A work shop for environmental leaders in Colombo and Gamapaha district was held at the Central environmental Authority (CEA) on the 14th of September. All registered NGO’s under CEA in these 2 districts were invited by the director General Pasan Gunasena where main objective was to discuss about future involvements of NGOs and problems they faced when involved in environmental conservation in Sri Lanka.
Hon Minister Mr. Patali Champika Ranawaka addressed the gathering with an eye opening presentation on 4 global crisis such as Economical crisis, Fuel crisis, Food crisis and Water crisis. He also explained the way forward as Sri Lakans and our responsibilities as a Nation to overcome these crises.
After the meeting we got an opportunity to express our views. Kanchana and Harsha participated in this workshop.
We could not write anything on the blog for past two months. That does not mean that we didn’t do any thing important. Our busy lives at work and personal commitments were main reasons to be away from you all. Thushara is still working with Internally Displaced People in the North for their rehabilitation activities and I tried to continue all the work with the help of my ECO-V team and kids also needed my attention more than before as their 3rd term at school has started.
I am going to post few activities for the months of August and September2009.
RoteractsGO GREEN campaign
I had the chance of visiting to Padaviya area where we have been carrying out research few years back and had the first glimpse of normalcy returning to villages after recent completion of humanitarian operations. We are hoping to go back to that area soon to start our unfinished work.
First Saturday of August I had the chance of giving my message of environmental consciousness to group of youngsters who have decided to commit them selves to be the advocates of serving the mother earth from the anticipating disasters. It was the occasion of my friend Farhah Markan Marker’s induction ceremony as the president of Colombo Mid City Roteract club and she wanted me to be the guest of honor. I met Farah few years back during my expedition with the youth group in India participating in “Youth Yathra” along Yamuna river. We shared common believes and values during the “Yathra” and she wanted me to share my vision with her members at this occasion as she also believes that youth of the world can make a difference in this world taking the leadership in any sphere. I highlighted the importance of individuals’ responsibility in conservation of environment and it was well received by the audience of youth at the ceremony. Roteracters wanted to continue their campaign to go green with ECO-V and promised to have join projects with us in the future. Miss Sri Lanka 2009 and Mr Sri Lanka were also invited as guests of the occasion.
ECO-V wishes Farah all the best for coming year and her crusade to Go Green with the Roterators.
I came back from Netherlands after a very successful 3 weeks training course at Wageningen International. It was very difficult to say good bye to training mates as all of them were so friendly and interactive. I think I learnt a lot from them and the course helped me to develop my teaching skills as a trainer and a facilitator. Two Dutch course coordinators; Esther and Ingrid were very helpful and have done a great job in sharpening my skills. I am sure every one who participated in the course was able to get the maximum use of the training. Sri Lankan way of Greeting “Ayubowan” (May all living beings live long) was accepted by everybody as the best way of greeting and all the time we were using that. David my friend from Ghana (see the photo, me and David saying Ayubowan together) particularly wanted to use it for his teaching.
The most interesting thing was meeting one of my good friends after 10 years . Tahir Shawl whom I met at the International training Centre in Jersey Zoo, UK (Durrell) in 1999 was also there in this training and it was a nice surprise (See the photo, me and Tahir). We could not stop talking about our training at Durrell 10 years ago and all our training mates were surprised to hear that we have met long time ago. Tahir is working as a wildlife park warden in Jammu & Kashmir area. I can remember my good friend Robyn Dalzen from CLP programme has mentioned in one of her emails that she was told “The world is very big, but all the nice and interesting people know each other.” So I also agree with that. All good and enthusiastic people in the conservation world seem to be end up meeting again and again and the bond among them is so strong. There are lot to share with each other and I am sure we can make a difference if we keep working as a real nice big family. So my dear 42 training mates, Esther and Ingrid you are so important to me and I miss you all! (See the photo me with Lakshmi the training assistant, Esther and Ingrid). Thanks to Netherlands fellowship Programme for sponsoring me to attend the training.
Soon after I came back I had to start working with the “Kalu Wandura” (Leaf langur) Project. Dr. Rudran who was in Sri Lanka just before I went to Netherlands has given many instructions to the team. We were waiting for him to come to Sri Lanka as the team had never met him before. So it was good to have him here and get his advice to improve the quality of the study. Harsha my colleague has done a great job as an overall coordinator to ECO-V in absence of me.
I found a time to write something about our work in the middle of a training of trainers of wetland Management (TOT) in Wageningen, Netherlands. I came here on the 7th of June and will be getting this training until 27th of this month. This is going to be a very useful training for me as well as for ECO-V as we are currently working on Pelican’s habitats in Sri Lanka. We started on protecting Spot-billed pelican habitats after our work on distribution of Spot-billed Pelicans within Sri Lanka .We realized that their habitats; fresh water man made tanks are in real trouble mainly due to siltation and aquatic alien invasive species. Many fishermen in the freshwater tank habitats are complaining about not taking any actions for this habitat degradation and according to our experience its not that they are not aware of what is happening but they are not stakeholders among the responsible authorities. So ECO-V decided to bridge them and do what ever we can do to protect the pelican habitat for both human and for wildlife. Therefore this TOT will be very useful for our future programmes in getting into new areas that we were not working on.
There are 43 participants from 28 countries. All are mid carrier managers of NGOs and government agencies in their respective countries with more experience in wetland management field. I came here with a help of the fellowship provided by the Netherlands Embassy. There are 39 fellowships given this time out of 300 applicants. So it was a great opportunity to get real experience in wetland management in Netherlands a country which has more wetlands with different level of stakeholder partnerships.
Mark went back after 10 weeks of his stay here and we are missing his friendly support we got throughout his stay. Mark said that he learnt a lot while staying here and it was very helpful for him to acquire more training skills as he conducted many training sessions for various groups like University of Colombo, National Zoo, Field Ornithology group (FOGSL), Young Zoologists Association (YZA), Jetwing Hotels and Girithale Wildlife Training centre and of course my team at ECO-V. We believe that his whole stay with us at our home not only helped ECO-V but for many other government and non governmental organizations and tourism sector as well. This is one good example that our volunteers welcome programme will benefit to many stakeholders in Sri Lanka even in future. Week after Mark went Kanchana went to Netherlands for a fellowship from Netherlands Embassy. She will be trained as a trainer (TOT) of Wetland Management for 3 weeks in Netherlands.
The Kate Stokes Memorial Award Training Programme:- Mihimadale Hithathiyo (Friends of Mother Earth) now has its own blog!
Follow the link (by clicking on the title above) to see many photos from the first part of the training, information about Kate, and the award, and a blog post from Mark Chappell, showing his take on the weekend.
In future, all updates of news, photos and videos that relate to the training programme will be uploaded to the new blog.
The day we all were dreaming about is past now! Today I am writing this blog with much satisfaction. Last weekend was over with many laughs, smiles and tears…. Today I am telling you all what ECO-V has done for our first ever formal training course for 20 youth in Sri Lanka. Most importantly it was one of the most successful events carried out during our 8 years history. Today there are 20 “Friends of Earth” who got their basic training on Mother Earth who learnt skills and gained experience on environmental conservation.
On the 30th of April we went to a beautiful place close to Colombo which belongs to Sarvodaya (The largest Community based NGO in Sri Lanka). The team from Udawalwa arrived at 3.30pm. After refreshment we started the introduction and ice breaking which were full of fun. All the 20 youth were a bit shy and backward on that day which is natural like in any other training. My presentation about Kate during the introduction was very emotional and all the trainees were touched by the story behind the training. I added a hard copy of the presentation I did on Kate, Kate Stokes Memorial Award and how important this training for us in their folder.
We started the second day at 6am with an environmental meditation which we have been experimenting with for the last 5 years. Concentrating on natural sounds in the surroundings I directed them to spread their loving kindness to all the living beings in the surroundings. Following the meditation all were engaged with nature watching until breakfast. The day was full of brain-storming, relaxing exercises, discussions and fun games. Jennifer, one of my good friends from the USA, who is in Sri Lanka these days came to visit us and conducted a session on expressional art. Trainees have highly commented on this new experience. Overall comments we got at the end of the day confirmed that our effort was a success.
The third day was started with yoga exercises, again concentrating on the sun rise, sounds of the Earth and also on breathing. That was a new experience for all the trainees and they came for the lectures full of energy. We gave the trainees a chance to listen to an expert on cultural values and traditional methods of environmental conservation of Sri Lanka. The evening session was focused on ex-situ conservation and we got the trainees to visit Colombo Zoo. Visiting a zoo is just a fun trip to most Sri Lankans, but for these trainees it was full of information on animals and also many of them said that their attitudes towards animals were changed positively after this visit. On the same night we had a session on dramas and cultural items performed by trainees. A conservation story was given to them prior to the performances and they had to make a drama as an effective awareness activity. All the trainees enjoyed it thoroughly. We (resources persons) also became actors and actresses as Mark directed a role play on the aye-aye from Madagascar.
On the final day we gave a brief introduction about eco tourism. Since the trainees came from Udawalwa, one of the main tourists’ area within Sri Lanka, this guest lecture was very useful for them to think about the environment from an economic angle. We also trained them to be nature guides while doing an exercise which was very interesting for all of them. Then we finished the training with course evaluation. Everybody became very emotional at the end of the training and did not want to say goodbye. However they went with a great hope for the next three days of the training in August after thanking KSMA.
Our volunteers especially Madhubashini and Nanda played their part during all three days of training and I am very much grateful to them. Mark and Jennifer who were with us encouraged and gave the trainees an opportunity to feel that they are part of a well planned focused training. Mark will write his own blog on the training and it will give an idea how all things happened to every one who reads the blog. I thank Mark for being part of the ECO-V team for the past few months and shouldering our responsibility of writing the blog for us.
Mark is also working on the manual of the KSMA training; new web lay out for ECO-V and the report on Pelican conservation at Udawalawa before he ends his period with us on June 1st.
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