Projects
In the developing world, the opportunity to incorporate Sustainable Life Skills through Renewable Energy, Permaculture & Passive Design are by far greater than any developed world country. It is much easier to build up a sustainable future, already living close to the Earth, than to try and make an unsustainable infrastructure, like the United States sustainable. By utilizing already existing resources, tools & techniques, communities in the developing world can begin to reverse the cycles of hunger, poverty and despair. Circle of the Sun offers tools for transformation through teaching, technology transfer, & networking with existing NGO's, to lay the foundations for a sustainable future in the communities where we serve.
Casa de Milagros
In the Sacred Valley of Cusco, Peru there is an amazing project that showcases how to care for abandoned street children. Enjoy the below video for a first hand look into the lives and hearts of Casa de Milagros.
These are some examples of projects to intelligently use resources:
Rainwater Catchment
The opportunity to capture rainwater from the roof of a home or community center and store it in an under or above ground cistern is one of the most simple and practical systems to install. Any roof whether it is tile or metal is the ideal, pre-existing surface to catch rainwater, channel it through gutters to a common location, and collect it for storage. It can then be drawn out with either gravity or a small pump, giving easy access to potable water for household use & irrigation.
One very effective way to stabilize a region of communities is through coordinated Tree Planting efforts. We have partnered with Trees for the Future in an effort to plant at least one tree for each and every product we sell. Anyone that wants to can plant as many trees as they want. Enjoy the short video below showcasing the work of Trees for the Future & remember, it is easy to do the right thing, you just have to ask the right questions to the right people.
The consumption of trees for fuel wood is exhausting our world's supply of healthy, intact forests much quicker than nature can regrow the trees. As global populations rise it is critical that people all over the world are taught how to use less wood, or no wood at all to prepare their food & heat their homes. The video below showcases some of the amazing work done by Pro Peru, an organization in the Sacred Valley near Cusco, Peru. The focus is on greatly reducing the amount of fuel wood each family consumes through implementing a highly efficient, locally made, Improved Cooking Stove with a vented smoke stack. This allows the smoke from the fire to actually leave through the roof, without contaminating the lives and hearts of the men, women & children who live in the homes. Currently most homes in the developing world cook on open wood stoves, where much of the heat is lost to the air, requiring alot more wood to prepare each meal. Most stoves are currently unvented as well, filling the family kitchen space up with smoke often from before sunrise and continuing until after dark. This has created alarming rates of respiratory illness in both the women and children who spend alot of their time indoors, preparing food for their families.
Bucket Irrigation Kits
Developed by 'Chapin Living Waters', these kits are the most affordable solution to the efficient watering of crops for food, enabling the cultivation of food in harsh conditions, where water may be scarce. Right now as you read this, wars are being fought over life's most precious resource, water. Just clean enough water for cleaning, cooking & drinking is rare enough in most parts of the world. Having extra for irrigation is something even more precious indeed. One of the biggest reasons for the resource shortages facing our planet today is the inefficient use of them over the past couple hundred years. 'The Bucket Kit', known for its low cost, high reliability & incredible efficiency is one solution that gives farmers a chance to use their limited resources to produce as much fresh produce as possible. For as little as $10 a family can obtain all the pieces needed to layout a garden plot and using gravity, water it from a simple bucket hanging in the air 5ft. or more.
LED Light Systems
Perhaps one of the greatest inventions of our time, LED lights are redefining how we illuminate our world. Using 1% of the energy of a conventional bulb and lasting over 100,000 hours, they are ideal for most lighting applications. Already you may have seen your local cities traffic lights converted to LED's, or perhaps your favorite headlamp or flashlight. In developing nation communities, lighting is something that most rural villagers do without. The electrical grid is not available & the off grid options too expensive. With LED's a home lighting solution can be built for as little as $100-$300. Because only 1% of the energy is used compared to traditional lighting, the cost of an off-grid Solar Light System is also dramatically reduced as much smaller components are needed. For example, only a 10w solar panel, speaker wire, a small charge controller, and a motorcycle battery are needed along with the LED's to light an entire home very nicely after the sun goes down.
Permaculture
Perma-culture is a word short for Permanant Agriculture, or agriculture that improves over time. Rather than the typical methods of soil depletion, synthetic fertilizers & pesticides, and GMO seeds, Permaculture teaches how to live in harmony with the land, cultivating food Organically and increasing the quality of the soil over time. Teaching methods of sustainable agriculture in the areas it is being lost is critical to bio-regional stability. It is scientifically shown that healthy soils lead to healthy forests and fields, which attract more consistent rain patterns over a region improving the ecosystem in a positive feedback loop. Permaculture covers a wide range of topics all dealing with how people use land in sustainable ways, increasing the quality and longevity of life itself in both the people and the land.
Education
To ensure long-term success of any project, anywhere, it is important that the adults and especially the children are taught and re-taught how to use and maintain these sustainable systems. Micro-enterprise is a great way that people are getting more and more involved in the developing world to further implement these kinds of projects. Lets say you and I go to Bolivia and teach community members there how to build their own systems, train their own teams & start their own businesses in Sustainable Development. Now we have spread the techniques and the technology to more people than we could ever reach by installing all of these systems ourselves. Together we are building a new culture of inter-dependence through teaching & technology transfer. It is has been studied and shown that adults learn new things especially well when taught or shown by their children. It is also shown that women are by far the most responsible members of their community. This is a key to creating a thriving planet. Working with women and children to lay the foundation for this work has proven long term success.
