Programmes Training Materials

Communities are all different.  Mapping out the particular resources available is key to providing support that is needed and wanted by a group of connected people.  Discovering how to identify and plan with the available resources is itself a tool that any group can use more than once.  Basing a project or intervention on the findings and discussion from a participatory community assessment allows the design to be driven by the project participants from the start.  A new community assessment will take more than a week of field work, so in some cases a Rapid Assessment will be needed.  Different tools are available to assist staff to get as much value as possible from their time and to incorporate the views, histories and cultures of the potential project members into a project design that will be identified by the community as theirs, and thus be more sustainable.

This introduction looks into systems thinking in a general way, not only in Farm Systems.  It has an overarching presentation that can be used in an induction process for new staff and at the start of new projects.  There are video links and suggestions for further reading.  It is important that all staff fully understand that systems thinking cuts across ALL Send a Cow work.

Theory of systems using agricultural examples.  Eco and agri-ecosystems.  How systems thinking gives us a framework for working in rural development.  Farm management challenges in African contexts.  Linking to Mapping, Visioning and Planning. Using systems thinking for analysis at farm and community level.

Covers all areas of the values that drive Send a Cow's work: Cornerstones, Systems thinking, Farmer and Community led mapping, visioning and planning.  Included are SAC's extension approaches using Peer Farmers, Resource persons and Community Animal Health Workers, as well the theory that underlies use of participatory methods to do this.  Key approaches that are part of SAC's way of working are: Food First, Social Inclusion and Low External Input Sustainable Agriculture.  Safeguarding everyone who is part of SAC's work and learning through continuous M&E forms the final element.