" The Little Charity that Could"
Sisters of Charity of Ottawa - Lesotho: A Small Catholic charity in Africa are putting up a fight against Covid -19 and winning. ( Please feel free to share our website. Also to see images of our food production, see images on the right of this panel. Thank you. )
Sisters of Charity of Ottawa (SCO) having been proactive in the fight against the Covid pandemic and their actions have saved countless lives. Their strategy serves as a road map for those trying to contain this pandemic.
Picture, below, shows food production during 2020 and 2021 (part of Self Reliance project) on over 70 acres of land.
Covid -19 in Africa: Lesotho has one of the lowest cases of Covid-19 in the world. SARID has been part of that fight from the beginning. As Covid cases started to make headlines in other parts of the world and had not as yet surfaced in Lesotho, SCO pre-empted the devastating effect of Covid-19 by recommending safe practices that could keep the people out of harms way. They immediately promoted safe practices from mask wearing, social distancing, to washing hand with soap. They were adopted without hesitation given SCO's past charitable work and reputation. Sister Clementine Molefe, head of SCO for Lesotho and South Africa, along with Sr. Alice Mputsoe and Sr. Theresia Noko spearheaded the effort.
SCO reached out to SARID for advice. Right away, SARID recommended wearing maks, and the request was followed up with speedy dispatch of patterns to make the masks along with funds to buy the cloth, sewing machine, accessories as well as to pay for the tailoring. Mask production is ongoing and moving full steam. However for the sisters to continue making the masks, especially for the poor and vulnerable, they need your help.
Masks for Poor and the Vulnerable: Subsequently SCO expanded that effort. All the sisters at SCO, administrators, and support staff as well as the poor and vulnerable - were given masks. Sisters went out to villages to distribute masks to the elderly, children and the vulnerable. Preventive Strategies: It is believed that the Covid-19 virus first enters the body through the nasal passage and the throat, although these may not be the only entry points in the body. A study by University of Edinburg, Scotland UK, as reported by Sam Blanchard of Daily Mail on June 24, 2020, found that salt water gargling (warm water) in particular, relieves symptoms of cold and congestion, and is thought to boost the body's natural virus-fighting mechanism. The afore mentioned recommendations are based on the findings and results of the so called Elvis study (Edinburgh and Loathian Viral Intervention Study) published in 2019. Inhaling steam at least once a day, targets the sinuses - and it it is believed that it may also kill viruses in the nasal passage as well as the throat. The above study strongly suggests that direct contact with salt has a toxic effect on the viruses, and may be damaging and killing the viruses. Also we recommend washing your face and hands several times a day with soap water. Overall it is thought that if the viral load is low, it gives the body more time to trigger the immune system - produce antibodies - kill the viruses. Killing of Covid -19 has yet to be confirmed. The recommended practices give us a fighting chance in absence of a vaccine. Covid Information Dissemination: SARID has since expanded its efforts to go above and beyond providing face coverings. Information on safe practices to fight the pandemic is being widely distributed in local languages. Articles explaining safe practices were printed and distributed in paper as well as by email.
Hitting the Air Waves: Sister Theresia subsequently hit the air waves to inform the people how to stay safe. She is now a regular on Covid issues in the local media.
Food Production: The next challenge has been food security. Increased unemployment, in both Lesotho and South Africa, has left people poorer and vulnerable. Food is less affordable. SARID-SCO team are trying to pre-empt a food crisis, or famine, by providing money for seeds, fertilizers, irrigation pipes, and other tools for irrigation. Again SCO has come up with a brilliant idea. Partnership and Pooling Resources . SCO talked with land owners to give their unused land for free or in exchange for food; vulnerable and poor volunteered to work in exchange for food when crops are harvested; and SCO and SARID promised to pay for seeds, fertilizers, water, irrigation pipes to the best of their ability.
Rising to the Challenge: The ongoing effort is not without its challenge. SCO is resolute in overcoming them as they surface. One such problem arose when they wanted to plow the fields quickly before the rains came. SCO arranged to get a tractor - but did not want to spend the limited money on a tractor driver. Sr. Theresia had an answer - I will learn how to drive a tractor she said and plow the fields myself. Only 33 Hectares is that all, she said. Hence by pooling their limited resources and armed with a can do attitude, Hope and Courage has replaced fear and desperation. Determination and confidence has supplanted helplessness and despondency. On a more sober note the choices are grim - being pro-active in fighting the virus is our only hope. Your support means that we can count on each other in times of hardship and adversity - that humanity and empathy trumps all other differences. These very positive initiatives launched by SARID requires help. With your help SARID can do more.
Note: Please share our website with your friends and those that can help. Thank you. If you would like to send money directly to Sisters of Charity of Ottawa - Lesotho, you can do as follows:
Standard Bank Lesotho, Kings Highway Building, Maseru, Lesotho Accont name: " Grey Nun of the Cross" Account No. 908000164381 Swift Code: SBICLSMXXXX
email: saridweb@gmail.com
Specify "SARID-SCO Food Program ". If you send money through Bank of America they don't charge a transaction fee. Make sure you call it Charitable donation. You can also send using "Transferwise". Their rates are minimal.
SARID's Lesotho Project Wins Global Contest for "Buildings" as well as "Adaptation". The contest was organized and sponsored by MIT's Climate Colab. Designed and built by SARID's Executive Director, Javed Sultan (JS) - a US based architect and a civil engineer. The proposed "Building", and thereby the proposed building technology, won in two out of seven contest categories. Close to 500 proposals competed in seven categories from all over the world. The building is a net-zero structure that remains warm in winter and cool in summer, without use of fossil fuels and/or mechanical heating or cooling. The building was built with locally available materials, using unskilled labor, and at a life cycle cost less than 50% of competing building types in masonry (concrete masonry blocks) or stone.
To read our winning 2018 "Buildings" proposal, click below
- Read winning proposal for "Adaptation" on MIT Climate CoLab's website by clicking below,
A Sisters of Charity of Ottawa (Lesotho) and SARID initiative
( All design, engineering, and construction management services were provided pro bono by SARID )
Summary:
SARID has introduced a construction method/ process in Lesotho that provides for energy efficient homes, and utilizes renewable energy sources for heating and cooling. Most of Lesotho experiences freezing temperatures during winter, and hot weather in summer. Most people live in Lesotho, specially in rural areas, live in unheated homes. It was built for elderly residents of a catholic charity.
It is a zero-energy home, except for occasional cloudy days in winter (for about 10% of the year). Both electricty and heating are through solar photo voltaic (pv) and solar hot water heaters. Construction of the above structure was started in January of 2015 and completed in July 2015. It offers a low tech affordable solution for poorer countries that experience extremes of temperature.
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Structures Built in Lesotho and New Orleans in 2015:
Lesotho: This project serves as a proof of concept, and offers one strategy, for heating all kinds of small and large buildings with renewable energy sources. We were able to build this low carbon footprint home while keeping the first (construction) and life cycle cost (30 years) well below the cost associated with current building types in Lesotho. We have selectively used a concept called elastic skin, first developed for seismic structures by Javed Sultan (JS), to increase the resistance of buildings to seismic forces and internal stresses, and to reduce the use of cement and reinforcement - whereby you essentially bag the walls in a skin to mechanically (as opposed to using cementitious binders) hold the wall together. Initial results are very compelling with buildings showing no structural distress even after Richter 5.5+ earthquake. Our walls are hybrid structures - with multiple functions and capabilities. We intend to use this technique to resist large external forces such as flood waters, or earthquake, as well as to reduce the use of cement and steel reinforcement in non-seismic design. We believe we can duplicate these results in many regions of the world. All our structures have been designed in collaboration with US and foreign structural enginners.
New Orleans:
Javed Sultan, our chief architect and engineer, designed and built a similar affordable single story flood resistant structure for the city of New Orleans in 2015. In 2017, the home won American Concrete Institute's (Louisiana Chapter) merit award for low rise home design. It was built in a previously flood impacted economically distressed area. It is similarly well insulated (Equalling or exceeding building code requirements: R-24 for walls, R-30 for roof, and R-19 for Floor), utilizes similar sandwiched insulation, re-usable formwork, poured-in-place concrete wall technique (no mortar joints - prevents infiltration of air or flood waters). Can be mass produced or manual labor driven. It uses less cement than conventional masonry structures. The two bedroom home, elevated above the base flood elevation, has a "Green" flat garden roof in lieu of gabled roof, the current practice in New Orleans, which reflects heat to the sky and contributes to global warming. The building requires very little supplemental cooling (air-conditioning) in summer months. (Since this work was done for a third party (not a SARID project), pictures of the completed building will be posted at a future date on a third party website)
