Final Narrative Report

TRAINING IN NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT AND THE FORMULATION OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PLANS

FINAL NARRATIVE REPORT

1. Description

1.1. Name of beneficiary of grant contract:

Bina Hill Institute for Research Development and Training

1.2. Name and title of the Contact person:

Ivor Marslow: Project Coordinator

1.3. Name of partners in the Action:

The North Rupununi District Development Board

Associate Partner: The Iwokrama International Centre for Rain Forest Conservation and Development (Iwokrama).

1.4. Title of the Action:

Training in Natural Resources Management and the formulation and utilization of annual and multi-year development plans for members of 18 communities in the North Rupununi’

1.5. Contract number:

DCI-NSAPVD/2008/172-314

1.6. Start date and end date of the Action:

1st March 2009 to 28th February 2011

1.7. Target country(ies) or region(s):

18 communities in the North Rupununi, Region 9, Guyana, South America

1.8. Final beneficiaries &/or target groups[1] (if different) (including numbers of women and men):

· The final beneficiaries are the 4500 mainly Makushi residents of the communities named below.

The target groups are the 18 communities of: Fairview, Surama, Wowetta, Annai, Kwatamang, Rupertee, Aranaputa, Yakarinta, Massara, Toka, Yupukari, Kwatata, Katoka, Kaicumbay, Apoteri, Rewa, Crashwater, Kwaimatta.

1.9. Country(ies) in which the activities take place (if different from 1.7):

Same as above

2. Assessment of implementation of Action activities

2.1. Executive summary of the Action

Over the life of the project there were a number of activities which took place. Some the major achievements of this project included communities trained in understanding, knowledge and use of the Amerindian Act to their advantage. This has increased the beneficiaries’ capacity for advocacy and applicability of the human rights/ indigenous rights enshrined in the Act. The support given to the Bina Hill Training Institute is invaluable in enabling it to deliver capacity-building to the beneficiary communities to map their natural resources and to develop their Community Development Plans. This has allowed the communities to look at their own development with renewed enthusiasm and a sense of increased ownership of charting their own progress and development agendas.

Training of indigenous youth

A total of 97 indigenous youth were trained Students were trained in Natural Resource Management, Wildlife Management, Forestry, and other subjects such as Agriculture, Computer Literacy, English, Mathematics, Leadership and Cultural Continuity.

The late Minister within the Ministry of Education, Hon. Desiree Fox, attended the graduation ceremony in July 2009 at which 26 students graduated. She dubbed the institution and its curriculum as being unique and said that this sort of community education should be done country wide. She commended the people of the North Rupununi for their positive efforts and pledged Government’s continued support.

The training generated a sense of pride among the youth for the positive side of their culture and the institution is now being touted as being the cultural Mecca for the indigenous people of Region 9.

BHI Youth officially participated in National Cultural events such as Amerindian Heritage in Georgetown and Carifesta, having been selected / invited by the relevant government organisers; and also highlighted their Makushi culture at Regional activities such as Rupununi day, Rodeo, Independence shows, Mashramani and Local and Regional Amerindian Heritage activities.

With the natural resource management training well in hand, the youth played a key role in assisting to disseminate information to communities about a number of topical and critically important issues related to the Guyana Shield Initiative, Global Warming and the Low Carbon Development Strategy. The method of message dissemination through cultural expression and the performing arts, by the youth, proved to be most popular in the exercise. A theme song on climate change/global warming with original lyrics and music was composed by the youth themselves and performed at local cultural events and at Amerindian Heritage in Georgetown in 2010, gaining the attention of the President of Guyana. An interpretive skit on the theme of climate change and the role of saving forests in Guyana to promote understanding in a very simple way of the basic principle of the LCDS was also produced and performed by the youth.

During the second year of the Project some changes were made to the curriculum of the Youth Learning Centre of the BHI, it was decided that the curriculum be for a two year program. One of the benefits of this decision was provided the opportunity for students to write two basic subjects at CXC Level. A batch of 19 students will be writing CSEC Examinations in Maths and English in June 2011. The Community Tourism and Community Fisheries Management courses which were built around natural resource management and development were also taught during this period.

The Bina Hill Institute may be the only Indigenous Natural Resource biased training institute in the Caribbean. The students played a major role in the sensitization of the communities of the North Rupununi in eco-system services, global warming, climate change, and the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS). Further, the visionary behind this development, Mr. Sydney Allicock, has been awarded a Caribbean Award for Excellence in the field of Civic Development. One of the justifications for this award was his role in the creation of the BHI as a natural resource training institute for indigenous youth.

Two special visits during this period by the Secretary General of CARICOM and team and by the Vice Chancellor of the University of Guyana as well as a Project Planning mission by the Directors of a prestigious UK based Conservation organisation – the Global Canopy Programme (GCP) allowed aspects of the project to be showcased and affirmed the sense of ownership and uptake potential of the project’s outputs and results. The Global Canopy Programme’s Community Monitoring, Reporting & Verification (MRV), for instance, will build directly on the training in natural resources management component of the project and will utilise the community resource maps produced.

Training in the Amerindian Act.

A core group of 32 locals from the targeted communities, selected by the village leadership was trained and they in turn trained the community members in their rights and responsibilities as Amerindian villagers under the New Amerindian Act (2006). The training of trainers was conducted by Mr. David James, the only Indigenous lawyer in Guyana. Mr. James specialises in Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and in the principles and process of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) that is enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples UN-DRIP. This exercise attracted other community leaders who sat in to benefit from the training.

The Amerindian Act was also translated into Makushi and a bi-lingual edition of the Act produced and disseminated. This exercise was one of the unique selling points of the project and it was successful. Training of youth in the Amerindian Act was also done by the 20 females and 12 males, attending the Bina Hill Institute.

Mr. James publicly stated that it was the first time that he facilitated a training that generated so much of interest and interactions. Various methods including role play were used in the facilitation. The whole Act was studied but the following topics were found to be of great interest in the communities:

Part 11: Entry and Access: Official Business; Lawful travellers

Part 111: Governance: Village Councils (composition, functions, powers, etc)

Part IV: National Toshaos Council (establishment, functions)

Part V: Village Lands:

· The concept of ‘inalienability’ in section 44 means that Amerindian titled lands cannot be given away or sold to anyone whether resident or non-resident

· Leases which must have three basic requirements: (1). Exact description of the land which will be leased (11). Term or duration of the lease (111). Money paid per month / year for the lease).

· Consent under the Act: The right of the village to say yes or no to any activity on their titled lands.

This activity generated a lot of interest in communities who stated that they were very pleased to be given the opportunity to understand the contents of the Act which covers their lives in a legal manner. This sentiment was also echoed at the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) consultation held by the Government in Annai in which Toshaos called for the process used to sensitize communities about the New Amerindian Act to be done for the LCDS. One positive aspect and direct result of this project component, among others, is that the communities have put up notices alerting travelers that they are in Amerindian communities. Village councils and community members also now know their rights and are implementing systems for persons entering and leaving communities and those coming to do research.

Recently, one person who attempted to do a research without the requisite permits was asked to abort his project and leave the community of Annai. Applications for residence are also reviewed by the wider community instead by the Toshao alone.

The improved knowledge of the rights guaranteed under the Amerindian Act also directly influenced the consultations and community household surveys done for the Indigenous Peoples’ Plan (IPP) commissioned by the IDB as a component of the Feasibility Study for the Linden-Lethem Road.

Training of Community Development facilitators:

Community Development Facilitators (CDFs) were trained of which 12 (6 females and 6 males) were selected to work with cluster groups of communities. A lot of capacity building was done and the CDFs are generally accepted as a great help to community development efforts. The CDF’s are often now referred to in NRDDB meetings and are being actively recommended as human resources for other projects and programmes on the NRDDB –BHI horizon.

Sensitization meetings:

A NRDDB sensitization meeting was held in March 2009 attended by the leadership and other representatives of the 18 communities of the North Rupununi. The participants firstly took part in an exercise to show that without visioning and planning there could be no proper development. The importance of same was stressed using familiar examples in the communities. A developed project summary was tabled and discussed. Participants were very supportive of the goals and objectives of the project and were especially interested in the training in the Amerindian Act and the funds that would be allocated to communities for developmental projects in the second year.

Meetings were also held in all the North Rupununi communities to sensitize residents about this project. This direct form of outreach and grounding with the outlying and distant communities was much appreciated by the Toshaos, Village Councillors and community residents. It is trend that the NRDDB hopes to strengthen and continue.

NRDDB training and monitoring Bi-monthly meetings:

After the initial sensitization meeting the North Rupununi District Development Board (NRDDB) made a decision to have quarterly meetings. At the quarterly meetings the community leaders were briefed on the status of the project and gave their advice on continued implementation.

Training in Community Development Plans Facilitation/ Land Resource mapping

Each targeted community was asked to select two persons for training as Community Development Facilitators. 32 trainees were identified and attended the training. The main subjects/ topics done were as follows:

· Visioning / Community development planning

· Project proposal writing

· Financial Management.

· Reading and writing of the Makushi language taught by a local expert and one of the founders of the Makushi Women’s Research Unit (MRU), Mrs. Cecelia Jeffries of Massara Village.

· GIS- Using a GPS, Land Resource mapping:

This was done by local expert Vivian (Ricky) Moses, himself one of the first batches of the pioneering batch of BHI students, with advice from A. Hosen who holds a Masters’ Degree in Forestry, who was a senior tutor at BHI. Trainees are now proficient in using the GPS and have been providing information on their communities such as location of the housing, farming and sites of interest.

· Natural resource management

. This course was done in general terms because of the time factor but included topical issues such as global warming, climate change, eco-system services, and the Low Carbon Development Strategy.

· Development of Leadership skills

· Information technology training

· Archaeology Course

· Bi-monthly Newsletters

· HIV/AIDS Awareness and Education:

Community Mapping of Resources, Identifying of Archaeological sites

Some of the resources mapped are

· Farming areas

· Fishing areas

· Hunting area

· Materials for house building and other community building construction

· Fish spawning areas

· Forest Resource Area

· Conservation Sites

· Households

Archaeological sites identified were

· Old Fort

· Petroglyphs

· Caves

· Pottery

Community Development Plans, Compilation, Production and Dissemination

2.2. Activities and results

Please list all the activities in line with Annex 1 of the contract since the last interim report if any or during the reporting period

Activity 1

Project tools in place: staff, vehicle, strengthened finance department.

Project staff was hired, Coordinator, Assistant Coordinator and Finance Officer

A 4x4 vehicle was procured for the execution of the project activities in the communities

Activity 2:

Youth Training at Bina Hill Institute for Learning

A total of97 youth were trained over the two years of the project. They studied Natural Resource Management, Wildlife Management, Forestry, and other subjects such as Agriculture, Computer Literacy, English, Mathematics, Leadership and Cultural Continuity, Traditional Skills - basket weaving, woodworking, traditional arts and craft, Tourism and Fisheries management and development.

The batch of 21 second year students will be writing the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) in Maths and English Language in June 2011

Activity 3:

Community Development Facilitators training in project management

· Training for Community Development Facilitators was facilitated in two stages

· Firstly there was a 2 day session looking at the various aspects of project management and proposal writing.

· The CDF’s were all tasked with developing a proposal for their communities which was then looked at to see how this may be able to have been implemented.

· The community development facilitators then went out to the communities where they held a 2 day workshop in the community where they helped with the formulation of project proposals and how they might be managed.

Activity 4:

Community Development Plan Toka Village

Community Development plan for Toka Village was developed using the same format as was used in the other communities which included a profile of the village, map of the community, history of the village, a SWOT analysis of the community, an annual work plan for the year 2010-2011 and a general community development plan. (Attached in Annexes)