Overall targets
To create awareness regarding environmental problems in the rural areas in Malawi. This includes advise on actions needed for changes, capacity development and advocacy at all levels of the community with special focus on youth of both sexes. The objective is to strengthen the consciousness among the primary target groups, particularly the young people, (women and men), on the reasons behind the environmental problems. The approach will also endeavor to, make the local leaders and traditional farmers pay attention to these environmental problems and their solutions.
Immediate targets
1. The youth and community members are educated on proper environmental management, to address the problems around water, deforestation, energy crisis, misuse of agricultural waste, food security income generating activities and growth of population. 2. The youth and the community members have gained sufficient knowledge to advocate for the actions to be taken against the environmental challenges. 3. The local leaders at sub-county land district level are enabled and inspired to support the rural communities on environmental conservation and sustainable use of natural resources.
Target groups
Beneficiaries of the “Environmental awareness project/programme”, Malawi, will ideally be household cum village communities. The Project will initially target 5 villages with two groups of 25 households in each village (250 households) for the initial 2 years of the project. Depending on the success of the project Green Livelihoods and Seniors without Borders plan to scale up the number of districts so as to disseminate the RIPAT approach to a significant number of farmers. The ideal profile of the project is a young woman or man who is 18 to 40 years of age and has the potential and ambition to positive change her/his future through participation in the RIPAT approach. In our present strategy we will follow the Triple-Win approach focusing on sustainable development i.e. economic – social – environment oriented intervention that will generate three clear results and these are: a) food security, b) income generation and c) ecological restoration. Simultaneously, it is anticipated that the project will have a rippling effect toward secondary groups of community, thus having a much wider impact than expected to benefit the target group alone.
Resume
The project has been inspired by the experience gained by Seniors without Borders (SWB) in a similar project in Uganda (Environmental Awareness Project, - EAP) presently being implemented. The Project Committee and the SwB Board has approved that the project is consistent with the SwB strategy on environment, youth and agriculture as well as it is in line with areas and priorities of intervention. The Project will aim to create awareness regarding environmental problems in the rural areas in Malawi. This includes advise on actions needed for changes, capacity development and advocacy at all levels of the community with special focus on youth of both sexes. The youth is the natural target group as they comprises the majority of the rural population (70% below 25 years). The introduction of the Rural Initiative for Participatory Agricultural Transformation concept (RIPAT), will strengthen the organization of extension and advisory services in a civil society context through education of locally recruited village facilitators and capacity building of local as well as through cooperation with governmental organizations. The present intervention shall be considered a pilot project, implemented in a representative area in close vicinity of the Capital, Lilongwe. Through close monitoring and evaluation, approaches and methodologies shall be adjusted to fit smoothly into future (and larger) interventions.