Rural women from 10 Caribbean countries meet to strengthen their capacities and productive organization

As part of the Farmers Organizations for African, Caribbean, and Pacific  Programme (FO4ACP), FAO with the support of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the European Union, and the Organization of African, Caribbean, and Pacific States (OACPS), the training course "BOND LEARNING GUIDE FOR TRAINERS: Empowering farmers and their organizations through the creation of social capital" begins today.

The training is co-organized with the Caribbean Network of Rural Women Producers (CANROP) the umbrella Regional Organization of the Caribbean National Networks, which exists presently in ten (10) countries namely: Guyana, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, St Vincent, and the Grenadines, Barbados, St Lucia, Antigua, and Barbuda, Jamaica and Bahamas. The purpose of the organization is to empower rural women to improve their standard of living through training, cultural exchange, networking, and the promotion of regional and international trade.

Pedro Boareto, the coordinator of the FO4ACP Project in the Caribbean Region, considers that this activity is “an important moment that will not only support CANROP work in the region by generating new tools for the empowerment of its members but also serve as a space for developing a working plan that will better positioned them in the Family Farming Agenda in the region”.

Carmen Nurse, president of CANROP, thinks this FO4ACP BOND training program encapsulates most of what CANROP is aspiring to accomplish through its national chapters.

“We envision a new paradigm shift for our leaders and organization if the major objective of the workshop is achieved ‘the elaboration of a shared vision to improve the performance, equity, governance and management of their group, organization or network (bonding), keeping with the purpose, CANROP selected sixteen (16) leaders of varying age groups and representation from all ten (10) chapters to go through the process of participating in the five (5) days face to face (bonding) training in Panama from 11th to 15th July 2022. Four of the workshop attendees will be facilitating the training as a result of being virtually trained by representatives of the Food and Agriculture Organization. Hereafter, CANROP'S executive will follow through to ensure those who received the training go and train members of their network thereby creating holistic capacity development using the ‘Social Capital’ theory for organizational empowerment”, says Nurse.

With this methodology, the representatives will have the opportunity to acquire knowledge and tools to implement learning processes that enhance social capital as a part of the development of their organizations. The training will last for five days to cover 16 sessions that will address the role of conflict for organizational transformation and identify strategies for conflict management (bonding), reflect on values ​​and principles for peasant organizations (linkage) and awareness of the importance of gender equality. and the empowerment of women (connection and bridge), among other topics of high value for farmers' organizations.

FO4ACP in the Caribbean

In the Caribbean, the FO4ACP Programme is implemented by the FAO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, PROCASUR Corporation, and Agricord. The program is being executed in Belize, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, and Saint Lucia.

The FO4ACP is funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), together with the European Union (EU) and the Organization of African, Caribbean, and Pacific States (OACPS).