Capacity Building Training Programme on Rain Water Harvesting and Management for Ravirala & Aliabad Farmers

A Capacity Building Training Programme was conducted on “Water Harvesting and Management” on the 28th and 29th of March, 2012 at Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (CRIDA). The training was targeted at farmers, women and youth of the Ravirala and Aliabad villages.

1^st Day – 28^th March, 2012:

The training was initiated at Research In Environment, Education And Development Society (REEDS) office, Champapet. Mr. Satya Bhoopal Reddy, President - Reeds Organization, had started the programme by introducing the topic - “Roof Rain Water Harvesting and Management” to the participants. Consecutively, he demonstrated a Roof Rain Water Harvesting structure which he built in 1993.

Photograph 1: Demonstration of Rain Water Harvesting Structures

The participants later gathered at CRIDA for further sessions. Mr. I. Srinivas. Senior Scientist, CRIDA (Farm Machinery and Power) has enlightened the participants on the latest agricultural techniques & methods. He suggested that each farmer should go for agricultural machinery which can save manure by 30 % and seed by 30%. Solar dried products and their uses were also discussed by him. Participants were also told about various schemes available for youth from DRDA. Women were explained about the advantages of large scale production of these products and the means of getting a loan.

Field Visit:

A field visit was organized for all participants. Mr. Satish, S.R.F explained about a rainwater harvesting pond & showed an experimental micro watershed. 

Photograph 2: Participants being shown of an experimental Micro Watershed

After lunch, Mr. Srinivasa Reddy, Scientist, CRIDA spoke in detail about dryland agriculture and watershed programme.  Participants were advised to go for plantation as it helps in absorbing the rain water. He also explained about importance of farm bunding, with an insight into clay bundings and their uses.  Participants were told about various NREGS schemes that are useful to them.

2^nd Day – 29^th March, 2012:

Mr. Ramappa, the technical assisstant began by introducing the concepts and methods of soil conservation. He explained the importance of farm bunds in moisture retention.

Later, participants were taken on a field visit.

Photograph 3: Display of various machinery to the participants.

Dr. T. R. Tyagaraj took over after the tea break on the topic -  Drought – Water Management, Global Warming & Irrigation. He suggested farmers to go for crops which consume less water unlike paddy or sugar cane. He told the benefits of cultivating the crops using Drip System, where technology can be obtained from APMIP.

Photograph 4: Manure Management

Mr. Dasarathrami Reddy, Plant protection –SMS- CRIDA, spoke about pest control. He suggested that all participants should take interest in pest control. He also explained about the life cycle of some of insects. 

Mr. Joseph, S.M.S – Agriculture Extension trained the participants in the area of “Communication Skills”.

  

Photograph 5: Insight into various Agricultural Methods.

Mr. Sri Krishna, gave an insight on the production methods of vegetables, insects & pest control methods.

Conclusion:

Overall, the training turned out to be a fruitful one for the people of both villages as they got solutions to most of the problems faced by them.

The trainings also included communication skills to enhance the Committees of both the villages in their roles & responsibilities.

Photograph 6: Few Participants of the Training

Report on the Training Programme -

“Managing Information Resources in the Digital Age”

Venue: Center for Science and Environment (CSE) 
 

A training programme on “Managing Information Resources in the Digital Age” was conducted by Center for Science and Environment from 20^th to 23^rd March, 2012 at New Delhi. The training was scheduled for four days, with two sessions in a day. 

Day # 1:

The training started with an introduction of the participants; followed by an introduction to the key programmes of CSE. The morning session included the history, structure and organization of CSE. The participants got a chance to know how the CSE was established and what the organization is doing to gather, organize and to store information. After this, there was an introduction to the concept of  “Building a collection of information resources online and offline and using internet for research”. The first half then ended with group discussions based on topics/subjects that the participant’s organization is currently working on and the challenges/problems faced by the participant in getting/accessing the information needed. Topics such as “The importance of the use of the internet for finding/sourcing information for the organization, using web 2.0 tools to find information required by the organization” were also incorporated in the course. The second session was focused on a workshop for developing a “Thesaurus based on organizational work areas and indexing and key wording them”.

Day # 2:

The day 2 training focused on managing photos and videos using a freeware software known as File Maker Pro. This session also had a practical training component to make the trainee well versed with the software. The afternoon session dealt with building a database and also focused on the importance of database for outreach, marketing and communication. Towards the end of the day an interesting documentary on social media and the information on the web which turns into action was screened.

Day #3:

 The third day of the training started with an overview to WinISIS (Information Storage and Retrieval System), software to manage and store information. This was followed by a session on Wikipedia, where the participant was enlightened on the creation of an account and adding content to it. The post-noon session was about using free and open source softwares, social media, creating a blog using Wordpress and Google analytics.

Day #4:

The central theme for the morning session was communication and online presence, which focused on diverse aspects like packaging information on the web/website, navigation and impact monitoring. There was also an emphasis on the usage of the email for communication, mass mailing, necessity for producing an email newsletter, content for email newsletter, designing and dissemination of email newsletter. Post lunch was the concluding session which had feedback from the participants followed by certificates distribution.
 

Conclusion:

The training programme is very helpful personally and also for our Organization. It was a great learning experience to be a part of the training programme that brought together participants from different parts of South Asia. Both the content of the training as well as the shared experience with the participants was indeed enlightening.

The following are the specific topics that will be useful for the Organization.

·          File maker pro - software used for storing photos and videos providing keywords to find them with    ease.

·   Email newsletters can also be sent through website servers known as graphicmail.com and chimpmail.com.

·              Wikipedia can be used for promoting our websites by contributing content to it and by referencing for the given content as it is a content safe website.

·         Google analytics is used to view traffic on the web such as the number of the people who have visited the site, the location, the time spent, the source that led to the website, etc.

·               Wordpress is an online server which is used to create blogs on the web.

·              Social media helps in promoting the websites.

·         Meta tags are the important tags in a website. They give information to the server and help a user find a website with ease.

·         www.alexa.com is used to know rankings of websites.