Meetings with local actors in Lebanon

During our field visit to Lebanon, we were pleased to have many interesting meetings with enthousiastic groups of different specialists. We would like to thank everybody for the good meetings and the new ideas! Special thanks for Mr. Nassib El-Solh, Mrs. Jeumana Nasser and Mrs. Hiba Haidar for their active presence and energetic attitude in almost all of our meetings during our stay in Lebanon.

Saturday 7th April

 

On our first day in Lebanon we had the pleasure to have a meeting at Al-Amal Institute for the Disabled in Broummana, Mont Lebanon. We met Nassib El-Solh (Al-Amal Institute), Amar Al-Tarshah (The executive manager of Al-Amal Institute), Shadya Maqsal (Pedagogical Supervisor, Al-Amal Institute) and Riva Fneish (Administrative Assistant, Al-Amal Institute), who offered us interesting information about the Institute, Rock Village and the end-users.

We also visited a Lebanese ecovillage in Dmit Valley, Chouf mountains, Lebanon. The ecovillage is a place for educational ecotourism, where visitors can learn about the environment, organic agriculture, healthy living etc. We met Karim Khatib, the founder of the ecovillage.

View from Broummana.

EcoVillage in Dmit Valley.

Sunday 8th April

 

On the second day we headed for the Rock Village site in Nabatiyeh governorate, South Lebanon. It was an eye-opening visit as we learned much about the local conditions and requirements. We met Hiba Haidar (Tathmeer group), Marie Claude Fleyfel, Jeumana Nasser (Tathmeer group) and Ali Berro (Lebanon green building council).

We also visited the nearby municipalities of Yahmur and Arnoun to learn for example about local governance, infrastructure and planned projects. In Yahmur we met Ayad Olleik (Yahmur municipality), Kassem Saad (Yahmur municipality) and Mouhamed Dawoud (Yahmur municipality). In Arnoun we met Al-Hajj Fawaz Qatbay (The head of the Arnoun Municipality).

Rock Village site in South Lebanon.

View from Beaufort castle.

Monday 9th April

On the third day we held a presentation of our project at the American University of Beirut. We had the pleasure to meet many experts and discuss about the Rock Village project as a whole. We met Mounir Mabsout (AUB CCES), Vatche Boyadjian (Tathmeer group), Rima Habib (AUB Env & public health) and Rabih Shibli (AUB CCES).

American University of Beirut.

Shoreline of Beirut.

Tuesday 10th April

On our last day in Lebanon we visited a grain processing factory in Zahle, Beqaa valley. As a factory like this is also planned in Rock Village, we learned much about grain processing and the requirements of this kind of factories. We met Abu Tarek (Manager of the Zahle grain processing factory). We also had some time to visit the beautiful ruins in Baalbek.

Grain processing in Zahle, Beqaa valley.

Ruins in Baalbek.

Our trip to Lebanon was very fruitful and gave us many new thoughts to elaborate in our project!

Greetings from Lebanon!

Now we're here! After long flights and a short sleep last night we have started to familiarize ourselves to the Lebanese culture and most importantly the Al-Amal Institute. We started the day with a tour around the Institute's Winter Sweater Program. Unfortunately the "kids" where not present due to Eastern holidays, but we got to look at the facilities.

Hossam, Axel, Susa, and Aino at the Winter Sweater Program's facilities

Nassib el-Solh, leader of the Al-Amal Institute

After the visit to the Institute (and a short presentation both from us and people working with the institute) we traveled to take a look at an Ecovillage currently operational south of Beirut.

Ecovillage (read more from http://www.ecoecovillage.com/)

Ecovillage had very nice energy solutions, basically they covered everything with solar heaters and micro hydro, the latter was capable to produce some 1250W.

Micro hydro (bar screen and surface regulator on top of a 10 meter drop)

Of course we had time to go to the beach, however small the beach was. That's it for this time. Hear from us  again, soon!

Aino and Susa in the water, Axel and Hossam are discussing the state of the world.

Energy solution consultation with Mr. Paatero

We had an interesting meeting with researcer D. Sc. (Tech.) Jukka Paatero on the 20th March. According to Mr. Paatero, the best way to reach our objectives (a cost-efficient and self-sustainable energy system for Rock Village) would probably be a hybrid system.

So far, we have been dealing with three possible renewable energy solutions being solar, wind and bio. However, today we learned that going solely with solar would be very expensive. Also, converting bio to electricity is expensive, and it would be better to use bio for cooking etc. Just as we have been discussing. As the location is good for using wind energy, this would probably be the best solution for reaching our goals.

Mr. Paatero suggested we would do a comparison between two possible solutions. One with a wind-grid-hybrid and an other with a totally independent wind-diesel-hybrid. Good examples of wind-diesel-hybrids can be found for example in Alaska. This is something we will now be looking more deepely into.

According to Mr. Paatero, connection to grid could be a good solution as it is rather close and could be built quite cheaply (assisted by the people themselves). Also, a windfarm can also be easily and cheaply built by the people themselves. Examples of this can be found for example in Africa. In a self-built system the efficiency is somewhat lower, but it’s a cost-efficient solution.

Mr. Paatero had many interesting examples of various possibilities for reducing energy need in Rock Village. We could, for example, think about solar cookers, water-bottle-lighters for distributing sun light indoors, solar driers etc. In remote and rural areas, many innovative solutions have been developed. We will now look more deepely into the themes and examples given by Mr. Paatero and meet next time on Thursday 22th March.