Livestock    and    Women    Livelihood    

Capacity Building Training
For Indian Research Partners in UK
2-11 March, 2008

The Indian research partners participated in the capacity building training in United Kingdom coordinated in UK by
Dr Chris Garforth (School of Agriculture Policy and Development, University of Reading).
Dr Laura Hammond (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) organized the seminar at London International Development Centre.

The research partners from India were very much benefited by this academic visit. The tailored schedule, met the needs of the partners in managing and improving the outcomes from the the DelPHE Research Project. They had an opportunity of delivering seminars to faculty and interacting with various faculty members like Prof. Samson, Prof. D. I. Givens, Dr. Kevin Waldie, Prof M.J. Rolls and Mr John Best at the University of Reading.

On March 7, 2008, the LIDC hosted a seminar which brought together members of a project examining ‘Women Self-Help Groups Involved in Livestock Rearing’ together with academics from the School of Oriental and African Studies, the Royal Veterinary College and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The discussion on Women’s issues in South India and Reading arranged by Bente Madeira at 35-39, London Street was very lively and leading to future course of action on working with ‘risc’ on environmental issues, biofarming and EM-Essential Microorganism technology. The scope of research Sustainable Development was dealt at length. Research on Fair Trade and International Economics was warranted. The panel discussion at London convened by Laura Hammond threw open all the components in one capsule: knowledge sharing, enriching and collating - for future course of action. Amelia Duffy-Tumasz, Dr. Nigel Poole and Dr. Colin Poulton all from SOAS, David Preston, Oxford, Nick Short, Royal Veterinary College and Seema Vyas, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine attended the seminar.



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Excerpts
on
What the research partners say about their visit to UK…


Dr. K.C. Leelavathy,
Director, Centre for Women’s Studies,
Avinashilingam University, Tamil Nadu

A LOOKING BACK – EXHILARATING DAYS

…. It was biting cold welcoming sign and great surprise to see, the security prom handing over the keys and swipe card promptly. The promptness with which the things proceeded was astonishing to me! I was delighted to be in a reputed University. Like a student I enjoyed being with youngsters. The systematic programme planned (Refer Programme Schedule) by Prof Chris Garforth was highly systematic and studious. The most interesting observation to be notified is during the discussion if we were referring to a new thrust area, Chris would immediately arrange a discussion with them. As a result we were provided opportunities to meet Dr.Givens who discussed at length on quantitative and quantitative research and Dr.Maria who explained her project in Nepal and listened to the models of operation of DelPHE Project.

Apart from the useful and interactive experiences at Reading, session at London was very challenging. Dr,Laura was highly cooperative and I had good scope for follow up on gender studies.
a.     Violence against women in IT sector.
b.     Status of differently abled persons in the workplace.
c.     Introduction of academic programme on gender studies to college youth.
d.     An overview of gender / women’s studies departments in Southern / Northern India.
e.     Impact of Development Programmes on women stake holders

Dr. Thammi Raju,
SVVU,
Andhra Pradesh

The visit to University of Reading, UK under DelPHE programme resulted in many benefits to Indian scientist and their counterparts in different aspects.

  • Capacity building: The DelPHE research partners professional capacities on gender issues, information pathways, designing extension tools etc are enhanced which leads to address the issues related women and livestock in a better way.
  • Networking : The current visit of Indian scientist helped to foster the future networking with London International Development Council , University of London, Royal Veterinary College, University of Reading Animal Science Research Group), thus fulfilling the objective of DelPHE programme itself i.e. development of partnerships in higher education.
  • Academic visits to Oxford University, London University enabled the research partners to understand and feel the advanced academic environment.
  • Sharing of experiences: Both the Indian Research partners and the UK faculty and NGOs mutually benefited by sharing their experiences and exchange of information pertaining to gender and livestock aspects, women issues etc.
  • Learning situation: The research partners visited Museum of English Rural Life which is a good learning platform to understand the English rural and a practical exposure visit to a modern dairy farm further enhanced the understanding the commercial dairy farming and issues related.
  • Educational system: As the research partners belonged to teaching fraternity of different Universities of India, the visit helped them to understand the educational system in UK and the teacher – student relationship. The experiential learning will result in the changes / adjustments in their current system.
  • DelPHE Project output enhancement: The experiences, knowledge, capacities gained will lead to enhanced project output thus contributing to the attainment of overall goal of the project .i.e. Livelihoods of women self help groups (WSHG) involved in livestock rearing enhanced and more sustainable through knowledge empowerment by participatory generation and dissemination of knowledge on the management of livestock leading to alleviation of poverty.

Dr. T. S. Rajeev,
Kerala Agricultural University

… The visit to a farmer’s house (Mr. Christensen, Kingston Hill Farm), was an extremely different experience. His hospitality and enthusiasm were in-credulous. He explained and took us around the farm for exploring the various aspects. We had a great opportunity to visualize all management activities in farm including milking, feeding, watering, milk cooling and delivery system heifer and calf management, fodder cultivation etc. we realized the importance of green fodder, silage making even in developed countries. The discussions with Mr. Christensen led to a thorough understanding of knowledge uptake and technology dissemination systems of livestock sector in UK. It was interesting to realize that, technology transfer and delivery of extension are paid in UK and not offered as free by public sector India. The visit ended with a nice delicious cuisine by him, and his family. I was amazed to observe the Indian flag hoisted at his house to welcome us which was also an interesting experience from a UK farmer.

The training ended by March 11th and we returned early morning. In fact this training had given me innovative thinking towards my activities in future. The exchange of ideas with the different learned faculties, academicians, scientists and researchers provided an amazing insight towards the further research and the project. More over the experiences of the cultural life of UK has nurtured my social awareness. It was very informative, resourceful, well organized and skillfully arranged so that we felt homely as well as useful and needful to our professional carrier and this research Project.

I am extremely grateful to DFID, British Council and University of Reading for providing me this grant opportunity. I am thankful to Lead partner of this project, without whom I might have not got this prospect ever in my life.













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