Story to Tell > Village and the Bio-Shield

Research with Runuha University

 During the past six months the research component of the project was brought under the spotlight. Potential research topics were isolated after brain storming with project advisors. The University of Ruhuna (southern University) was consulted for implementing the research in Galle, Matara and Hambantota sites. Some research topics proposed by final year under graduate students that were relevant to project were also taken in to consideration. The SRTAC project will sign Term of Reference (TOR) with the university to implement the program. The research activities will start from April 2008.  The Topic identified for research consultancy are as below.

1). The needs for integrated management of coastal resources in the Southern Province (Msc/ BSc)

2) Identify the potential to improve reed products in the southern province (BSc)

3) Comparative study on saline resilient paddy farming in the Tsunmai affected villages.(BSc)

4) Study of the incidence of worm/larve in Soneratia (Kirala) fruits and its control. (MSc)

5) Determinants of participation of men and women in the Project (or more generically in rural development) activities. (By way of trying to explain why women are more participatory – Is it a question of opportunity cost of time or other social considerations? Being female could be an disadvantage in another situation as with Muslim communities. Is it a correct perception?

6). The type of demand for VIC / Tele Centre services – What are being more widely used/demanded and why?

7). Policy gaps in the Costal Resource Management and Disaster Management in Sri Lanka.

Note: These topic may be subjected to change according to circumstances

ICT for the Village > Another ICT4D intervension

Recently the Fusion’s business Promotion Officer, Ms. Dilini Gunasekera, conducted a workshop for the SRTAC Village Information Centre (VIC) operators on conducting computer training course for the community through the VIC. Fusion’s Tele-Centre Family (TCF) program has prepared standard ICT course material for village Tele-centre operators to develop their ICT capacity. During the workshop Ms. Dilini presented necessary activities that should be followed by a Tele-centre operators to make their VICs more sustainable, ICT service oriented and profitable. Special attention was given regarding business planning and income, expense, and depreciation monitoring for the VICs. Ms. Dilini also provided Course materials to participants to initiate the following courses,
1). Kids 1st Stage = Bronze level
2). Kids 2nd Stage = Silver level
3). Kids 3rd Stage = Gold level
4). Diploma in Computer Application
It was assessed that all VIC operators already had the capacity to start Kids courses in the village, but they are still unable to start Diploma in Computer Application. A decision was made to support interested VIC operators to train for the National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) Certificated in ICT courses conduct by National Apprenticeship and Industrial Training Authority (NAITA).

SRTAC Village Knowlege Products

The project has started producing mini video documentaries about project activities in the village. We gave the brand name -SRTAC Village Knowledge Products_ to the vidoes documents. This movie clip was made using a simple digital camera with a movie mode and the (fabulous) Windows Movie Maker application.  The project staff received a training on, how to use the WMM to prepare a short video document.

Coastal Home Gardens > A Secondary Bio-Shield

Sri Lankan coastal zone has very limited land compared to acres of bare coastal lands in South India. Establishing a coastal Bio shield has been of the key objectives of the SRTAC project. Learning from the experience of our International partner, M.S. Swaminathan Foundation, we have established coastal bio shields of non-mangrove and Mangrove species in the project sites. But it has been a challenge to plant trees in private owned lands, while ensuring the suitability, community maintenance of the present bio shield has also been a challenge. As a solution we planned to introduce coastal home gardens to private land owners living along the coastal belt. This initiative was proposed by the Village Developmental Committee. Such an initiative not only indicates improvement in the community’s attitude towards Bio shields, but also shows a progress at a behavioral level. Costal home gardens have multiple functions. They will not only provide food and sustenance for the people as normal home garden but also will be a source of income generation for the people. A full grown home garden will function as a secondary bio-shield as well, where the non-mangroves and mangroves will be the primary bio shield. Home gardens will be provided with tall species of fruit baring trees that has a strong physical structures as well as a direct economical value. This is an example for the effectiveness of the Community Bases Costal Resource Management, Bottom to Top approach

Strenthening Coir Industry > Galle, Pathegama

The Management & Technology Development Association (MTDA) has started the livelihood related field level work and allocating specific consultants for the each site. MTDA has carry out assessments and Mobilization relation to the livelihood development and technical inputs providing by the Practical Action organization. After the signing agreements, Sarvodaya / Practical Action / MTDA for the livelihood Component of the SRTAC project, agreed to conduct preliminary field visits for the each sites to identify present situation and prepare a report. Pathegama, Galle District, VIC located out of 2 Km from Colombo Gall main Rd. Sarvodaya VIC has providing Varity of services for the poor communities as, deferent kind of Information, operating SRTAC program, under this, implementing.Under the livelihood development program, identified several groups to develop their IGAs as livelihood activities. The livelihood sector mainly divided in to sub sectors as,

Agriculture sector
Paddy cultivation
Other field crops cultivation
Vegetable cultivation etc.

Fisheries sector
Inland fisheries
Brine fisheries

Other livelihood sectors
Small business
Small industries
Coir/ Handcrafting / Lace manufacturing etc

The coir sector is a very common and traditional industry in the area. Most of the community members are involving the main or additional IGA activity. Some are doing small scale in homestead and huge industries level they are manufacturing variety of products, coir rope, mats, mattress and containers for the local and foreign market. Unfortunately, due to the Tsunami hazard totally destroyed the coir industry, coir mills, husk fermentation sites, machineries, lives etc. At present, most of communities facing many difficulties to reached row materials for the manufacturing of coir products. It is severely affected the small scale homestead producers. That was directly effect for their HH income. The SRTAC project has made interventions to rehabilitate coir industry in the area and increasing income of the coir producers. Up to now conducted several discussions to identify what are the appropriate initiations. According to that coir producers proposed, if installed coir mill in the area, then they can full fill their row material problems. Now they can’t find out required row material easily. Most of them were point out they are longer duration stuck in the waiting list to collect row materials. If established coir mill in the area, it will be a good opportunity to re develop coir industry and it helps increase their HH income.

Noise at the Last Mile > outcomes of the VV Project

Noise at the Last Mile is the First fusion publication, synthesizing 4 research publications independantly carried out by multiple researchers on two ‘Virtual Villages’ s in rural Sri Lanka. The Virtual Village Project was another IDRC funded project implemeted by Sarvodaya. It was the first of it’s kind, sharing many lessons that one encounters when ICT reaches the grassroot communties. The document empasize, why rural community show reluctance at interaction with ICT tools provided at telecentres.

Read the pdf>

www.v-village.lk/images/stories/publications/book.pdf

SARVODAYA SAHANA > Web Portal

The Project has started the initial planning meetings for the “SARVODAYA SAHANA” (SS) web portal with the SAHANA Open source software consultants. At the first few meetings the requirements of the project and applications needed to be customized were clarified. Then the customization applications were defined in detail to fit our requirement. Finally the Sarvodaya Sahana web portal functions were drafted.

The web portal will have four Main functions. 1) SS will be a Disaster Management tool, where missing persons in disaster can be identified, located, and mapped, it will also coordinated volunteers and other agencies, disaster specifically, and location specifically. 2) Secondly it will have village person’s information data base that can be accessed by authorized persons. Information on the database will contain personal, livelihood, health, ethnic and poverty level information. Due to the sensitivity of these data access will be only granted to authorize persons. 3) The SS will have community Wikipedia, where the village tele-center workers and project staff can upload knowledge products, such as articles, progress reports, soft copies of posters, presentations, community videos/ audio documents, and photos for the public to view. This is will be a pioneering knowledge sharing model that will be developed for Sri Lanka through this project. 4) Finally the web portal will have a module, where monthly monitoring and research data will be stored and derived in to analysis graphs or diagrams for evaluation. This module will also have the capacity to store research work, papers written by the university students and consultants. SS can be viewed in Sinhalese, Tamil and English. The SS Disaster Management module, Research module and the community Wikipedia module in particular will be pioneering ICT models, showing how ICT can be used for future Community developmental and research activities in Sri Lanka.

Comprehensive Livelihood Model

After the 2004 tsunami, many livelihood restoration programs were launched in the southern and eastern coastal belt of Sri Lanka. Some programs provided money, and others provided equipment, but unfortunately due to lack of pre-assessment and baseline surveying these resources didn’t reach the right communities at the right time. Due to lack of a community based approaches some of the equipment provided were up to standards, and sometimes the wrong persons received the benifits. Most of the funding programs focused on immediate physical resource needs fo the affected communities, but rarely it was comprehensive and holistic.

The SRTAC project understands importance of equipment, grants, and loans for strengthening the livelihoods, but they also see knowledge, training, and empowerment as equally important for the sustainability and profitability of the livelihoods.

The comprehensive livelihood approach, Sarvodaya and Practical Action has taken will strengthen the physical, economic, and knowledge resources of the village to bring long lasting resilience to the communities. In the past year Practical Action Started forming a national group of International Labor Organization (ILO) certified trainers, and experts in Sri Lanka.

This comprehensive approach is broken down to three key stages. The process begins with pre-trainings programs that are mainly focused on capacity building of the community. They are composed of programs such as Business Idea Generation (BIG) workshops, Business Planning workshops, and Participatory Market Chain Analysis (PMCA) workshops. At the second stage, these trainings will be followed by vocational trainings and value addition trainings which will have a direct involvement on the production aspect, and strengthening the market linkages. Finally at the third stage, after all the trainings have been completed and production has been started, the resource team will continue to monitor the progress, and provide counseling, and any additional trainings and support required.

On the 5th of February 2008 Sarvodaya, Practical Action and the Livelihoods Resource Person group (Management & Technology Develpoment Association) singed a Term of Reference (TOR) for period of one year to implement the comprehensive livelihood development programs in the project sites. Tamil speaking and Sinhalese speaking trainers were appointed to Eastern and Southern villages.

New Approach to Coastal Resource Management.

A Village Coastal Resource Management Plan that is village specific is a New concept to the Coastal Conservation sector of Sri Lanka. Even though there are divisional and District plans developed by the Coastal Conservation Department of Sri Lanka. Due to their generic nature, certain practicality issues arise at implementation stages. There are two reasons for devisional plans to be unsucessful, first being the top to bottom approach and second being the generic nature of the plans. These particular CRM plans thats were prepared by the SRTAC project, through the mediation of the consultant Mr. B.H.J. Premathilake. These plans are unique because we have used the bottom to top community based approach, addressing real life coastal resource issues on livelihoods, disaster management, and development. Such community based Coastal Resource Management plans can challenge CRM Policy makers at a national level. The approach that we have developed through this project can be shared as a lesson with other government and non government agencies working in the coastal belt of Sri Lanka.

Methodology >

The Consultant Mr. B.H.J. Premathilake initially drafted a CRM plan based on the inputs gathered from PRA reports, community meetings with the village developmental committee, and other stake holders. After drafting the ten CRM plans, workshops were organized in each village to present the drafted CRM plan to al relevant stakeholders (i.e. the community, the CBO and community leaders, NGOs in the village, Disaster Management Centre etc). During this workshop the consultant presented the drafted CRM plan to the village. Especially the key points on livelihood development, Disaster Management, and Social Development were highlighted. Any objections or comments from the audience were taken in to consideration and the plan was finalized. The SRTAC project’s Community based approach can be adapted by policy makers, and developmental agencies in the future.