Farmer to farmer knowledge sharing
The mission of Practical Answers is to contribute to the improvement of livelihoods, by providing knowledge services and facilitating sharing of technical knowledge relevant to development processes and poverty eradication.
Based on this mission, Practical Answers in Nepal, in partnership with READ Nepal, has been working with communities to establish knowledge nodes - places where people can get information, such as a room in a village that has an internet connection.
There are more than half a dozen ways of providing technical information people, particularly to the poor communities who can use such information and knowledge to improve their livelihoods.
Farmer to farmer knowledge sharing is one such model. People who are skilled and trained through Practical Action’s projects respond people who contact Practical Answers with an enquiry. The limitation is that only enquiries related to the training will be responded through the farmers to farmers model. However, there are other responding models such as interactions between community and experts, animal health camp, radio programme, linking the enquiries with related government agencies in district and local level to respond the broader enquiries.
Market Access for Smallholder Farmers (MASF) is a project Practical Action has been implementing in four districts of Nepal.
Nirmala Bogiti and Shanti Parajuli have been trained through the MASF project in basic animal management, fodder/forage management and they have participated in workshops on livestock health.
In the process of collecting enquiries through Practical Answers in Chitwan and Nawalparasi we found some of the communities wanted to know how they can keep their livestock healthy, for example, how they can prepare balanced diet.
Based on the enquiries, knowledge nodes organised a- farmer to farmer knowledge sharing practical interaction in a few communities to test how effective this model would be to implement in other communities.
Nirmala and Shanti shared their knowledge and taught Practical Answers enquirers how they can prepare mineral blocks using local resources, what the ingredients are and what the benefits are for the livestock to keep them healthy.
The model was very effective as enquirers directly ask many more questions related with dairy farming with the trained and skilled farmers like Nirmala and Shanti. Nirmala and Shanti are among the successful farmers of the MASF project who have significantly increased their income through dairy farming. While they shared their experience and stories on how they became successful farmers, they inspired the enquirers who asked for information on dairy farming and also received practical information from them.
The knowledge sharing process doesn’t end here. While farmers received knowledge from leader farmers, they apply it for themselves and pass on to other farmers who are in need for such knowledge. While Karnakhar Acharya from Nawalparasi received practical knowledge to prepare mineral block from Nirmala then he has been supporting other farmers in his communities who ask him about the mineral block.
No Comments » | Add your commentSex sells
I came across a development project today that blew me away! Shujaaz FM is a fictional radio station in Kenya. It is known to millions of young Kenyans and is playing a fantastic role in education, peace building and poverty reduction. It takes the form of a comic book of which half a million are distributed every month for free. The young people in Kenya lap it up – and each copy is read 10 times.
Everything about it makes it the perfect communications project:-
• It has a very clear audience, 16 to 24 years olds
• It speaks to them in their language – in this case sheng – a combination of English and Swahili which nearly all young people in Kenya understand
• It talks to the audience about the things they want to hear about – mainly sex and money!
• It is constantly informed by rigorous focus grouping and testing of attitudes with its target audience
• It is backed up across a whole series of communication channels – facebook, twitter, web, and a call centre (they are having 450,000 conversations on facebook per year!)
The critical thing is that it doesn’t start from a “worthy” message. It starts from where people are. So – to paraphrase its creator Rob Burnett: Kenyan boys are mainly interested in attracting Kenyan girls. The Kenyan girls aren’t interested if the boys have no money. Shujaaz brings them messages about how to make a little money – perhaps through improving their crop yields by soaking their seeds. But it always puts it in the context of “what motivates the kids”.
Rob’s presentation this morning was the highlight for me of the Sharefair (#sfrome) conference I am attending in Rome. I am here looking for new partners and new ways of working for our knowledge sharing service Practical Answers. I am really hoping that we might be able to use shujaaz to get information out there, to people who can benefit from our simple technologies.
To be honest I don’t feel like its rocket science but it’s inspiring to see such a fantastic communications project – delivering real benefits in Kenya.
Phones overtake radio in ownership by the poor
LirneASIA have just published a report based on survey data in South Asia which concludes that more people at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) own a phone than a radio. So the traditional channel of knowledge sharing with the poor has now been overtaken by the phone. Interestingly, most respondents had never heard or used the Internet. What is the implication for our knowledge sharing work?
Clearly we need to use a multi-channel approach. Information in local voices that might have been broadcast or podcast now needs to be supplemented with the mobile phone. This will increase the reach of our knowledge in both scale and geography. My hope is that we can work with the m:labs network to develop the mobile channel to our knowledge that currently resides in Practical Answers.
3 Comments » | Add your commentSocial Media Club (If you get it, share it)
On visiting iHub Nairobi’s Innovation Hub there were many reasons to be impressed. Not only was the office layout, clean, open and free of the uncreative structures of the modern office environment but there was also a definite and unpremeditated energy of enterprise, entrepreneurship and development.
Positioned on a raised seating and stage area of the office (where shoes were definitely not welcome attire) sat one of my favourite pub games – the unrivalled table football. What caught my eye though was not the game and table itself but a sticker reading the slogan;
‘Social Media Club, if you get it, share it.
In terms of my visit to Kenya and the work of Practical Answers as the knowledge sharing function of Practical Action this phrase is so, so relevant. We as Practical Action do get why, how and when ‘technology’ is an appropriate function of development. In fact it is exactly what we have been doing for over 40 years.
The Social Media Club referred to on the sticker takes you to socialmediaclub.org and locally to Nairobi, socialmediaclub.org/chapter/nairobi
‘Social Media Club Nairobi, where innovators from Kenya will meet for monthly events to share, engage and collaborate with the community on the issues of social media and technology.’
Questions we may want to ask at this stage are,
Who is driving Innovation in International Development?
What place could iHub play in creating change through Innovation?
Why is this connected to development in Kenya?
Where should we start to innovate?
When can we achieve results?
&
Ultimately…
How can Digital Innovation aid the cause of Practical Action?
These questions need to be amplified within the development agenda, particularly within Kenya and East Africa.
The rise of the mobile phone over the last 5 years and the need to be connected to both mobile, internet and social networks 24hrs a day is clearly a priority for a large % of Kenyans in 2011.
I am not going to begin to answer how, when or in what shape digital ‘Innovation’ will play it’s part in the development of East Africa and indeed International Development Globally, but it is fundamentally clear and simple to see that we need many more iHub’s in the world to begin to start on solving the major world issues that we have today.
In consortium with the World Wide Web Foundation, please check out iHub and indeed m:lab and support the work that they are doing in encouraging the rise of Innovation, Investment and creativity within Kenya and East Africa.
iHub – www.ihub.co.ke
m:lab – www.mlab.co.ke
1 Comment » | Add your commentThe bare necessities of life! (what do we need to feel alive?)
Following a meeting on our second day in Nairobi a conversation really resonated with me.
Traditionally the most valued basic needs were;
WATER
FOOD
SHELTER
Now in 2011 these needs are only the basic bare necessities of life, there is a hunger for, a want, and a very real need for Information.
Information, Knowledge, Communication, Interation….
These are all now as important as the basic needs for all.
How will we as the modern world deal with this as a need?
On meeting Alin a dynamic Kenyan organisation who connect communities with knowledge throughout Eastern Africa it is clear that knowledge is now key, in fact knowledge is freedom and power.
Alin works to disseminate knowledge and feed that knowledge into communities that need it.
What is clear is that we need to value knowledge as important as air. Knowledge is the 21st century fourth component, the way of life.
Life as we know it has now changed and we need to embrace that change.
This is where Practical Action and Practical Answers is so important!
Check out www.practicalanswers.org
Enjoy!
Comments Off | Comments OffRats you can eat
I have recently been in correspondence with a farmer in Nigeria who wanted to know what the best nutritional options for feeding Giant Cane Rats also known as Grasscutters.
What was traditionally thought of as bush meat is rapidly becoming a vibrant business opportunity and expertise in farming methods is spreading.
A Grasscutter is a rodent, about the size of a rabbit, living in many parts of Africa. Its native habitat is in the reeds by the sides of rivers but readily took to living in cane plantations.
In the wild they would eat grass but my farming correspondent wanted to know what the best combination of cassava peel and leaves, which is a agricultural waste, mixed with other ingredients such as palm kernel cake, another agricultural product.
Practical Action has not been involved in the promotion of farming Grasscutters so we didn’t have much advice. However, it is an interesting opportunity to investigate micro livestock options.
2 Comments » | Add your comment