needs and possibilities are both growing and we're making the changes that need to happen, happen.
Big thanks to Wiper and True for hosting Ruby and I today, the new brewery and tap room is incredible, if you're in Bristol, get down there - they're doing great climate work there too!
Meet Bina Kumar Rai
In late February 2022, TGT volunteer Amy Wilson spent time with our NGO partner, EcoHimal, in Deusa, Solukhumbu. It was in Deusa that we established our first Community-led Agro Forestry Resource Centre (AFRC). Amy met one of Deusa AFRC’s founder members, Bina Kumar Rai. This is Amy’s account of her conversation with Bina.
by Amy Wilson
My impression of Bina Kumar is that she is quietly confident, observant, and intelligent. She has clearly been in and around farming for a long time and is a great example of someone being prepared to try new ways and not just stick to the traditional; she embraces opportunities to develop.
Bina is a founder member of Deusa ARFC and has contributed a lot over the years. She attended the first coffee training the centre ran (3 years ago). At the time she didn't have any coffee plants so she bought 50 from the AFRC and they started fruiting last year. She has since added avocado, banana, lemon, orange, guava, and macadamia. Bina attends trainings at the AFRC and mentioned ‘bio intensive planting’, ‘how to make a nursery and grow seedlings’, and ‘how to harvest coffee’ as the three most useful.
Bina told me that the main benefits she gets from being an AFRC member are the knowledge and skills she gains, this is more important to her than even the financial benefits. She explained how the financial benefits are long term, and that one has to wait for them. For example, she had to wait a few years for her coffee plants to flower but now they are, which means she can sell them as parchment through the Deusa cooperative.
She also mentioned that in some ways her work has got harder as a result of what she’s learned, especially about the importance of weeding - which she now has to do (although she confessed that it doesn't always get done as much as it should!)
During COVID-19 lockdown she found it difficult to get to the market to sell produce, opportunities to sell were restricted. But when she was at home in the village it didn't feel any different to pre-lockdown times.
Interestingly, Bina told me that she is not sure exactly how climate change works but she has learned about it since the AFRC was founded and she has noticed the seasons are changing. She said that last year from mid February it was already warm, but that this year, at the end of February it was still cold. She feels the weather is more unexpected and erratic and she has noticed how crops are growing differently. She also has noticed more pests in the field but she doesn't know why, she thinks this might also be linked to climate change.
Tasting beer at Nepal Organic Coffee
One of Amy’s tasks while she is Nepal is take ‘Great Adaptations’, the coffee and cardamom stout brewed by Wiper and True, back up the supply chain to thank those involved and give them a chance to taste the final product.
Expanding Mandan Deupur AFRC
Mandan Deupur Agro Forestry Resource Centre (MD-AFRC) was established by EcoHimal, TGT and the people of Mandan Deupur in 2019. The project was made possible by a three year start-up grant from the Marr Munning Trust. Last year, we secured another three years of funding, this time from Margaret Hayman Charitable Trust Fund.
Introducing Amy Wilson - in Nepal!
I am into month 10 of being a parent for the first time and our little boy is keeping my wife and I very busy. Finding the time to plan (let alone take) a trip to Nepal feels almost impossible right now. I was therefore delighted to receive a message from one of my Global Action Plan colleagues, Amy Wilson, asking if she could help out for a month or so in Nepal for The Glacier Trust.
