By: Shoki Mafogo – March 31, 2020
During March 2020, Colleen Sorto and Jane Edmund (Conservation International) dedicated 3x Days of Training K2C ToT participants on the CI Toolbox for Empowerment. Participants were from Conservation South Africa and the K2C Biosphere Region (K2C BR).
In the 3 days the participants were equipped with tools such as gender sensitivity, conflict resolution and approaches, mindfulness and my personal favourite: the human rights-based approach. It is important to remember when working with communities, that their rights must not be infringed on in our conservation processes.
It was another reminder that we cannot separate social issues from environmental issues.
These tools will help us facilitate conversations better with our communities in our different projects and the activities used, such as stakeholder mapping, will enable our networks on the ground to break down complex issues, making them simple, relatable and understandable.