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Interview with Javier Saldivar ProPeru ProPeru’s plaque reads: In appreciation and recognition of your dedication to meeting local community needs through household energy interventions Through its staff and volunteers, ProPeru works to protect the native, endangered forests of the Sacred Valley while helping to improve the health of its community members, including by installing fuel-efficient wood stoves with proper ventilation. To address increasing metal costs, ProPeru redesigned the stove to utilize ceramic technology and decreased the stove’s cost by 50%. Stove costs are covered through a triple alliance of community, local government, and ProPeru. ProPeru is working to ensure sustainability by training and educating community leaders about benefits to health and environment, as well as assembly and practical stove usage. These trained leaders become mentors and trainers in their community and help facilitate replication in other communities. |
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What is the most exciting aspect of your work?
The most exciting aspect of my work is being part of an organization that encompasses many intercultural aspects, where foreign volunteers, local communities, institutional alliances, and our staff team focus on developing low-cost, simple, and replicable projects that truly contribute to the development and pursuit of a better quality of life for the rural populations of Cusco, Peru. What excites me most is the possibility of replicating our projects, not only at other sites in which ProWorld operates, but wherever potential partners express an interest in collaborating with us.
What accomplishments are you most proud of?
I am proud to have worked in collaboration with hundreds of volunteers, to whom I am grateful. With their efforts and collaboration we have implemented infrastructure projects for schools, educational activities, activities to improve health, reforestation projects, and designed a ceramic clean burning stove model according to local customs and needs. The two-pot stove uses a chimney, and has a production cost of only $15 per unit. To date we have installed approximately 4,600 units and have sold another 1,450 units. We have also initiated the production of ceramic water filters to provide potable water to our target population.
How has PCIA helped you in your work?
We have utilized the information that PCIA distributes as an indispensable reference tool for our projects. Furthermore, PCIA has provided us with the opportunity to be in direct contact with leaders from other organizations to share similar experiences from other parts of the world. An invaluable aspect of these contacts has been the formation of friendships and alliances that heighten our vision and in turn, our anticipated success.
What did you find most useful about the 2009 PCIA Forum?
The most invaluable and practical aspect of the 2009 PCIA Forum was to have been able to directly exchange information and experiences with other project leaders that undertake projects in different parts of the world, enriching our knowledge which in turn supports our projects. In addition, receiving special recognition has opened doors to help develop our commitment to work on a larger scale with increased quality.
What do you want the rest of the household energy community and world to know about meeting local community needs?
There is a large sector of the population with scarce economic resources that do not have access to basic information. However, this population, when provided this information and education, value it and utilize it to discover new technologies and new alternatives. In an effort to obtain a better quality of life and an improved environment, they are willing to change or mold their attitudes and customs. For this reason it is our obligation to help facilitate this process of sharing information and providing opportunities for this population to learn about new technologies. In economic terms, this population will achieve fundamental changes on the planet by using simple, low cost technological alternatives, particularly compared to other populations who have access to information but do not act upon it. We believe that those involved in the clean burning stoves project should be committed to constantly searching for materials, technologies, and practices that will ultimately have less of a negative impact on our environment.
What are your goals for the coming 1-2 years?
Our goals include further developing the educational and social components of our projects, improving upon the technology of the products that we offer, and working on a much larger scale. To achieve these goals we would like to establish a factory that would allow us to control quality standards of the product at competitive prices, with the capacity to produce approximately 5,000 ceramic stoves with chimneys and 5,000 ceramic water filters per year. We would also like to take advantage of the diversity of successful alternative technologies that already exist in the world and offer them to our diverse target population.