1. Community develops agenda and identifies participants

Awareness Building
In partnership with local NGOs, the campaign team will first organize environment awareness days in target villages with subject matter focusing on natural resource management and wasteland development. In these events, community members will be encouraged to identify specific steps they can take to address common challenges and needs.

Motivation
During the environment awareness days, the planting of hardy trees on wasteland will be highlighted as a case study. The campaign team will share actual field experience with this system at its local field test site where 50,000 trees are currently growing. The concept of the “Plant a BioFuel Tree” campaign will be introduced as an opportunity, and women interested in being involved will be indentified.

Community Mobilisation
In parallel, the campaign team will also start identifying a high-driven and influential woman in each target village and training them to become “Environmental Champions.” In this role, they will be responsible for continuing to promote environmental awareness and action in their village in general, and helping to plan, implement and monitor the “Plant a BioFuel Tree” campaign in particular.

Once formally appointed as campaign partners, these Environmental Champions will recruit about 40 women in their villages and organize them into 5-10 Eco Self-Help Groups (ecoSHGs) for planting and maintaining trees. The women will be carefully selected from poor marginal farming families that have contiguous plots of barren land that is not used for food production or cattle grazing.  Tree planting will only be promoted on up to 1 hectare (or 2.5 acres) per family, representing less than one-half of the amount of wasteland each family typically holds in this region. Within the ecoSHGs, women will develop their own specific tree planting plans and schedules, in accordance with the guidelines of the campaign.

In addition to performing campaign responsibilities, each Environmental Champion will be encouraged to be a mentor and a role model for the rest of the community. The campaign team will provide her resources to help promote awareness and build consensus around sustainable water, energy, waste and soil management practices.
 

Targets:

• 15 Environmental Champions appointed in 15 villages in the Beed district, Maharashtra

• Women from 600 poor families form approximately 60 Eco Self-Help Groups

• Environmental management practices adopted by community in each target village

 

 

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