Social Enterprise Program
The Environmental Action Program
The Badi Foundation’s Environmental Action Program (EAP) is aimed at empowering and building the capacity of individuals, in particular rural women, to work collectively to promote sustainable development in their communities. The program currently includes two levels of course material and a facilitator training course.
In the first level, participants take part in a 40-hour course combining analysis of their own communities and principles that can effect positive change with examination of the science of ecology and its application in sustainable production systems. They develop their capacity to cooperate more effectively, examine different approaches to working with others, deepen their understanding of common environmental problems, learn to identify the positive and negative impacts of different production systems, and develop the skills needed to evaluate the degree of sustainability of their own production system. At the end of the course, participants form cooperative groups and make plans for how they will share their knowledge with others and apply it to better their communities. Many participants choose to share a simplified course handbook with their friends and neighbors. The handbook highlights some key content from the course without going into as much detail as the full course.
The second level of EAP, just now being developed, will include a number of courses each addressing specific technologies or production systems in greater depth. Based on expressed needs and available resources, the first Level 2 course being developed is "Improving Agricultural Production". It is designed to help participants consciously and systematically incorporate appropriate elements from both modern and traditional knowledge of farming into their own agricultural systems. Participants also learn to identify and diagnose problems, and with the resources at hand, no matter how limited and scarce, learn to design a farming system that is sustainable and productive for their farms.
A third course in the EAP program is a facilitator training course. The sustainability and expansion of the Environmental Action Program depends largely on increasing human resources, especially in the rural areas. Indeed, many participants in the first level course are eager to go beyond the basic content presented in the course handbook and to share what they have learned more fully with others. The facilitator training program prepares them to share the first level course in full with family, friends, and neighbors. Those who take the facilitator training course continue to meet with Badi Foundation trainers for follow-up training and consultation on the challenges and advances they experience in their efforts to share the course with others.
Related Links
1. EAP for Rural Populations (Women)
2. EAP for Educators