From 16 to 20 July 2018, in a training held in one of Viet Nam’s ASEAN Heritage Parks, 23 implementers of the Biodiversity-Based Products as an Economic Source for the Improvement of Livelihoods and Biodiversity Protection, or the BBP Project, enhanced their skills in communicating project activities and experiences through materials such as reports, online stories, and case studies.
These skills are essential in ensuring that important lessons and insights from the project are documented and passed on to the project's various stakeholders, in order to help guide current and future endeavors.
The training used various methods such as lectures, supervised hands-on exercises, writeshops, and plenary critiquing of outputs. Major training modules included data research, organisation, and management; basic web design and web maintenance; project report preparation; case study preparation; and writing for the web. A team from the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity and GFA Consulting Group facilitated the training.
The five-day event, held in Hoang Lien Sa Pa National Park in Viet Nam from16 to 20 July 2018, also initiated the development of a network of contributors from various organisations in Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Viet Nam to help generate more information and stories on biodiversity-based product value chain development. It also became an opportunity for the implementers of the BBP Project from the three countries to discuss issues on project implementation.
"Participants noted that the modules particularly on preparing project reports, case studies and news articles were timely and very useful in their work," said Dr. Sheila Vergara, Director of the Biodiversity Information Management Unit of the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity. "They also appreciated the discussions on issues and concerns in their pilot areas and had the opportunity to learn from other countries, particularly on common issues and solutions."
The event was designed as a "training of trainers," and as such, the trainees were expected to share what they have learned to partners in their home countries. The participants also identified possible next steps related to continuing communication and other collaborative efforts even after the conclusion of the BBP Project.
