Empowering CBEMR Ambassadors!
May 25th, 2018
Written by Zoë Shribman, MAP Office Development & Field Project Assistant (Intern)
MAP recently hosted a Facilitation Skills Workshop that was funded by a newly established Lush: Fresh Handmade Cosmetics grant, for MAP’s CBEMR Community Network Capacity Building program.
This workshop, which took place directly adjacent to a beautiful mangrove estuary in the town of Krabi, spanned four days at the beginning of May, 2018. There were 13 participants from five villages within MAP’s Community-Based Ecological Mangrove Restoration (CBEMR) Network throughout four provinces in Southern Thailand: Trang, Krabi, Phang-Nga, and Ranong.
MAP is developing this CBEMR Network, to emphasize building capacity for communities involved in CBEMR. MAP uses this network as a way to connect the many mangrove restoration sites, and for villagers to interact with people from other areas so they can learn from each other. This network provides an incredible framework to promote CBEMR awareness and offers an outlet to discuss what works and what doesn’t.
Each assigned to different stakeholder positions, participants roleplay a lively community meeting. Sometimes there were intense debates between stakeholders, and in other moments the entire room would burst into infectious laughter.
MAP conducted this workshop to encourage participants to become effective CBEMR ambassadors. This workshop aimed to provide resources and tools to help local leaders and local conservation advocates strengthen community organization. Through this training, participants learned how to be able to demonstrate the importance of CBEMR as representatives of their own communities and of MAP. Some of the basic facilitation skills MAP focused on included becoming an effective public speaker or presenter, leading community discussions, strategizing decision-making, and organizing successful participatory group meetings within local communities and with the public.
The workshop was structured with activities, group discussions, and roleplays, as well as individual and group presentations.
The villagers plan and give final presentations on their own experience with CBEMR to the group, using their newfound facilitation skills and public speaking confidence.
Participants reflected as the workshop came to a close, that they were happy to return home to their villages with newly acquired organizational skills and confidence in public speaking. They were eager to exchange contact information with everyone to stay in touch, so they could continue learning from each other in pursuit of CBEMR.
At the end of the workshop, participants enthusiastically award each other with certificates and share ideas of how they will apply the skills they have learned in the future.
And we’d like to give a big thank you to Lush: Fresh Handmade Cosmetics for their support with this successful and engaging workshop!
World Earth Day: Environmental Education and Community Development Camp, Bang Kang Khao School
In celebration of World Earth Day on the 22nd of April 2015, MAP Asia held a two and a half day environmental education and community development camp in Bang Kang Kao community, Trang province one of the GNF (Global Nature Fund) sites between the 20th and 22nd of April. This camp involved around 20 facilitators including staff from MAP, members of the community, and student volunteers from Surat Thani Rajabhat University and staff from the Bang Kang Kao School.
The objective of this camp was two fold; provide the Bang Kang Khao School with mangrove awareness display exhibits and expand the environmental education knowledge of of 21 students in years four and five, with a focus on mangrove ecosystems. The main learning goal was for for students to understand the benefits that mangroves provide by learning from facilitator experts and local community people who have direct first-hand experience.
Key Message: Overall, it is hoped that these important mangrove conservation and environmental messages are able to reach the younger generation as they become the major force in conservation and restoration of mangroves in their own community in the future. The three days have been a truly memorable experience with a brilliant range of activities which hopefully can be repeated in the future.
GNF project holds a workshop and study tour in Trang
On February 4th-5th, 2015, MAP and the Raks Thai Foundation (Care Thailand) gathered 20 community members from four villages that take part in the GNF project, namely Ban Bang Kang Kao and Ban Laem Makham in Trang province, Ban Nai Nang in Krabi province, and Ban Ta Sa Nook in Phang Nga province.
The objective of the workshop and study tour was to discuss livelihoods and exchange experiences on the practice of CBEMR.
This was the first time for all communities under the “Mangrove Restoration and Reforestation in Asia, a Project for Knowledge Exchange and Action to Reduce Climate Change, and Protect Forest Biodiversity” that is supported by Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) Germany, Foundation Ursula Merz, Global Nature Fund and Synchronicity Earth to come together and share experience. This idea came from the project participants themselves and MAP staff facilitated by organising this two-day workshop and field study trip.
Key message…
It was interesting to note how the experience from setting up the apiculture group by the community members in Nai Nang village was particularly successfull at making obvious the connection between the sustainable management of the mangrove and the benefits people could derive from it for their livelihoods. Nai Nang community members highlighted how restoring the mangrove would benefit them by improving their harvest of honey, but also, reciprocally, how their activity of raising bees was beneficial for the restoration of the mangrove since it supported plant pollination. This experience was appealing to the other communities who expressed their interest in also setting apiculture groups in their villages.