Meeting with Business Social Responsibility (BSR) on Training Project on Sustainable Agriculture

Meeting with Business Social Responsibility (BSR) on Training Project on Sustainable Agriculture

On 10 March 2011, Mr. Daniel Hsu, Regional Manager and Ms. Laura Ediger, Environmental Manager from Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), visited CANGO to discuss possible cooperation on training projects for sustainable agriculture. Ms. Zhang Manli from CANGO's Training Department and Ms. Wang Xiangyi from the Project Management Department represented CANGO in this meeting.

Ms. Wang Xiangyi introduced CANGO's past project of 'Employment Promotion and Rights Protection for Women Migrant Workers in Beijing' which focused on training methods and curriculum development for a series of training for migrant workers service NGOs in 2009. Ms. Zhang Manli introduced CANGO's NGO capacity building projects, including the project development process of the first, second and third phases as well as how to adjust project activities and training design according to the NGOs' needs. In addition, both of them also shared their experience on how to conduct project site visits and evaluations and how to communicate with partners and donors.

Mr. Daniel Hsu introduced BSR's 'Training Project on Sustainable Agriculture'. The objectives of the project are to support farmers' development, especially in the areas of rural women's development and food security. The project will be implemented infour selected provinces, including Liaoning, Jiangsu, Fujian and Guangdong. As the project training sites are in rural area and the trainees are farmers, Ms. Wang Xiangyi and Ms. Zhang Manli provided the following suggestions for successful project implementation:

1.secure support from local government;

2.find local partners to manage the communication with farmers toovercome language barriers;

3.design training methods and contents taking into account farmers' education level and learning capacity.

BSR expressed the hope that CANGO could provide support for their project, especially in recommending local partners and training experts.