Education for Development in Community means to mobilize, involve, encourage and to provide them with the needed professional instruments and know-how to be promoters and actors of their own territorial and human development.

Based on a general survey of the development trend in the Sapa Diocese, results that the main cause of poverty and of the low level of social and economic development in this area is not due to the lack of resources and development potentials, but rather due to the lack of knowledge and professional formation to be able exploit and manage with efficiency the existing development potentials.

In order to cope with the educational and formation needs of the community, the Diocese of Sapa have proposed to Renovabis a pilot project “Education for Development in Zadrima area” which implemented during 2011-2012 in the plain areas of the Diocese. Such intervention has produced results which show improvement of the elements of cooperation between actors in the area; have taught  them to use much effective ways and methodologies in the organizational aspect of the production as well as in the technical aspect of the production processes. Also the intervention had an important impact by putting in evidence the first improvements and marked the starting of a new way of developing agriculture economic activities among the farmer families in Zadrima area. The activities implemented gave hope to farmer families that the agriculture economic activities and their life conditions can improve further thanks to a correct and efficient management and exploitation of the abundant availability of natural resources in their territory.

The Project confirmed once more that the Education for Development in Community is the key to produce change and improvement in the social and economic life conditions of the population.

In this context, and based on a gained experience during the two years of project implementation, the Diocese of Sapa undertook the initiative to extend such educational and development interventions also in the mountain areas of the Diocese, where the community lives in really poor situation.

For that the Diocese of Sapa, proposed and met once more the support of Renovabis to intervene with a short-term project in these poor mountain areas, which would allow to test and to study the mentality and acceptance by the mountain community of the proposed changes that would be adopted into their lifestyle, family economy organization, and community economic activity organization.

The short term project is currently implementing, and so far it results that there is a good response from community to be part of these development processes and to accept new forms of economic organization, both within their own family economic activity, and within their own community organization. So far, the activities in the mountain areas have consisted in identification of the farmers’ groups of interest which is going towards establishment. High interest has been shown by the community members about the potentials and resources available in their areas that have been presented by the experts during the community meetings, which before were not taken into consideration by the community as real potentials for development. In order to create solid bases for interventions implementation in territory and with the aim to have competence and a clear picture and mapping of potentials and recourses existing in area in the discussion with the community members, the PfD Project staff and Experts conducted a study on two main economic activity pillars of the Sapa diocese mountain areas: i) a deep study on the livestock production (livestock rearing (cows, sheep, goats, pigs), meat production, dairy products, farm sizes, etc); ii) a study on the forest fruits: their natural state and possibilities of cultivation. Both studies helped to start awareness raising activities with the community members and the identification of the groups of interest.

While, in the plain areas, the short-term project is continuing to provide assistance and support to the groups of farmers, by keeping the network active and able to continue in further development process.

Until now, the process of development in the plain areas is more advanced, while in the mountain areas it is the starting of the process, where first general development notions have been introduced to community. 

Considering the education for development in Sapa Diocese as a process, the Project Proposal has intensify its interventions by consolidating further the development process and networking in the plain areas towards specialization of production and of production activity, while in the mountain areas the activities have been intensify with a deeper approach and treatment of the development notions thanks to the project.

In this context, the current project has achieved its goal by intensifying the interventions for development on four main working lines:

• Continue to develop and consolidate further the development process in the plain areas of the Diocese;
• Deepen interventions in the process of farmers’ organization into groups of interest and networking; intensify professional education/training to the groups of interest for an efficient organization of the economic activity, both at family and community scale, by making an efficient and sustainable management of available resources of the mountain areas of the Diocese.
• Dissemination and exchange of best practices and models between the groups of mountain and plain areas, as a capacity building and networking for the whole project territory
• Expand and develop further the Lobbing Movement in whole Sapa Diocese;

The project has been implemented in 24 months. The intervention summarized two networks:

• one established in plain areas formed of 4 main groups: winegrowers & wine producers; fruit & vegetables; meat & poultry; honey production (which involve 40 groups of interest):
• and the other network established in mountain areas formed of 4 main groups: livestock & diary producers; Medicinal herbs and forest fruits; beekeepers & honey producers; tourism activity (21 groups of interest).

Furthermore, the current Project proposed another effective type of intervention: establishment of 15-20 concrete pilot demonstrations as practical models for the farmers community regarding the: production; processing; marketing, etc. that served to the farmers community as concrete internship sites and models that can be visited and test the lessons learned during the trainings. The training materials and lessons have be transformed into Manuals of practical use for around 4000 farmers

The indirect beneficiaries have been the entire community, which have been able to achieve an increased production capacity and quality, for the local and regional market.

Started on January 2014 – January 2016