The 2nd day of the TIP Youth Fellowship programme in Rome was highlighted by the visit to the IFAD Headquarters in Rome, Italy. The Fellows got a chance to interact with and learn from the initiatives of Procasur while they also gained ideas from NESFAS’ work that they can execute back in their communities.
Session: Discussion with Procasur for future collaboration and sharing of NESFAS’s interventions with IFAD teams.
Members present:
Viviana Sacco, Learning Route Coordination, Africa Mattia Prayer Galletti, Lead Technical Specialist, Indigenous Peoples And Tribal Issues Antonella Cordone, Senior Technical Specialist in Nutrition Rahul Antao, Consultant at the Youth Desk Maria Elfving, Junior Professional Officer – Indigenous Peoples And Tribal Issues Phrang Roy, TIP Coordinator, India Andrea Selva, TIP Assistant, Italy Nofri Yani, TIP Fellow, Indonesia Chenziang Marak, TIP Fellow, India Edgar Monte, TIP Fellow, Mexico Merrysha Nongrum, TIP Fellow, India Pius Ranee, Former TIP Fellow, India
Venue: IFAD Head Quarter, Rome, Italy Timing: 2:30-4:30 PM Date: 21st June, 2019
Meeting with Viviana of Procasur
The idea of meeting with the Procasur team came out during the discussion with Barbara Massle, Consultant, Procasur, when she visited Shillong and also took part in the inauguration of a community seed bank at Laitsohpliah village, East Khasi Hills, Meghalaya, India on 18th April, 2019. In the discussion, she requested Phrang Roy, Coordinator, TIP, to meet the team at IFAD in order to have a dialogue in developing a possible future programme.
On behalf of Barbara Massle, Viviana Sacco, who is the Learning Routes’ coordinator from Africa, gave a brief presentation on the different activities of Procasur before getting into the detailed discussion of the collaboration.
In short, Procasur Corporation is a global organisation specialised in harvesting and scaling-up homegrown innovations. The organisation’s mission is to foster local knowledge exchange to end rural poverty. By sharing innovations through customised local knowledge-management tools and methodologies, the organisation connects global institutions with local talents, providing the structured learning platforms necessary to spread innovation. Procasur has facilitated learning opportunities in over 20 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, affecting the lives and livelihoods of thousands of rural talents across the globe.
Discussion with Procasur
Some of the major activities undertaken by Procasur are the following:
Learning Routes
Learning Territories
Local champions
Community Learning centres
Interestingly, over the years, Procasur has developed a Learning Route cycle and this has helped them to address any issue relating to the mandate of the organisation.
Design and presentation
Case studies and rehabilitation
Routes
Reinforcement activities
Innovation contest
At the end of the route, with the help of experts, an innovation plan is developed with the concerned person. Sometimes, seed money is also awarded to the participants.
Currently, Procasur is helping IFAD in developing a guideline on Rural Youth Advisory Council.
Key issues
At the end of Viviana Sacco’s presentation, the following key issues came out during the discussion:
Setting up of Rural Youth Advisory Council at the village level is highly recommended. Viviana Sacco, on behalf of Procasur, would like to assist the Fellows on this context
Linking the Learning Route methodology with the Agroecology Learning Circle to add more value to local knowledge.
While developing any project, Free and Prior Informed Consent should be taken into consideration.
Agreement:
The discussion ended with the following two agreements:
Both the bodies (TIP and Procasur) will try to explore the possibility of collaborating with each other.
Co-develop a future project proposal
Meeting with IFAD teams
Sharing of NESFAS’ interventions with the IFAD teams
Post the TIP-Procasur discussion, the Fellows had an informal session with IFAD teams (Rahul Antao, Mattia Prayer Galletti, Maria Elfving and Antonella Cordone). The idea was to share some of the key activities that NESFAS, TIP’s partner organisation in Meghalaya, is currently doing under the project ‘No one shall be left behind’. On behalf of NESFAS, Phrang Roy gave a brief presentation where he highlighted the need to address the problem of micro-nutrient deficiency in an area with rich biodiversity like Meghalaya. This came out strongly during the study conducted in 2015 with McGill University, Canada.
Bah Phrang sharing details about the Dietary Diversity score results conducted in Meghalaya and Nagaland
To address this issue, Phrang Roy informed the IFAD teams that NESFAS is currently partnering with 130 villages in Meghalaya and Nagaland through a number of different initiatives like mapping of micro-nutrient and climate resilient species, campaigns on the dietary diversity score, farmer’s markets, school gardens and an agroecology learning circle.
In his conclusion remarks, Phrang Roy also informed that TIP, through the Fellowship programme, is trying to build the capacity of young people so that they can go back to their communities and work towards defending their own indigenous food systems.
“I am happy to see the evidence brought up in this project, so the knowledge management team needs to come out with sharp messages, especially to attract resources,” Antonella Cordone, Senior Technical Specialist in Nutrition.