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Dissemination Seminars on Completed Research Project:
Disseminating the research findings of the completed projects
to different stakeholders especially to the poverty group
is a very important task of RIB. Organising dissemination
seminar is an integral part of every research project. Such
seminars are organized after completion of the research and
obligatory for all the researchers. Members of the RIB's BoD,
secretariat staff of RIB, researcher/s, representative members
of the target groups, eminent researchers who have experience
of conducting similar researches, representatives of the Government
and NGOs who are the potential users of the research findings
and recommendations. Such seminars also allowed the researchers
to incorporate some of the relevant recommendations, feedback,
and suggestions from the participants for incorporation into
the report for necessary follow-up actions.
A number of such Dissemination Seminars on Completed Research
Projects were held during this period. Usually these seminars/meetings
are organized in a small scale at first at RIB seminar room
where different stakeholders are invited who can come up with
recommendations, suggestions, feedback and what future follow-up
could be taken with the research findings. After hearing the
comments, suggestions, feedback from the participating stakeholders
the researchers finalises the research report and then the
report becomes ready to be disseminated at a national level.
Sometimes national level seminars are also organised for influencing
the policies of the government and using the research findings
and recommendations by GOs and NGOs.
Dissemination workshop with the Beday Community
A research findings dissemination workshop was held on 26-02-2004
at RIB Seminar Room for the project "Action research
for human development in Beday (River Gypsy) community conducted
by Mr. A.K.M. Maksud. Participants of the workshop include
BoD members Dr. Meghna Guhathakurta, Dr. Hameeda Hossain,
Anthropologist Prof. H.K.S. Arefeen, teachers and students
of the Beday School, adolescent girls of the community who
were trained on handicrafts, representatives of the Beday
communities from Lahojang and Bikrampur Upazilas including
a UP member.
DPHE Engineer who is also community worker highlighted two
major problems of the Beday community i.e. lack of any schooling
facilities and problems with the adolescent girls who normally
are left behind in their houses during their trips to different
places by boats. BoD member Dr. Hameeda Hossain commented
that the Beday women present were not as vocal and recommended
that one sits with them separately. She said that as the Bedays
during their move to different parts of the country by boat
take their children with them thereby disrupting their education,
it will be useful to learn her experience of introducing the
notion of "school as and when suitable" by ASK which
can also be tested for the Beday children. Regarding the voting
rights of the Bedays she suggested that the issue should be
discussed with the Election Commission.
Dissemination workshop on findings of D. Net's project
" Palli Tathya : Development of a sustainable rural livelihood
information network"
D-net is working for improvement of rural livelihood by ensuring
access to information through ICT channels. To achieve the
goal D.Net has conducted an information need
identification research in collaboration with RIB (Research
Initiatives, Bangladesh). Based on the research findings D.Net
and RIB jointly organizes a series of workshops with potential
stakeholders in order to develop partnership to run the pallitathya
(rural information) program successfully. Six separate workshops
were organized on agriculture, education, health, human right
& legal issues, awareness and non-farm economic activities.
During those workshops participants were showed up with their
enthusiasm and commitment to build partnership with such program.
Different Government and Non-government organizations expressed
many suggestions with positive attitude. In agriculture, the
main issue discussed is to increase the farmers' level of awareness
by giving them appropriate information about land, soil, seeds,
fertilizer, price of agricultural raw materials and products.
Farmers need to be informed with modern technology as well as
its advantages and disadvantages. Information through network
will help farmers to get information rapidly while many organizations'
researches take long time to reach farmers. In the health sector
emphasis was made to build up awareness on different types of
chronic diseases and pregnancy related diseases. To build up
awareness on HIV/AIDS, it is necessary to build up awareness
in other sector transmitted diseases. During the discussion
on legal issues priority was given to educate villagers with
their constitutional right. They also don't get proper information
on which institutes provide legal aid. This information network
will let them informed about the responsibility and accountability
of government officials, job description system of complain,
legal coverage, and protection from misguidance by lawyer. Information
system will raise awareness on violence against adolescent,
human rights on different issues, woman rights on marital issues
and many other serious diseases. A question and many suggestions
come in which way the information will reach in rural area.
Introducing Internet as well as community radio, mobile, printing
media may serve the purpose partially. But the first task is
to create an urge in village people to take information and
to make it a credible centre where villagers will be benefited.
Many running organizations expressed their interest to work
with D.Net for developing a strong network system where rural
people can access easily and enhance their livelihood.
Dr. Anayan Rahian, Executive Director of D.Net, facilitated
the workshops assisted by Mr. Mahmud Hasan, Program Director
of D.Net. Dr. Shamsul Bari, Chairman, RIB moderated the workshops.
Many distinguished persons from 32 government and non-government
organizations participated in the workshop.
Capacity Building Workshops
RIB organized a workshop on PAR at Nilphamari mainly for those
researchers who have already submitted proposal for funding
but needs to get them oriented on PAR. The researchers who
were asked to resubmit their proposals were selected and then
invited by the capacity building department of RIB. Mr. Alauddin
Ali who is an expert in PAR facilitated the workshop. The
workshop three day long, starting from February 16 till February
19, 2004. In all 16 participants were participated in the
workshop. Mr Ali, facilitated the discussion with the participants
in a participatory method. The workshop concentrated on issues
like (i) underlying causes of poverty as identified by the
disadvantaged groups themselves; (ii) differences between
research and development projects (iii) how PAR is related
or distinct from other participatory methods like PRA; (iv)
the role of animators; and (v) how PAR research findings can
be disseminated all over the country.
The participants of the workshop took part very actively
in the discussions, they were then formed in groups and then
taken to different fields to observe. They again had discussions
among them after coming back from the field on experiences
of field visit. The participants were very happy at the end
of the workshop and one of the participant said "usually
when any workshop ends we get a lot of documents information
and paper work to study, but from this workshop we are taking
back everything in our brains." According to the participants
of the workshop, the best way of disseminating PAR among the
researchers and development workers is to establish PAR experimental
villages and taking the interested researchers to these villages.
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