How we work

Our areas of focus are Community Ecological Governance and Agroecology as major programs each with different, but related projects and activities.

1. Community Ecological governance;

The program’s objective is to;

• Support, facilitate and accompany indigenous and local communities to revive and strengthen their traditional cultural practices and related governance systems for protection of their natural heritage.
• Engage and collaborate with Government, civil society, development partners and the non-indigenous communities to recognize and respect the rights of indigenous and local communities as custodians and defenders of Nature
• Create awareness on the Rights of Nature and the need to respect and protect them.

2. Agroecology;

The program’s objectives are to;

• Support and facilitate small scale farmers’ efforts to apply agroecology as a priority farming system that ensures sustainable food production and productivity.
• Support and promote farmer managed food systems and related indigenous knowledge.
• Build capacity of women small holder farmers and Youth to integrate agroecology practices in their agricultural practices.

Approaches and methodology applied;

1. Community Dialogues: We conduct regular community dialogues, which, bring together the traditional clan leaders, custodians of Sacred Natural Sites, women custodians of indigenous seeds and knowledgeable elders with their communities to reflect, remember and discuss how to revive their traditional knowledge and practices for protection and conservation of their Natural heritage and food systems.

These dialogues provide an opportunity for the communities to gain confidence and begin opening up to talk about their traditional culture and practices without fear. The dialogues, which are non-formal in nature, focus on reviving indigenous knowledge and customary governance systems. After a length of time, this knowledge that includes ancestral customary laws on food and ecological systems governance is documented, validated and approved by much older, but knowledgeable elders.

It is very important to note that the documented information is about the ancestral laws for accessing, using, managing and protecting community food systems, community forests, wetlands, rivers, lakes and wild life. These are NOT community constructed laws. They are unwritten ancestral laws which are well known by elders! Where a community is discussing protection of SNS and remembering of food farming systems, eco-ecological maps and calendars are drawn and Community Ecological plans made to inform the basis for legal recognition of a peoples’ traditional governance systems.

2. Inter community learning Exchanges: The exchanges provide communities with an opportunity to meet, share their experiences, learning and challenges, and build support and encouragement from their peers who are going through a similar process. Coordinating strategies and actions enables the communities to develop a shared approach for exercising and asserting their rights. Together they build an alliance for protecting their food and ecosystems.

3. Training Community Animators: Community Animators are members of the community (often youth) who work with the community elders to learn and also document the information on the indigenous knowledge throughout the regular community dialogues. AFRICE provides training to Community animators on how to deal with the dialogue process and support the communities in reviving their knowledge and practices, learning from elders and affirming the role of women to build their resilience. Community animators are responsible for tracking and monitoring the dialogue process.

4. Community Eco-cultural mapping and calendar trainings: Community Eco-cultural mapping and seasonal calendars are developed by representatives from communities. They develop past, present and future maps of their territory, different physical features, SNSs, and customary governance. Maps of the Past indicate how the land used to be in the last 60 years; with plenty of biodiversity, wild life and food. Maps of the present indicate the level of destruction by human activities, while the maps of the future indicate the desired life, like the past, although not as it used to be before. They also develop past, present and future Eco-calendars of the seasonal cycle and related practices. The maps and calendars form the basis from which they are able to initiate the development of their future ecological governance plans on how to restore the degraded land scales and ecosystems.

5. Community seed Learning centers (CSLC)

CSLC are Africe’s and farmers demonstration places for learning and practicing agroecology. The centers sit on land provided(purchased) by Africe or donated by the local communities.

The centers are run jointly by Africe and the community members and a range of agroecology practices are carried out, including; Training, farming of indigenous crops and animals, production of organic manure, fertilizers and pesticides. Knowledgeable farmers lead on-farm crop and animal husbandry. Traditional practices of seed identification, seed breeding, storage and other post handling practices are demonstrated, hand in hand with agroecology.

We are in early stages of establishing seed banks in addition to the traditional ones we have (Traditional granaries) where farmers keep/store harvested seeds and share during time of scarcity (planting seasons).

There is a solar powered water irrigation scheme in one of our centers which supplies water to the farm throughout the year.

Groups of farmers regularly come to learn and share experiences, and also use the acquired knowledge to improve their farms at home. Our staff make out reaches to farmers’ homes to conduct similar trainings and learning on workable/working practices.