Activities and Impacts Following the Techiman Course
August 2016 to May 2017
In July 2016 35 participants from 10 African countries participated in an intensive two-week course in Techiman, Ghana named the African Learning Institute on Local and Indigenous Knowledges for Community Resilience. The intent of the course was for participants to reflect on their practice, share with peers, and consider how to enhance their work in the future by using local and indigenous knowledge to build community resilience.
The purpose of this report is to provide a sense of what happened after the course in Techiman. The course itself, based on peoples’ comments and the post-course evaluation, was very positive, but that is simply a reaction to the experience people had together. Followup is necessary to determine if people learned anything, if they applied it in their ongoing work, and more importantly if it had any impact, not only on them as individuals, but in their communities. Impact of an educational event is a particularly difficult thing to measure as it often takes years before the influence of education can be seen in individuals and communities and there are many other factors that can support, or cause obstacles, to impacts being felt.
In regards to the African Learning Institute on Local and Indigenous Knowledges for Community Resilience (ALI – LIK4CR) there was definitely learning, application and impact in communities. The next few pages articulate some of these results. The organizations and individuals who participated in the ALI were chosen and invited to the course because they were already positively pre-disposed to the topic and were using LIK in their work. Community resilience as articulated in the course was new to most participants. Course graduates developed tentative action plans at the end of the course and returned to their organizations to continue ongoing projects, and were asked to document how those activities were influenced by or enhanced in anyway because of their ALI learnings. No resources were provided through the ALI for new initiatives, the intention was to see if ongoing initiatives could be enhanced through graduates learning at the ALI. What is reported here had many different influences and supports and these impacts can in no way be attributed exclusively to the ALI. There were impacts in communities, however, as reported by ALI graduates, and this documenting and sharing can be the first step in initiating a community of learning and practice (COLP) on LIK4CR which remains an aspiration of the ALI partners.
SUMMARY OF ACTIVITIES AND IMPACTS
Participants from 9 organizations in 8 countries who graduated from the ALI reported on their activities and the impact. All the organizations take a strength-based view to their work, but shared that the communities they work with were under various kinds of threats and challenges. People spoke from direct experience in their own contexts, and yet many of the risks are shared across all the countries. Mining companies were not keeping their promises after taking away peoples’ lands, modernization was encroaching on sacred sites and causing tensions and conflicts within communities, deforestation was rampant in some areas and indigenous knowledges were dying out and indigenous people rights were not being respected. Organizations reported that there was limited awareness of the value of local and indigenous knowledge in most places and elders were not involved in decision making in others. In many places, however, there was still a “sense of community” and in some places an insistent spirit and determination to uphold traditional lifestyles based on the endowments communities had inherited from their ancestors.
Responding to Threats. In this context of risk, communities, working in partnership with ALI graduate organizations, were active in responding to these threats in various ways, and aspiring towards what they envisioned for their communities in the future. Different types of gatherings or workshops were organized in all countries on topics related to IK and CR as a way to share what people had learned at the ALI with others. Organizations used their own resources for this work, the ALI itself only provided a small amount to assist with expenses related to the documentation of ongoing experiences.
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Community Cohesion and Respect for Indigenous Knowledges. Organizations stated that discussions in these gatherings improved cohesion and respect for indigenous knowledges and helped people to understand resilience in their own context. For example, in Zimbabwe people related to the resilience concept when it was linked to endurance. Participants at the gatherings enjoyed being able to speak openly about indigenous knowledges (something that is often hidden away) and began to recognize they could demand their rights as indigenous peoples. Through these discussions community members also realized specific things such as the blessing they inherited by revaluing ecological organic farming (Uganda) and embraced indigenous knowledge. In Lesotho community members affirmed the value of the diversification of indigenous crops (as opposed to mono-cultures) and youth took the first step in becoming immersed in indigenous knowledges. In Ghana they talked about a local cultural music group being revived and in Uganda the organization being given free TV spots to share indigenous wisdom about health – two different ways for raising awareness. One of the most interesting stories came from Ethiopia of the great impact a multi-stakeholder field visit to a community that successful defended their sacred site had on others. Through the first hand conversation with other community people visitors learned you have to document sacred sites, consider legal action, involve many stakeholders, link indigenous knowledge and scientific knowledge and encourage elders to share with each other and pass on their knowledge to youth.
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Rights. Through discussion with ALI graduates a number of communities chose to begin the process of articulating and protecting their rights by developing biocultural community protocols (BCPs). In Zimbabwe they were able to secure specific donor funding to do this. In Ghana new local bylaws were enacted and an ecosystem management committee was established. Elsewhere customary laws were documented and the documentation of history and sacred sites was started as a first step towards BCP (Ghana).
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Advocacy. Organizations also got involved in advocacy work of various kinds. In the Gambia a press conference was held to promote local foods and sensitize people to the importance of FAO Voluntary Guidelines for Sustaining Small-Scale Fisheries. They also got involved in an Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Review, specifically around access and ownership of land by women and preserving sacred sites. In Uganda they got involved in national level policy work as well.
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Reflection. These gatherings and followup activities to discuss indigenous knowledge and community resilience also led to some deep reflection. In Ghana they discussed on the community’s survival since slavery up to the present threats of climate change; and in Uganda spirit mediums gathered to ask for guidance for today’s challenges. These discussions motivated people to reclaim indigenous knowledge and life and to persevere.
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THE FUTURE
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Organizations articulated many ways they intend to continue putting their learning into practice in the future. This included to continue mapping and strengthening BCPs in Zimbabwe, to complete BCPs in Ghana and Kenya, while others are setting up new institutions such as the Elders Council in Ethiopia, and quarterly multi-stakeholder meetings with local government and indigenous leaders in Kenya.
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The following pages capture some of these impacts in more detail. Partners own monitoring reports, annual reports and additional photographs are available by request.