What does Danny do everyday?

When someone goes abroad to do something like this, it often leaves people wondering, “well what are they doing anyways?”  So it hasn't all been about creating a fantastic garden (and to be honest I can’t take much credit for that!) but in my day to day I have also been involved in some neat projects with my organization- so I thought I’d take a moment and let you in on the details about some of them.

A brief description of my non-profit organization:

LEAD SEA (Leadership for Environment and Development, Southern and Eastern Africa), is one branch of LEAD. The head office is in London (LEAD International) and there are 12 branches (known as member programs) of LEAD around the world. LEAD’s mandate is to develop a new generation of global sustainability leaders, and this occurs through their Fellowship Training Programme.  The 12 member programs help to deliver training to new LEAD associates and support a network of LEAD fellows.

LEAD SEA is the member program that covers southern and eastern African countries. It strives to develop the leadership potential of people and communities to collaborate and deliver sustainable solutions. They are involved with the LEAD fellows trainings and they also manage and engage in specific local programs.

One key project that LEAD SEA is managing (which I am most involved with) is the Lake Chilwa Basin Climate Change Adaptation Program (LCBCCAP):

  In collaboration with the Forestry Research Institute of Malawi (FRIM) and Worldfish Center, LEAD SEA is implementing a five-year (2010-2014) programme, to secure the livelihoods of 1.5 million people in the Lake Chilwa Basin and enhance resilience of their natural resource base. This is being achieved through development and implementation of basin-wide climate change adaptations in support of the Malawi National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPA) to enhance the capacity of communities to adopt sustainable livelihood and natural resource management practices.

Phew, that is quite the mouthful.  Basically in its simplest form we train and build capacity of people so they can better adapt to climate change.  Through the LCBCCAP we are also engaged in a sustainable livelihoods project for communities that live around Thuma Forest Reserve. 

My title here is ‘Assistant Project Manager’ so my role is to assist in planning and implementing the activities of the LCBCCAP and of the LEAD Fellowship Training Programme. 

LCBCCAP Office in Zomba

Inside the office- My desk is on the left

Currently one of the major tasks I am working on is:

·      Thuma Ecotourism Feasibility Study: This is part of the Thuma Livelihoods project and in December I was tasked with the job of undergoing an ecotourism study for the forest reserve. The purpose of this study is to see how viable ecotourism is in Thuma Forest Reserve and if it can become an alternative livelihood and income generating activity for villages in and around the reserve. It has been really interesting researching about what ecotourism really means, how ecotourism has been done here in Malawi, and devising a methodology for this study. It has become quite the research project filled with interviews, focus groups, household surveys, demand surveys and site observations. Two weeks ago I was in the field for a week and another trip is planned for April.  

Josh has also been involved in the Thuma Livelihoods project, specifically in assessing sites for piggeries and bio-gas projects.  During the field visit they kept calling him the biogas expert from Canada and he would receive a round of applause after explaining things, so that was quite funny.

Map of Thuma- the colored pins represent incidences of poaching or charcoal burning

Driving into Thuma Forest Reserve to the basecamp- beware.. Elephants!

View of the reserve from the basecamp- so peaceful and beautiful

The kids at the village of Mvululu where
we were pre-testing the household survey

 Some of the other major things I have been involved with:

·      Payment for Ecosystems Workshop: A workshop was held in November 2011 for key stakeholders (NGOs and key government officials) about the concept of payment for ecosystems, and how PES could be used in Malawi. I was involved in planning and co-facilitating the workshop.

PES participants- can you spot me?? lol

Participatory mapping exercise

  

·      ICT Supported Education Workshop: This was a 3 day workshop held in December 2011, facilitated by 3 Norwegians, which brought together about 40 education practitioners from all over Malawi to learn how to integrate e-learning into their courses and learn practical ICT tools such as digital storeytelling to help teach about climate change. The task of organizing this workshop was passed over to me when the original organizer took leave.  I see this as one of my major achievements here as the workshop turned out to be a huge success and required a ton of organizational skills on my end. I’m sure you can only imagine what it takes to organize something like this in a culture that is not your own!

Facilitator Birgitte Wegerland talking about digital storeytelling

Participants creating a map of Lake Chilwa for their digital story

  

·      Climate Change Toolkit: This climate change toolkit has been over a year in the making (the previous intern worked on this as well). So this toolkit, as well as being an information tool for Malalwi it also needed practical tools. Therefore I took on this challenge, found community based tools that could be incorporated, and am now just editing with comments from the director and hopefully this document can be published soon!

So those are just some of the major tasks I have been involved with.  LEAD SEA does a ton and always has so many things on the go- I have been very fortunate to be able to learn so much and be exposed to so many different things!

If you have any questions or want to know more about what I’m involved in, let me know!