By Miyako Hamasaka | PR Manager
Agricultural workshop
On November 11th, 2014, JEN held an agricultural workshop. The purpose of the activity was to help the beneficiaries maximize the functionality of their agro wells and to teach them some of the principles of sustainable agriculture.
During the one-day class, many topics were presented. Participants learned about land preparation, organic compost making, organic pesticide making, efficient water management, pest control methods, appropriate timing of cultivation and health problems related to agricultural work. Half of the day was in the form of a classroom lecture and the other half was practical field experiences.
JEN frequently and closely has contacts with the local Sri Lankan agricultural department. As a result of this communication, the department cooperated with us by providing the instructor for the workshop and the agricultural training center as the venue.
In recent years, with the support of local authorities, Sri Lankan agriculture has been trying to shift from chemical to organic pesticides due to health problems caused by the chemicals. JEN’s activities are therefore in line with the aims of the local governments and we have been working in close collaboration with them.
Workshop for community strengthening
As our project outlines, JEN provides Sri Lankan communities with agro wells and agricultural tools. JEN also forms Well Maintenance Comittees for these tools and wells to be equitably shared and properly managed. However, the beneficiaries do not always understand how to make the comittees work efficiently and its purpose, so JEN took the initiative of organizing a series of workshops to teach the beneficiaries the benefits of having a stronger community spirit. The instructor for this workshop was invited by JEN from a Sri Lankan university.
In the workshops held on October 28 and November 4 and 5, we explored the following subjects: what is a stakeholder, what is leadership, and how to deal with conflicts and trouble in the community.
At the beginning of the workshop, to make the participants more at ease, the instructor initiated social interchanges and conversations. Then, to build trust among the participants, team-spirit-building games and exercises were conducted. The sessions had an apparent positive effect. In one workshop in which participants were from two different project sites, initially the two groups didn’t intermingle, with members of each group sitting at opposite side in the classroom. But as the activities went along, the two groups started to talk to each other and a community spirit could be felt.
In all the activities, group work was the central theme. We hope that by providing these workshops, shared resources will be better managed and communities will become more supportive.
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