Local Partner: Women Resource Network
Background and objective:
In Bangladesh, among many widespread prejudicial views against Indigenous peoples’ ways of living, one concerns traditional livelihood practice of shifting cultivation, which is perceived as economically inefficient and ecologically harmful. Shifting cultivations is indicated in the list of indirect drivers, of deforestation and forest degradation. Indigenous peoples have failed to remove it from the list of indirect drivers due to lack of empirical data to back their claims. Indigenous peoples have come to realize the crucial need to generate empirical data and information and to produce advocacy material to debunk the myths and misconceptions surrounding Indigenous peoples’ roles in destruction of ecosystem, biodiversity and forest.
The initiative aims to document, revitalize and promote Indigenous peoples’ collective knowledge related to traditional livelihood practice of Jum (shifting cultivation) which is intricately linked to ecosystem, biodiversity and natural resource management, and their capacity for adaptability and resilience in response to climate change. The project will be implemented in five villages of five Indigenous people’s communities in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) to showcase diversity and commonality of indigenous practices and knowledge. The ultimate goal of the project is to increase visibility of, and to gain recognition of the value of indigenous knowledge on sustainable ecosystem management and on climate change adaptation and mitigation, at local and national level.
By the inception workshop, civil society organizations attended the workshop. Through textual and visual documentation the activity of shifting cultivation, knowledge, rituals, and spiritual worship were documented. In the publication sharing and information dissemination seminar, the information of the research are already shared with the villagers in several meetings. In the intergeneration dialogue, women, youth and men from the villages participated in this programmes.Financial support to cultivate varieties of crops was provided to 50 families. Jum fair organized with participation of 03 different indigenous communities (Tanchangya, Mro and Khumi) from 5 village.
Local partner information: Women Resource Network (WRN) was established on 23 November 2001. The mission of WRN is to establish a strong women network with all women organizations and experienced women rights activists of Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) to realize Indigenous women’s rights. WRN has been focusing on 4 types of activities (1) Strengthening capacities of women’s organizations and activists through organizing and conducting trainings, workshops, seminars and meetings; (2) forming and supporting thematic groups, cells and taskforces; (3) Networking with grassroots women’s organizations, traditional institutions and other local, national and international organizations and networks and (4) Collecting information, and conducting research for advocacy on issues affecting Indigenous women, including violence against women.
