Story by: Salim Abdullahi
BORESHA Project, through CARE International, has initiated a project that sought to manage the spread of the invasive species by utilizing it in various ways. 14 Groups of atleast 15 – 30 members each were established, trained, and equipped to harness different by-products from Prosopis tree.
Kabasa IDP Charcoal making group is one of the active groups in Dollow dsitrict, Gedo region of Somalia with 15 member team (5 female and 10 male). The group were trained along with other members from different groups in 2019 and received several support from CARE Somalia. And since then, they have got support throughout phase I and phase II of the project. With the help received they have fully established themselves and working as an active group earning their livelihoods from prosopis charcoal production.
“From the Prosopis tree, we produce charcoal which is used as a source energy. “We chop down the Prosopis shrub and then make charcoal out of it through burning while burying it for some days. The charcoal is then packed into 50 kgs bags for sale and sometimes produced in form of charcoal briquettes by grinding into a powder and mixed with water. The final mix is then passed through a charcoal briquette machine. The briquette is then dried and used in cooking. The briquettes burn slow with less smoke and unlike normal charcoal, they cook many meals but the process of making briquettes demands more work and instead they preferred packing and selling normal charcoal from prosopis shrub,” Ibrahim Hussein Shide says. Ibrahim, who is the chairperson of the Kabasa IDP camp prosopis charcoal Making group says they sell a 50 Kg bag of charcoal at an average of $6 and sometimes transport to Beled-Hawo and Mandera for a better makert. He also stated that per week with his 15 member group they do produce 15 bags of
charcoal and the average income they get is $90.
With the knowledge gained and support provided the group members have doubled their effort during the second phase of the project which saw an increase in the production level and community’s negative perception of the prosopis tree reduced. “With the cash for work support we have gone ahead and promoted the alternative ways of using the prosopis plant by doubling our efforts to produce more bags of prosopis charcoal,” says Ali Hassan, who is also a member of Kabasa IDP camp prosopis Charcoal making group.
Photo by CARE- Charcoal Storage facility
“The charcoal briquettes compared to the normal charcoal have higher cooking efficiency but the only challenges experienced in making briquettes involves; work or labour intensive, time consuming and produce less amount due to the size of machine. As for now we promote the use of the Prosopis tree to make the normal charcoal and sell it as it will spare more time and energy that could have been consumed by the process of making charcoal briquettes using the machines.” says Ibrahim Hussein Shiidey, the chairperson of the Kabasa group.
In Dollow and Beled-Hawo, 3 active groups of 15 members each have directly benefitted from the learning and modernization of prosopis charcoal briquette making. In future, when the plans to upscale the production of the charcoal briquette to a commercial level materializes through upgrading of the current machines to produce large amount, it will promote the production of briquettes that is of higher quality and minimize the use of normal charcoal.
The utilization of Prosopis for energy purposes presents an opportunity of adequately managing and controlling this rapidly propagating species. However, the production has now been commercialized at a small scale level better than it was during the 1st phase of the project in Kabasa-IDP Camp and Malkaariye Village in Dollow and Beled-Hawo districts respectively. The product is finally transported to nearby towns like Beled-Hawo and Mandera from producers’ associations by middlewomen as a normal charcoal packed in 50 kgs bags.