The end of March brought some exciting new ventures to (and outside of) Banda: Jean Pierre, Thomas Byimana and Jarod recently traveled from Banda to Musanze for a training on briquettes! For those of you who are not familiar with briquettes, they are blocks of compressed, flammable materials used to start a fire. Here's more info on briquettes provided by Jarod:
Village Briquette Factories (VBF) is an initiative by the Virunga National Park of Democratic Republic of Congo. In the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, violent conflict spread to eastern Congo and produced one of the worst humanitarian disasters the world has ever seen. This conflict continues to this day. The struggle of eastern Congo’s natural resources is at the heart of the conflict. Some of the more established armed groups base their operations out of the region’s forests and illegally harvest and sell forest resources, most notably charcoal to fund their war efforts. In 2008, the illegal charcoal market was estimated to be in excess of US $30,000,000, with over 92% of the charcoal consumed in Goma and northern Rwanda coming from Virunga National Park.
The mission of the Village Briquette Factories is to introduce biomass briquettes as the primary fuel in the North Kivu area and through production of this sustainable fuel, establish 5,000 six-person Village Briquette Factories. However, VBF can be implemented anywhere in Rwanda helping to prevent deforestation and offer an alternative fuel source to charcoal. The combustible biomass briquettes are ecologically sustainable and unlike charcoal, briquettes can be made from non-woody biomass such as grass, leaves, agricultural waste, as well as from scrap paper and sawdust.
Through the establishment of VBF, you can help to protect forests, reduce poverty, promote stability, avert an energy crisis and ensure the long-term financial security of the parks surrounding you.
Jarod, Jean Pierre and Thomas learned the briquette production process from start to finish: from collecting matierials to the finished products. They also learned how to operate the machines and general maintenance in case repairs are needed.
The trio made briquettes strictly from sawdust, paper and cardboard. Jarod felt that the briquettes were 'extremely easy to make and most importantly, no forest need to be cut down or habitats destroyed in order to produce briquettes'.
With the help of like-minded organizations, briquette production in Banda is becoming a reality: Table for 2 (http://www.tablefor2.org/tft_usa/) has generously provided the initial funding for the start-up of Kageno's briquette program. This training was a productive first step in the direction of briquette production, and next, Kageno is working on getting machines installed in Banda.
And in addition to being an instructive trip, it was also an exciting excursion as it was Jean Pierre's first time outside of Banda where he was born and raised. He got to see Kigali for the first time, stay in a hotel, and explore the city a bit. They ate in a restaurant and even tried ice cream!
Check out the images of the briquette machine and production process in Musanze:
To manufacture the Briquette it is really necessary to understand the whole complex process and so that appropriate expertise training is required which makes easy to understand the process.
Posted by: Yash Patel | 08 February 2013 at 01:22 PM