Listening to the community

Theatre for development brings empowerment by Yvonne Mabille

Within development co-operation, how can the participation of local people be improved? One of the many ways is 'theatre for development'. The author describes experiences from Africa.

They don't want to push a particular message and don't want to annoy anybody. "Theatre for development is a new form of communication among people in a village, a dialogue with its own language, in which the community specifies and analyses its problems and seeks solutions." That is how Alex Mavrocordatos describes the theatre work which he has tested and developed in Africa.

In Namibia, Mavrocordatos has worked with the staff of the organisation RISE and shown them the techniques of development theatre. The project, financed by the British NGO Oxfam, also supports farmers when setting up networks such as the South Namibian Farmers' Union. Through theatre the people involved develop new ways of expressing themselves and critical understanding - with concrete consequences. A village community dared for the first time to protest against the ruling clan when the clan tried to prevent sanitary improvements. They organised a protest march. In the end the majority of the village people sent a petition to the government.

The medium of theatre has found its place in development co-operation since the 1970s, often as a didactic instrument. Central topics such as alphabetisation or family planning have been taken up. The most prominent example is certainly Augusto Boal, who developed a whole range of forms of theatre from the "theatre of the oppressed" to his latest project - the "legislative theatre". Through the latter the Brazilian theatre producer who was in 1993 surprisingly elected to the Rio de Janeiro city council - aims to bring democracy into politics.

Democratisation of development co-operation

The experiences of development theatre show that theatre play can add the process of democratisation to development co-operation by enabling and supporting participation and empowerment of those concerned. However, its potential relies not only on the break-up of internal village structures and the development of new forms of dialogue and exchange. Also, the other participants - such as the staff of the project and the donor organisations - have to work on it and actively create and support re-orientation from top-down to bottom-up. This is the least successful part of a very promising theatre project in Mali.

In 1989, the British development organisation S.O.S. Sahel started an environmental project in Tominian in Mali in support of the Bobos, in many aspects a disadvantaged minority within the country. The aim of the project was to improve the soil which had been largely destroyed by the long use of agro-chemicals and by erosion, in order to restore and maintain the fertility of the soil.

S.O.S. Sahel, which already had practical experience with participatory methods, provided the environmental project (Community Environment Project, C.E.P:) in Tominian with a "Drama Unit". The task of the theatre group was to support the project in its practical work - by activating the people to openly and freely express their opinions through improvised theatre.

Since this process could be politically sensitive, the Drama Unit - Alex Mavrocordatos and his Malian colleague Bianivo Mounkoro, working as an interpreter - remained independent from the project. "It was our aim", says Mavrocordatos in an article in a book about his work in Tominian, «to give a voice to those in the village who do not normally express themselves, without having didactic intentions or preconceived convictions."

Problems acted out on stage

One of the basic principles of this type of theatre is that the sketches never offer solutions but only open issues for debate. Solutions are to come from the audience, who always have the opportunity to add their own commentaries and contributions. They can also be asked to think of an ending for a play, or to invent a new ending.

Prior to the theatrical work there was a period of getting to know each other. Since the Bobos do not have a theatre tradition of their own, the Drama Unit picked on the different forms of religious and secular dances and songs. In former times, every village had a singer, a "griot" who accompanied the collective work tasks with songs and music and who was cared for by the village community. Today, griots are only sometimes asked to sing, and then during harvesting, to motivate the harvesters with texts and melodies.

The singers became interested in the content of the project, the environmental issues, and made new texts for old songs about water collection ditches and anti-erosion measures, about rich harvests and green rolling hills. The new songs were publicised and also reached farmers who never came to a meeting. Finally, the griots started to accompany certain tasks of the project such as the digging which led to considerably better results. In late 1990 a audio tape of several griots was produced, containing songs on anti-erosion measures which was then publicised far beyond the boundaries of the project.

After this period of making contacts and preparation, in which the number of villages participating in the project increased - after four years there were 40 - the Drama Unit suggested to start the theatrical work. The village people were willing to join in, although they did not have much idea of what it would involve.

At first it was mostly young men who wanted to act. The women were allegedly too shy. To loosen up they started with an ONI-yo dance which seamlessly turned into improvised sketches - the work in the fields, hunting, romantic match-making and weddings were acted out. In this way, the workers in the project learned a lot about the life in the village.

"How to find a wife"

After a while, a lively debate arose - among the men of the village. During this the women were silent. « One day, the men came", Mavrocordatos said, "and wanted to do act out 'how to find a wife'." It is so difficult to find a wife. The teachers asked whether they wanted to ask the women to participate. "No, they won't do it right." On the theatre nights of the following weeks only the men acted out the search for a wife: How difficult women are and that they only want rich men from the cities who have got a car ... The women were deeply hurt, and refused to react to this immediately.

In the following week, they stood on the stage for the first time and answered the complaints of the men with their own play. Women, who never talk publicly, showed very intimate problems of their married lives: how they are hit by their men; that they have to go and get their men from the bars every night, about the difficulties they have with the mistresses of their men. A long discussion followed.

Growing self-confidence

From now on, the women joined the discussions more often and took part in the plays. This was made public in other villages and encouraged women to get involved more actively. The theatre work developed into a new form of communication among the village people. They found their own new language in order to specify their problems, to analyse them and to find solutions.

Some Bobo women gained so much self-confidence that they insisted on their rights in a conflict with the forestry administration. For the first time, a conversation between the forestry administration and the village people took place.

"The dialogue between the village community and the project did not evolve in the same way», says Mavrocordatos. The workers in the project had to learn through the theatre plays that the village people saw the environment project as their own initiative to a far lesser extent than had previously been supposed. They were willing to participate because they assumed they would gain from it in different ways. In official assemblies or in the reports of the project workers this has never previously been a topic. Many project workers, the majority of them Bobos, welcomed the revival of their dances, but preferred the form of didactic theatre. The possibility to gain a more complete understanding of the overall situation was not understood or not used. A planned training course for the project workers about the role of the Drama Unit failed because the training programme was already full of more technical aspects. "If a project is prepared to really listen, it can immediately check the validity of its work», Mavrocordatos says. The theatre play is a mirror of the development of the project. It can be used for corrections and for planning and realising the further proceedings in a dialogue with those concerned. This however assumes the willingness of the participants.

A long breath is necessary

During the first two years of the project, a regular exchange between the leaders of the project and the Drama Unit took place, but this altered after the leadership of the project changed and new priorities were taken up. The practical successes in the village had to be increased and the importance of the Drama Unit diminished. "In our project, like in most others which have a participatory approach», Mavrocordatos emphasised, «the slow and not easily accessible results of participatory working has a difficult status, the face of the pressure for legitimacy of the project in relation to the local authorities, other people and of course the far-away donor."

The development organisation must also be interested in a close relationship with the project and in a regular exchange and dialogue. Often this occurs in the beginning but later on the dynamic gets lost. Then the tone of a project turns from being open into being manipulative, as a reaction to impatient donors, who want to see quantifiable results. "With this pressure and the question: 'are enough trees being planted?' the participatory approach is always endangered."

Further Reading

Mavrocordatos, Alex: Listening to the Community. In: Nelson, N. and S. Wright: Power and Participatory Development. Theory and Practice ITP London 1994

Impact monitoring under the spotlight

The experiences of the Palmyrah Workers' Development Society by Amirtharat Anandhy

Participatory Impact Monitoring (PIM) has been developed and tested between 1991 and 1994 by an international team of cooperation partners of GATE's Information Service on Appropriate Technology (ISAT). The report on the Palmyrah Workers' Development Society illustrates one experience with PIM. This Indian NGO introduced the PIM concept independently and without external advisors, disposing only the preliminary version of the PIM guidelines.

Tapping the sweet sap of palms has long been a traditional occupation in India. In Tamil Nadu alone an estimated 600,000 people are involved in harvesting and processing of palm juice or neera. This Indian state prohibits the production of alcohol from palm sap and people turn it into a raw sugar (jaggery).

Palm tappers have always been poor. Most of them are landless and are mere tenants of the palms they harvest. Their situation, however, has much deteriorated over the last decades, since the market for sugar has been largely taken over by sugar cane. The palm tapper community did not have the capacity to adjust their product to the changing market situation.

From jaggery to candy-making

The Palmyrah Workers Development Society (PWDS), a non-governmental organisation was founded in 1977 with the objective to organize palm workers and assist them in improving their economic situation. During recent years emphasis was placed particularly on developing new and marketable products from palm juice that will secure a higher income for tappers. The declining market for jaggery - only 30 % is consumed directly while 70 % of the production is bought by distilleries and the large amount of expensive firewood required for making jaggery forced many tappers out of business to seek alternative employment.

A Team for Income Generation and Product Development Support (TIPS) was founded within PWDS to carry out the development work, to motivate communities and to assist them in taking on new processes. It was a key objective to develop technologies that will yield products with a higher value added and, most important, that can be handled and managed by tappers themselves.

The production of rock candies (large sugar crystals) from palmyrah sap was identified as a product with excellent prospects on the local market. A technology package was developed; the investment and working capital for the first five units were provided by PWDS and marketing was taken care of by a separate unit that had been initiated by PWDS.

The community workers of PWDS discussed candy making, its economic prospects and risks with different 'mantrams' (i. e. village groups that were initiated by PWDS). From the mantrams, groups of around 10 families emerged to take on the new entrepreneurial activity. In the first year, the programme started off with one group; by the third year the target of five groups that was set by PWDS for the pilot phase was reached.

It was a considerable venture and risk for the tapper families to enter. Working and investment capital amounted to about 100,000 RS (3,300 US$) for each unit. In contrast, the daily turnover of a tapper doing traditional jaggery boiling amounted to just 50 Rs.

Tappers had never before jointed together to undertake an economic enterprise of that kind and that size. They have been managing their life on a rather individual base. People in this situation of course have their doubts, their fears and their hesitations about the success of an undertaking such as the planned candy units. The same applies to the accompanying NGO.

Through PWDS' close contact with FAKT, a German consulting firm based in Stuttgart that supported the technical development of alternative palm juice uses, the concept of participative impact monitoring was introduced and tested as a tool for reflection and monitoring by the tapper groups.

PIM in community development

PIM as a monitoring tool aims at ensuring people's participation in judging and steering a project's activities themselves. It requires continuous observation and assessment of project's impact and making joint decisions on the part of the community to take corrective action. This kind of monitoring is particularly important for community-based income generation projects that aim at increasing people's autonomy.

While conventional monitoring measures the degree to which specified project objectives and targets have been achieved, PIM wants people to monitor the impact of a project on their life as they perceive it. Furthermore, traditional monitoring activities are generally carried out by project staff for the organisation's and funding agency's requirements with little involvement of the community and their respective needs. PIM is oriented not only towards technical and economical changes but also towards learning processes and change of attitudes. The positive and the negative changes that occur within the framework of the project are analysed and timely intervention on the part of the community is made possible.

In a first step people were introduced to the concept of PIM. Both men and women sat together and discussed the implications of the proposed candy-making project. In the course of the discussions, fears and doubts, expectations and hopes were brought up and put in writing on large posters. About 70 % of the participants have basic skills in literacy. A facilitator helped the group to reflect on critical issues such as the situation of women and children. The main expectations expressed were:

- Family income will increase when switching from jaggery to candy making

- High quality candy is produced

- This should reduce the enormous work load on women and give them more time for rest, caring for the children or take on alternative employment

- With the higher income the community hopes to take on saving and credit schemes

The issues that people feared were in particular

- Will candy making really be profitable or will they incur losses?

- Will the tappers in the group cooperate?

- Will tappers supply quality neera, or cheat?

- Will they be able to sell candy at a decent price?

- Will they get the full profit or will PWDS take money for their people and the car that brings them to the community?

- Will the local climate allow candy making?

Then the group identified with the help of the facilitator a set of indicators to follow and observe the fears and expectations:

- Quality of the neera supplied (sugar content, pH)
- The quantity of neera supplied
- The number of tappers participating in supply
- The candy yield and quality - Cost of production
- Candy and jaggery prices
- The profit that tappers receive ultimately
- The money that people can save
- The time that women can save
- The number of women getting alternative employment - The number of people at tending the meetings

Problems with PIM

The palm tapping season lasts for about four months. During that period the group member meet fortnightly. Books and accounts are kept as transparent as possible, so that the group can review the figures and follow the set indicators during their fortnightly meetings as easily as possible. For book-keeping, PWDS staff provided training.

People review the problems and the steps that were taken by the staff and group members to manage these problems. There were numerous examples where the group managed acute problems.

In one unit the palm syrup did not produce any candies in the crystallizers after the common 40 day resting period on two subsequent days. The problem was raised in the meeting. The group checked the quality of the neera sup plied on the respective days by looking through the supply book. They found that a tapper had delivered sub-standard palm juice (low pH) while the candy unit worker had not taken the appropriate action of rejecting it. On the same day, minimum standards were defined again, published on a poster at the unit, and the workers at the unit were instructed to accept only the juice that conformed to the set standards.

A concern at nearly every meeting were the operational costs of the units and the search for ways to lower them. Firewood is a major cost factor; PWDS initially suggested buying the firewood in bulk. Through analysis, however, the tappers found it to be cheaper if the group members collected low quality firewood and scraps and were paid for it.

The experience of sitting together to discuss and solve problems proved to be a most valuable experience. With the additional spare time women started to run their own groups and started saving and credit schemes.

Perspectives

After three years of operation, five candy-making units are well established and running. The groups have bought land with their money to build solid houses for the processing units, a clear indicator that they have trust and confidence in the future. Many more groups have come forward with a proposal to start their own processing unit. Since the experimental phase has ended, the investment and working capital for these new units will have to be provided by banks.

PIM will be an essential tool to allow the groups to reflect on and steer the development of their group and their unit.

PIM: Successes and Obstacles

In June 1994 ISAT's partners met for the final evaluation of the PIM concept and field phase.

Four organizations reported on five projects where PIM had been tested. Main results of the Workshop were:

· PIM is easy for grass roots organizations and NGOs to apply; it helps to steer the project activities and increases the responsibility of the involved people;

· PIM makes capacity-building and changes in behaviour visible; and the application of PIM even induces new learning processes;

· PIM helps to clarify people's informal expectations beyond formal planning, and to make them respected in the evolution of the project;

· PIM is not only a monitoring but also a planning instrument ;

· PIM is not only useful in project management, it also induces personal, team and organization development.

Main obstacles to PIM:

· PIM tends to change the power structure and to cause resistance by those who risk losing power; although this is inherent to every participatory approach which strives for transparency and joint decision making, we should be aware that not every organization or project is strong enough to endure people's empowerment;

· PIM only makes sense if there is mutual trust between-the people's organization, development organization and funding agency; the latter should be flexible to accept changes to the initial plans;

· PIM - like every monitoring process - requires time for reflection; although it may save time by avoiding useless action, many organizations feel they cannot bear this initial investment in monitonng.
Eberhard Gohl

Introducing AT-forum NGO-GTZ - AGEF, GSE and KATE

This fourth instalment of our series portraying members of the AT Forum NGO-GTZ introduces you to three organizations all with common roots: namely in the former German Democratic Republic. They all have their offices in the eastern part of Germany's former divided capital, Berlin. Another feature common to these organizations is their efforts to sensitive Germany's population for development policy work.

Association of Experts in the Fields of Migration and Development Cooperation

AGEF, Association of Experts in the Fields of Migration and Development Cooperation was established in 1992 as a non-profit-making, limited company.

The team of 10 staff members and c. 10 free-lance co-workers all come from different walkings and backgrounds, originate from different cultures and regions, from countries of the South and also from the western Germany, although most co-workers are nature to the former German Democrat Republic.

Naturally, therefore, the experiences made by the latter dominate in our work.

AGEF activities focus on Romania, Russia, Poland, Mongolia, Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia, Mozambique, Angola and Zimbabwe, and many co-workers are versed in the languages spoken in these countries.

The 35 projects operated in 1993 and 1994, were commissioned by the Central Placement Office (ZAV) in Frankfurt, the GTZ - German Technical Cooperation - in Eschborn, the German Development Foundation DSE, the Carl-Duisberg Society CDG, the Ministry of Labor, Social, Health and Women's Affairs of the Land of Brandenburg, the German Federal Environmental Foundation, the Federal Office of the Environment and others.

AGEF receives no subsidies whatsoever, nor does it appeal for donations. It is financed exclusively by the services it performs.

While the political and economic changes over the last few years have sharpened the contrast between the North and South, this is being concealed by the development disparity between the West and the former eastern bloc and the political tensions between and within the successor states of the Soviet-Union and their neighbours.

The foreboding network of global and local problems such as growing poverty of wide sections of the population, increasing ecological problems, shortage of natural resources, spread of aids, is often addressed by activities which tackle only individual problems.

ACEF

AGEF has taken up this challenge and focuses its efforts on developing and applying complex solutions. Traditional issues in development cooperation are overlapping with the problems caused by global migration. Migration has manifold, often interlinked causes, such as growing poverty, armed conflicts and their consequences and also ecological degradation.

Our aim is to incorporate all these factors in our attempts to find solutions. We are also convinced that cooperation in developing human resources will take on growing importance in the future. The promotion of local know-how and the integration of graduates or returnees (e.g. former contract workers or refugees) in the labor markets of their home countries are examples of the areas we work in.

AGEF services address the following areas:

- implementation of reintegration programs

- development, organization and implementation of specific education programs, particularly for foreigners advisory services on setting up businesses abroad/conducting seminars for young entrepreneurs management of protects m Germany and abroad, including further training in project management specialized consultancy on technical equipment for development cooperation projects identification of procurement sources and potential utilizations for reconditioned machines, equipment and materials

- advisory services on environmental protection and resource conservation for development countries

- human resources management, placement of specialist (wo)manpower

- supervision for institutions/organizat ions

- implementation of specialized seminars in the above mentioned area.

We always monitor how the studies, recommendations, programs or concepts we draw up are actually transformed into practical action.

Cooperation partners and memberships:

We work with numerous organizations in Germany and abroad and maintain intensive contacts with

- the Mozambique Working Group of the Protestant Church of the East, East German Branch; - the IKB Information and Coordination group on education and labour promotion;

- development policy research and advisory service at the University of Saarland, Saarbrucken.

AGEF is a member of the AT-Forum NGO/GTZ, the AT Association e.V. and the Mozambique Coordination Circle KKM Bielefeld.

Ongoing project activities:

- project management for job creation companies and training companies who recondition equipment and materials for use in development aid projects

- reintegration of former GDR contract workers from Viet Nam, Mozambique and Angola

- seminars on setting-up new businesses for former contract workers from Viet Nam

- study of the reintegration measures in Viet Nam

- human resources potential: survey of experiences in the field of appropriate technologies in Germany's "new" states (former GDR)

- back-up assistance for self-help structures for Roma in Romania

- cooperation on peacestabilising activities in Mozambique ("swapping machine guns for sewing machines")

- cooperation with an association of returnees in Laos

- survey of the potentials of research on ecologically oriented innovations and projects in the former GDR, and how this potential can also be tapped for development cooperation.

We feel that appropriate technologies will take on far greater significance in future particularly by interlinking the interests of graduates or returnees from developing countries with access to reconditioned technology and equipment from German companies.

We assist people setting up new businesses or already existing companies from countries such as Mozambique, Viet Nam or India, and also German organizers of development projects by providing access to equipment and machines (for example textile machines, medical technology, workshop equipment) which they can use to equip their projects, satisfy the needs on hand and are affordable in a tight budget context.

Over the last two years we have placed some 5000 items (from bicycles through to container workshops).

Klaus Dpt

Society for Solidarity Development Cooperation

The Society for Solidarity Development Cooperation (GSE e.V.) was founded by a citizens' initiative in the former GDR in 1990. It is a nongovernmental organization working in the new federal states of Germany and in East-Berlin. The GSE supports grassroots projects and initiatives of partner organizations in Africa, Asia and Latin America to improve living conditions of people there. It does information and educational work on North-South questions and development policies in the German public and at schools. The GSE maintains a shop selling goods from developing countries, thus realizing its commitment to fair trade.

Project work is based on a model of partnership in which partner organizations themselves organise and administer their projects. GSE's assists in strengthening the technical and equipment base of groups from the South, reviews project sustainability and technico-economic viability. Most project-assistance activities to date have involved funding of DM 20,000 to DM 80,000, although a larger project to run over a 3-year-period has activities valuing some DM 700,000.

Project work focuses on rural development, assistance to drinking water and sanitation projects and construction work in different sectors. Projects are designed to take account of ecological aspects, already existing in*astructure and technical viability. Great attention is given to the experiences already made by project partners in the South. GSE's aim is to support projects which have a long-term impact and allow gradual development of the given region.

The following individual projects are being carried out or completed:

· Irrigation of farming land aimed to ensure sustainable use of water resources without contaminating the ground water. The irrigation equipment has been successfully running since 1991 and assures an all-year-around supply.

· Eco-management of organic waste via appropriate pig-farming. A complex waste-management program involving construction of the equipment, operation of pig hushandry facilities, veterinary support and marketing.

· Livestock management conversion to higher-yielding stock breeds and transfer of animal husbandry know-how.

· Papaya - development of a unit for on-site papaya-processing, in order to ensure more effective marketing of papaya raw materials.

· Well-drilling - rehabilitation of a retention basin and simultaneous control of erosion damage in the catchment area of the wells. Improved water management.

· Urban drinking water and sanitation project - rehabilitation of the sewage plant and establishment of a drinking water supply for an ill-supplied urban area. Rehabilitation activities include efforts to halt the discharge of pollutants from the dyeing industry so that a biological sewage treatment stage could be incorporated.

· Drinking water for schools - construction of wells for drinking water and of latrines to protect groundwater reserves.

· Construction of latrines creation of sanitary installations and protection of water reserves.

· Joiners workshop - replacement equipment for the joiners in a technical high school, preparation of further projects. Production of school furniture for a specific region.

· Equipment for an electrical workshop - initial equipment for the radio-workshop with locally-produced measuring equipment

· Establishment of a crafts training center for young people from a poor urban area.

The experiences made in projects flow into GSE's education and information work in Germany. We give assistance to school twinning arrangements between schools in the North and the South.

Klaus Pech

KATE

KATE - the Center and Working Team for Appropriate Technology and Development is a non-profit organization founded in 1990 in the former German Democratic Republic.

KATE presently has a staff of seven, all with different callings. These are joined by voluntary co-workers who, together with certain staff members form the Project Commission. This Commission plans, consults and monitors KATE's various project activities. An interdisciplinary approach is given top-priority.

KATE focuses on development-policy education and information activities and on project work. Education and information aim to promote the discussion on development policy and environmental policy in Germany and take the form of meetings and publications.

KATE has some DM 100,000 available to finance project activities and advisory services geared to the use and dissemination of appropriate technologies. Target group participation in project planning and project implementation, the widest possible use of local resources (know-how, materials, skills, specialist human resources) and the training of local specialists and the target group to continue project work are key themes.

KATE's project activities center on rural regions, and KATE works together with self-help groups and non-governmental organizations in implementing projects m the field of drinking water supply, sanitation, hygiene/health, agriculture, environmental protection and energy supplies. Projects aim to contribute to improving the living conditions and the quality of life of rural populations and to consolidate and strengthen self-help structures.

Some example of KATE's project work:

The VIWA project - wind power plants in Vietnam - assists the use of 100 wind generating units with the capacity of 150 Watt in neglected rural areas. The plants supply electricity for heating, a radio, TV, refrigerator or sewing machine, and raise the quality of life in the given region.

Working together with the Vietnamese project partner RECTERE (Research Center for Thermal Equipment and Renewable Energy) KATE advised on optimizing the generators and blades before setting up the plants because the overall price per unit was far to high (c. US$ 300) to be accepted by the target group. By using almost 100 percent local raw materials it has been possible to reduce the price of the plant by about 25 percent and commence the dissemination program.

Mobile photovoltaic driven thermo-electrical refrigerator for a street clinic in Calcutta (INDIA). In 1993, scientists and technicians at the Interdisciplinary Project Group for Appropriate Technology IPAT of the Technical University of Berlin developed a portable, photovoltaic thermo-electric refrigerator. A K ATE co-worker was involved in activities to apply this technology.

It will be used for the first time in a street clinic in Calcutta, India. This mobile clinic treats around 250 to 400 patients per day, and in addition to out-patient treatment gives family planning consultations and children's vaccination (polio, BCG, DPT and tetanus). Keeping the vaccinations refrigerated is a major problem.

There is no reliable supply of electricity on Calcutta's streets, nor is an ice-machine always around. An efficient refrigerator must have an autonomous power supply, be suitable for mobile use, use CFC-free refrigerant, be simple to operate and robust. IPAT's refrigerator fulfills these criteria and KATE is supporting its introduction in Calcutta.

The refrigerator only weighs 6.5 kg and is powered directly by a 40 - 75 W solar module without battery storage. A borosilicate glass insulation (thermos -flask-principle) and a latent cold store keeps the contents refrigerated for more than 12 hours with an ambient temperature of 32. The refrigerator uses the physical principle of electro-thermic refrigeration. The fridge motor is a 4 x 4 cm Peltier element which, combines with a gravity driven refrigerant cycle to pump heat away from the refrigerated area.

Carlos Echegoyen

Addresses

Arbeitsgruppe Entwicklung und Fachkrafte eGmbH
Georgenkirchstra 70
D-10249 Berlin
Phone: +30/24063235
Fax: +30/24063236

Gesellschaft fur Solidarische Entwichlungszusammenarbeit e.V.
Georgenkirchstra 70
D-10249 Berlin
Phone: +30/240632 97
Fax: +30/24063252

Kontaktstelle und Arbeitsgemeinschait fur Angepae Technologie und Entwicklungszusammenar beit e.V. (KATE)
Zionskirche 23 D-10119 Berlin
Phone/Fax: +30/2823398

Errata: The correct e-mail address of Ferdinand Soethe, author of the report "Participating in a global information society" (cf gate 4/94) is: f. soethe@oln.comlink.apc.org