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Chimpanzee Monitoring-An Important
Element of Forest Co-Management
Bhohi Sané, a hunter-farmer living
close to the Nialama Classified forest, has a new occupation.
One week per month, he goes out with three other subsistence
hunter-farmers and observes the activities of chimpanzees,
a protected species that is being closely monitored as part
of the USAID/Guinea forest management activity. Says Sané,
"Before working with the project, I didn't understand
the importance of the chimpanzees. Then we were recruited,
and trained, and now we understand that chimps really need
to be protected."
Sané, also a beekeeper, says the chimps
often get into his beehives. "Here I am protecting them,
and they're getting into my honey. The problem is, the chimps
have really become my family now. If I get there first, I
get the honey. If they get there first, they get the honey.
That's how it goes!"
Sané's chimp monitoring activities,
initiated by world-renowned chimp expert Janis Carter and
continued by USAID partner Winrock Intl. under Carter's guidance,
help ensure that Guinea's innovative co-management program
is sustainable, and in keeping with U.S. law providing for
the protection of endangered species. The Pan troglodytes
verus subspecies of chimpanzees in Guinea are already deemed
close to extinction, and their protection is crucial since
an estimated 40 percent of the world's total remaining population
live within Guinea's borders.
Samba Diallo, another hunter-farmer involved
in the project, explains his activity: "I go to my area
at eight o'clock. When I hear a chimpanzee noise, I look at
my watch to see what time it is. Then I look to see what habitat
the chimp is in, whether it's savannah or forest, and I write
it all down. I look to see how many chimps there are, how
many have babies, and I note that as well. I observe whatever
they do, what they eat, if they play or are hitting each other,
and I write it all down in Arabic on my sheet."
Chimps in the area are not hunted, but are
threatened by land pressures, including local land use. The
information the hunters gather on a monthly basis allows Winrock
to plan and measure co-management activities that improve
the well being of as well as raise awareness about chimpanzees
among the local population. Says Carter, "Co-management
of a forest addresses the needs of both people and wildlife
while retaining the integrity of the forest. Achieving this
balance is not an easy task. The hunter study is a low-cost
method of collecting essential ecological information over
time. Employing resident hunters provide a wealth of historical
information on the forest as well as increasing local interest
and support for the project."
The hunters became involved in the chimp project
as village representatives of a Forest Co-management Committee.
A new way of managing natural resources, co-management works
to find a balance of rights and responsibilities between the
State and the local population surrounding the forest, including
subsistence hunters and farmers.
Sané sees the long-term benefits to
forest co-management, saying, "We're preserving the forest
not just for ourselves, but for our children, and especially,
for our grandchildren."
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The Economic Group
of Danteforé Village:
Gaining New Economic Momentum
Bintia Bangoura can tell you what the small,
remote Guinean village of Danteforé, has learned through
USAID-sponsored CLUSA civil society building-in addition to
what they've gained in dollars and cents. "We've learned
to work together as a community. Before, each person went
to the fields to take care of their own personal interests.
Now we're working together, and making good decisions together.
Our crops, especially our rice, are so abundant this year
that for the first time, we need to build a storage space
for the surplus. We never had this abundance before."
Why are they earning more? Villagers say that
through working with a CLUSA trainer, they have learned to
create-and enforce-their own societal rules to promote efficiency
and cooperation with working tasks. For example, in order
to lessen arguments among community members, those who argue
are fined about US$1.70. "We have a lot fewer arguments
this way," says one ERA member. In addition, the fine
for not showing up for a meeting is $3.35, and showing up
late cost community members about 30 cents, which generally
keeps people present and on time for meetings.
The Danteforé economic cooperative
includes 32 people, 9 women and 23 men, with 10 board members,
including one woman and nine men. They are now legally recognized
as an economic cooperative, and have even opened a savings
account at a commercial bank in Dubreka, in which they have
savings totaling $50.00, a significant sum for the local villagers.
Danteforé village has rice and manioc cultivation as
its principal economic activities, as well as commercialization
of agricultural products, and provision of services to neighboring
communities. Through guidance on internal organization, the
community as a whole has also been able to begin field work
earlier, and end it earlier in the year, leaving workers free
to hire themselves out as laborers to surrounding villages,
providing an additional source of income.
CLUSA's approach focuses on the transfer of
business management and analytical skills and cooperative
operating principles (such as democratic values, open membership,
and one-member-one-vote rules) to members of the participating
rural groups. Twenty-nine Guinean field representatives live
in villages within CLUSA's program zone, and work exclusively
with communities in local languages. Through this approach,
villagers are considered clients rather than traditional passive
beneficiaries, and are encouraged to take an active role in
developing their own communities.
Women in Dantefore say that now they help
each other out more than they did before; they make group
decisions more easily, and are showing greater respect for
one another. Says Bintibé Bangoura, "If it is
most beneficial for us to go to the rice fields, we all go,
without arguing. If we are better off going to the manioc
fields, we all go. We've learned how to make group decisions."
The economic benefits may seem incremental, but for Danteforé
villagers, they are cause for celebration. Bangoura says "Before,
we always wore the same clothes. Now we have several changes
of clothing. We eat well now, and we are able to buy school
supplies for our children. We women are also able to contribute
a lot to our household income."
One of the unanticipated benefits of the newfound
prosperity in Danteforé, insists the ERA president,
is that young people now say they want to stay in the village.
"They see that we are producing more, and they are earning
money as well, so they want to stay."
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Parent Associations: Civil Society Building
Makes
Room for Women at the Top
"I never went to school, and I married
very young," Nene Kadé Barry, Second Secretary
of Social Affairs for the Mamou Federation of Parent Associations
(PTAs), "but I have one girl and two boys, and they are
all in school. I watch over them, and make sure they're in
school and paying attention." Barry, one of two women
elected to the 11-member board of highest office in the pyramid
structure of the Mamou Parent Associations, is taking an active
role to ensure that her kids, along with many kids in the
Mamou region, get to go to school.
Says Barry, "I was a local PTA member,
then I was elected to the subprefectoral level, and now I'm
in the prefectural PTA. I still feel inferior because I never
studied in school, but I'm benefiting now from having my kids
in school. My kids are doing well in school, and getting a
lot of praise from their teachers, so I know it has been important
for me to support them, and to make sure they stay in school."
Since 1997, USAID-sponsored PVO World Education
Guinea (WEG) has been working with local NGO partners in the
Mamou region to strengthen existing PTAs in support of higher
quality education for primary school children. Through NGO
intervention using a training of trainers approach, PTAs are
learning to become better organized, and meeting the challenge
of taking on the financial and pedagogical management responsibilities
of the schools in their local communities.
The results obtained by the PTAs in the Mamou
region have been widespread, and include higher enrollment
rates, and greater equity, with an above average increase
of 5 percent in girls as a percent of total enrollment between
1998 and 2000. Other WEG effects include better teacher attendance,
and greater parental participation, all of which indicate
a positive impact on the quality of education in Guinean primary
schools. At the level of the PTAs, local NGOs delivered 1,803
training sessions in organizational management to 187 school-level
PTAs, including 3,845 women. The organizational transparency
seen in these PTAs is helping to promote grass roots civil
society building, and has broader implications for how civil
society organizations can be built in support of development
across numerous sectors. Barry and the other members of the
prefectural PTA are responsible for the coordination of the
PTAs at the subprefectoral level. Each member has a region
in which they travel to meet with parents to find out about
their concerns. The members insist that the communities themselves
know best what problems exist, and they try to listen attentively
to what local PTA members have to say at the local level in
order to air their concerns-and make wise representative decisions-at
a higher level.
The two women in the prefecural PTA speak
softly, but their voices are being heard in the communes.
Nene Galle Sané, prefectural PTA treasurer, says, "We
use all kinds of arguments with parents to promote equity.
The recruitment [of girls] is easy, but it's harder to get
parents to keep their girls in school. We're talking to mothers,
though, and they're starting to understand. We say that mothers
teach their kids, so it's important that the mother is educated-it's
an enormous benefit to the family. We also tell teachers that
they're teaching future leaders, and future ministers, so
their role as a teacher is extremely important. We insist
that they treat all children equally, and that girls not be
shouted down but rather that they be encouraged to speak up
in class."
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Popular Radio Talk Show Encourages
HIV/AIDS Awareness and Prevention
Rap, zouk, kwasa-kwasa, and lively youth discussions
with a strong HIV/AIDS prevention message have made the Saturday
afternoon radio talk show, "Jeunes à l'Ècoute
des Jeunes," ("Youth Tuned In to Youth") enormously
popular throughout Lower Guinea since its debut in May 2000.
What started as a show targeting young people is also drawing
in adults as calls from people of all ages flood into the
radio-the show typically receives an average of 30 listeners'
calls during the space of a one-hour broadcast.
Developed by NGO partner Population Services
International (PSI) and sponsored by USAID Africa Bureau along
with USAID/Guinea, the radio show features straight talk by
seven dynamic "Peer Educators" (ages 18-22) on a
broad range of sexual matters. Topics include how to use a
condom, the problems brought on by early pregnancy, the benefits
of abstinence, and the transmission of HIV/AIDS. Hawa Toure,
a popular local radio personality, hosts the show, encouraging
discussion of sexual matters between parents and children,
and centering talk on callers' concerns about subjects such
as teenage sexuality, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, promiscuity,
polygamy, and virginity.
What's their bottom-line message to listeners?
Think about the future! Says peer educator Idrissa Camara,
"Our goal is to give good information, to aid young people,
our peers, to be sexually responsible." Peer educator
Fatoumata Yaire Sylla adds, "We've seen that in the neighborhoods,
young people are not well-informed about subjects like undesired
pregnancy, STDs, and AIDS. With the radio show, we can let
them know the consequences of these problems."
More people listen to radio in Guinea than
any other public media, making it a tool par excellence for
conveying AIDS prevention messages to youth. The PSI radio
show's frank talk about sexual relations and responsibility
is one example of the evolution over the past decade in Guinea
brought on, in part, by USAID health projects. Specifically
tailored information, education, and communication (IEC) programs
such as the popular radio show have gained advocates among
Guinea's most influential Islamic leaders, whose support can
make projects take off in leaps and bounds. Says PSI Deputy
Director Thierno Oumar Diallo, "In 1993, religious leaders
didn't want to speak about condom use. Now they are some of
our best partners in promoting AIDS prevention."
USAID funded health activities like the youth
radio program have contributed to a significant increase in
condom sales over the last two years. In FY 2000, private
sector sales of condoms in Guinea were 5,586,000, a 26 percent
rise from sales in FY 1999. Awareness of condoms as a way
to stop AIDS transmission has also increased. In the 1992
DHS, only 6 percent of women and 23.1 percent of men between
the ages of 15 and 19 knew that condoms stop the spread of
AIDS. In the 1999, DHS 28.6 percent of women and 55.2 percent
of men knew that fact. The Conakry radio show strongly urges
the use of PSI's well-known "Prudence Plus" brand
name condoms, encouraging women in particular to insist upon
condom use, and to be assertive in protecting their own health.
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