Thatta Kedona

Culture is a Basic Need

Visit to Professional College, Depalpur

Thatta Kedona is very popular in the areas around Dolls Village. Particularly students from schools and colleges in this historic trio-logy area come to the village and spend time there appreciating AFA (NGO) work in cultural preservation, appropriate technology and income generation for village women..


Prof Dr Norbert Pintsch, a senior SES, AFA, German volunteer, along with Mr Amjad Ali / AFA, VoG, Mr. Farooq Ahmed / AFA, Manager TTTC Men and Mr M. Ilyas, Manager Marketing Thatta Kedona was invited by Professional College, Depalpur where they discussed matters of mutual interest and collaboration in the field of appropriate technology.

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posted by S A J Shirazi @ 8:00 AM, ,

Giants Wheel

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posted by S A J Shirazi @ 7:00 AM, ,

University Students in Thatta Ghulaka Dheroka


Thatta Kedona, in addition to producing dolls, toys and other cultural handicrafts has been a center of leaning since its inception over a decade ago. Students from different universities have been visiting Thatta Ghulaka Dheroka for research, orientation and or for sightseeing.
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posted by S A J Shirazi @ 12:00 AM, ,

Norbert Pintsch of SES is back in Pakistan


Dr. Norbert Pintsch from Senior Exert Service (SES) is back in Pakistan and will be here mid May. Dr. Pintsch also brings best wishes for all friends of dolls from Dr Senta Siller. There are aa lot of interesting Appropriate Technology innovation to do in Men's Centre on his agenda. Please stay tuned for more on Thatta Kedona activities in Thatta Ghulamka Dheroka aka Dolls Village.

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posted by S A J Shirazi @ 9:00 AM, ,

Electricity by kites

Pakistani press publicized in the summer of 2010 that a hobby scientist managed to produce as much as 3 volts direct current by launching a 10 square foot kite.

The young man by the name of Shakeel Amir resides in Shirin Muafi, a village close to the city of Okara. The AFA (NGO) Center of Technology Transfer and Training in the village of Thatta Ghulamka Dhiroka plans another experiment using no source of power at all (prior experiments required electricity!) to improve the results.

As with other NGO projects, the results of the latest experiments are supposed to improve the situation in the rural areas where insufficient technical infrastructure leads to various shortcomings. There is a continuous demand for decentralized power supply due to the fact that no help from the city can be expected.
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posted by S A J Shirazi @ 9:52 AM, ,

Housing, Development, Culture and Infrastructure

by Norbert Pintsch, Ghayyor Obaid & Njini Victor Nkuh,
Institute for Planning + Consulting (IPC)

Housing and Development

The term "Housing" has already been discussed by us under different aspects. Looking at the developments and applications in the various regions, we realize that the housing solutions in the Open-System are similar, irrespective of whether we are looking at the new constructions after the Tsunami-catastrophe or the colonies for leprosy patients in Grasland, Cameroon.

Of course a lot of intelligent and interesting studies were carried out in the colonial period, which documented the most important aspects for consideration in the post-colonial period, an opportunity which was not taken or utilized. The reasons for this ignorance lie probably in the growth-oriented strategies and the blind euphoria about industrialization. This mistake later resulted in horrendous consequences. The situation is actually only comparable with the birth-control programs in the western nations. The western countries can hardly propogate a policy which led to stronger automobile sales while causing lower birth rates.

The current housing solutions are still based upon requirements of working parents with about two children and possibilities of living and sleeping as well as cooking and cleaning, while considering large spaces for using household appliances. This in times when productive work places are fast dissappearing due to higher machine efficiency. This development was followed in the urban areas through centralization of shopping centres. This development again was followed by many other growth oriented programmes. The infra-structure costs therefore became very high. Measures to finance the rising costs were taken by assuming that the rubnning costs would be financed through appropriate increase in the the taxation income.
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posted by S A J Shirazi @ 8:00 AM, ,

Appropriate Technology

The 17 year old volunteer Zephanja Arzt from Berlin district was involved in the NGO project of the AFA in TGD for four months. He developed in this period together with the young men in the Men's Center a model locomotive for a german NGO as well as a glider for the local market.

Last Autumn, he and Head of the TTTC, Mr. Farooq Ahmad, as well as PDP were invited to a workshop about Appropriate Technology by COMSATS in Abbottabad. Because the Men's Center produces not only handicrafts, which are supplied to the Women's Center, but it also develops solutions for the use of sun, wind and water in the rural area. A solar cooker and Icefix were introduced in autumn. In the meanwhile, a prototype of a windmill (see illustration) which uses the local wind energy to charge a battery, which is then used to operate an energy saver bulb as well as a radio.
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posted by S A J Shirazi @ 8:00 AM, ,

Appropriate Technology With Dr. Tobias Leonhard

Dr. Tobias Leonhard worked for the 10th time in the Men’s Centre. During his last visit, Dr. Tobias had contributed to the expansion of products made of tin sheet. In this visit, he carried out improvements in the area of "Appropriate Technology" with particular reference to the already installed Wind Turbine, which was the result of the five-month stay of Zephanja Arzt last year. The first proto-type was noisy and showed wear and tear. It was installed on wooden supports. In the second proto-type, it was established that metal supports were better than the wooden supports, whereas it is important in these technologies, that local materials are used. The units can be used in the rural areas and produce electricity totally independent of the central technical infra-structure. The demand for energy in the rural area is not as high as in the urban area. A small light (LED), a fan, charging of cell-phone or lap-top battery - excessive energy is not required. More experiments however must be carried out to reach this objective.

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posted by S A J Shirazi @ 8:00 AM, ,

Cultural Construction

The term Housing was discussed in some of our recent articles and we referred there to the Cultural Model, in which the human effort is actively promoted, -the traditional one as well as the socalled traditional one.

Although it was not possible to completely avoid the conflict between religion and science, still we were able to describe in one go a new cultural formula. The Inter-dependencies between the individual areas can be epoch-making, for example currently the economy. Is an individual area so important, it can be compared with a cold star in the astronomical terminology. In our example this would mean that the economy does continue to play its role but not in its current ly known form.
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posted by S A J Shirazi @ 9:33 AM, ,

Extreme Housing and Economy

Dr Norbert Pintsch

The question is not, what is technologically and scientifically possible, but what is reasonable and sensible from a social point of view.

In the previous article Extreme Housing (Technobiz Dec 2006) already a comparison ha been made between the traditional culture, the current situation and the future developments. The global situation require a completely new approach, because the housing of the future, including the necessary construction structures, will not take place at the current level.

The biggest brake for the future developments is the economy itself, which is today considered to be a solution for all problems and which is characterized by utopian construction models, which are far apart from the expected changes of the future.

New production locations, increasing infra-structure costs in the suburban areas, increasing unproductive sector, increasing productivity of the individual work place.
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posted by S A J Shirazi @ 9:52 PM, ,

Change is Possible



Village TGD is changing in the process. The relative prosperity is visible. TGD was the first village in Punjab to have its own solar power house a decade ago and it is still working. Villagers are putting their children, particularly the girls in school. The Woman Art Centre is also playing a part in the well being of the villagers. The Centre has provided furniture and educational training aids to the two government primary schools (one for girls and the other for boys) in village and has also opened a well equipped basic health care centre. Books are distributed among students every year. Fruit and flower trees are given to residents for their court yards and they are encouraged to grow their own kitchen gardens. Best of all, an annual quality of life competition is held in the village when best mud houses and brick houses are selected in different categories. Owners of mud houses have lucrative incentives (thanks to SPARC) and they keep their homes in spanking condition and well maintained all the year. This alone has changed the look of the entire village. The Dolls Village has entered a new era with the start of the Internet Radio Project in the beginning of 2010. The idea of the Internet Radio originated from influx of visitors and their interests since early 90s. Now the local and focused information can be spread effectively with the Internet-Radio.

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posted by S A J Shirazi @ 7:03 AM, ,

Appropriate Technology Solutions Exhibition


In the face of energy shortage, particularly in the rural areas of Pakistan, Appropriate Technology is the obvious solution and people are turning to appropriate technology solutions. Best thing is that appropriate technology solutions are not only affordable and available but they are guaranteed anywhere.
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posted by S A J Shirazi @ 11:59 AM, ,

Wind Mill

Simple windmill is functioning in Thahhat Ghulamka Dheroka – a toy village. Work of Zephanja – a young volunteer, who was in the Village, produced this small little wonder in TTTC of AFA during his stay in the Village this summer.

This is a wonderful example of decentralized Infrastructure for people in rural areas. It can be used to produce electricity for bulbs with simple equipment and at very low costs.

Thatta Ghulamka Dheroka was the first village in Pakistan to have solar energy. Now this makes the Toy Village the first to have a Wind Milll.

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posted by S A J Shirazi @ 12:26 PM, ,

Handicraft - Men Center - AFA


New handicraft are produced in Men Centre of AFA at TGD. Air Glider is another tiny winy toy manufactured by Zephanja from October 2007 to January 2008.




Readers of this blog remember the tin Rikshaw (toy) that is still very famous in gift market.

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posted by S A J Shirazi @ 8:34 AM, ,


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