1.2 Objectives of the workshop


The Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) workshop was organised in the village of Sodhi, in a lodge of the Punjab Forest Department. Field work was carried out in the villages of Ucchali and Ugali, near lake Ucchali, and in Dhadar, near lake Khabbaki.The field work and overnight stays in villages provided a context for workshop participants to live with and interact with villagers over a significant period of time.

The primary objectives of this action oriented workshop were to:


  • Introduce the PRA approach to staff members of government departments and WWF-Pakistan and train them in basic PRA concepts, principles and methods. The classroom exercises and practical fieldwork were designed to encourage experiential learning.

  • Carry out PRAs in villages located near two lakes of the Ucchali complex, assess local needs and opportunities with the villagers and initiate a participatory planning process for the management of the wetlands.

  • Revise the existing management plan for the Ucchali complex in the light of the interactive dialogue between outsiders and villagers.

  • Provide examples, material and training notes for future Participatory Rural Appraisals which might be carried out by conservation organisations in Pakistan.


In the last five years, similar workshops have been organised in other parts of the world including South Asia, South East Asia, East Africa, West Africa, South Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Western and Eastern Europe with governments, NGOs and academic organisations. These have focussed on changing the behaviours and attitudes of external professionals to enable them to learn from the local people and to enable the local communities to participate in analysing and planning their own conservation and development programmes.


Participants

The workshop involved 22 participants from WWF Pakistan and various Departments of the Government of Pakistan. They included foresters, ecologists, protected area managers ornithologists and project managers. The participants were a mix of 6 women and 16 men, with different levels of experience in natural resource management and conservation issues. A list of workshop participants is given in Annex 1.

Over 300 village residents participated in the eleven day field based workshop. Some of the villagers also worked as facilitators for some of the exercises. A list of participants from Ucchali, Ugali and Dhadar villages is given in Annex 2.

The four PRA trainers and workshop facilitators were from the Kalam Integrated Development Project (Pakistan) and from WWF International (Switzerland).


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