Listen And Respond To The Cry Of The Earth And The Cry Of The Poor!
Monday, April 12, 2021
On the afternoon of April 11, 2021, the Ma Danh - K' Tip community, which was promoted by Caritas Dalat, had a meeting to review the current state of the village as a whole, and to organize their steps for the future.
As presented by Ms. Song Tu from Caritas Da Lat, the village had grown only coffee plants on sloping land. The use of chemical fertilizers and herbicides has made the soil increasingly "dead" – degraded and eroded. The debts from investing in raw materials was increasing, but the earnings and productivity are decreasing. In addition, there are more living costs weighing heavily on the shoulders of farmers.
The vision for the future, in which the community is holding hands with Caritas, is to build a beautiful earth. In the spirit of "listening to the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor", with sustainable ecological-agricultural models to maintain a harmonious balance between nature and the diversity of crops, livestock and fish ponds – the food supplies for home consumption and partly for commercial use.
The efforts of the inhabitants in the process of moving towards ecological agriculture are also recognized in this vision: increasing manure composting from organic waste to improve soil, stopping the use of herbicides in coffee gardens, reducing the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides for rice crops, intercropping, nurturing the surface grass covering the soil, or having activities of weekly cultural groups to preserve and transmit the traditional culture of the Churu people for future generations.
After that, the people presented the difficulties and challenges they were facing, and then prioritized these issues using a “seed drop” method. Each person was given 3 beans to choose the 3 most important issues for them. Three of the 10 most prominent problems were selected to be analyzed in depth using the tree model (a problem-solving tool). These are: (1) People's lack of production techniques, (2) Poor health status, (3) Mass investment in agricultural production. From the root causes of the above problems, the participants proposed possible solutions that should be implemented in the household and in the community to deal with these problems.
Finally, the inhabitants showed their determination to make a change, by committing to their solutions. The community of Ma Danh-K’Tip is holding hands together to develop the pathway for their own community. The solutions are familiar, but difficult to maintain by individual households, such as growing grass amongst coffee, intercropping, growing clean vegetables and fruits to eat, reducing chemical fertilizers, and participating in the village's cultural group. Here, with the co-operation and enthusiasm of the management board, the community will motivate and encourage each other to build a better community, and create dynamic generations to cope with the changes of the times while preserving and developing the traditional culture of their ancestors.
Mother Khur confided: "When I read the words written on Caritas Da Lat's 2021 calendar 'Listening to the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor', I felt like crying. I am poor and thought that no one heard their voice, but now someone listens…”. These activities are also helping Caritas and the people to listen, to be more empathetic, and then to take actions to respond to the cry of the earth and cry of the poor.
This is a feedback session, to end the series of participatory action research seminars, that Caritas Da Lat has conducted with the Ma Danh – K' Tip community since March 7, 2021. The process includes various tools for people to see the general status quo and the problems that they are facing. Since then, they have desired to change and made plans to do so – the technical/environmental, economic, socio-cultural dimensions of the community are analyzed using a timeline tool. Other information is collected from food source analysis tools, village maps, seasonal calendars and household income and expenditure.
Participatory Action Research is at the heart of the Independent (Self) Development program being implemented by Caritas Da Lat in ethnic minority communities. Caritas Da Lat has studied and deepened this method under the guidance of the coordinator of the APEX (Asian Peoples Exchange for Agroecology and Food Sovereignty) program lasting 2 years starting from September 2020.
M.G. Hong Phuc