Ask an Advisor Answers
We are upscaling our permaculture training in rural Zimbabwe from 3 to 9 "Perma Clubs" in different districts and an online training on the server of the Ministry of Education.
The Perma Clubs consist of teachers, students, principals, school development committee-members, agriculture inspectors and community members.
We are planning one online module (about 20 hours learning time) on community development and leadership, and another module on financial literacy (hands-on teaching on your chapters 43 and 44)
Your toolbox has a LOT of good material that we could use to enrich these two modules, although our primary focus is not health, but food security and poverty reduction.
I would be thrilled to discuss with you my ideas, which chapters and toolkits we could use, based on our learning objectives of the modules.
Is there someone with experience in applying parts of your toolbox to a related field, such as eco-agriculture in small communities?
Professor Grӧhbiel, welcome to the Community Tool Box and Ask an Advisor. You seem to already be familiar with what the CTB has to offer and we’re really pleased you consider it to be a valuable resource. That said, in reading your question I think you might consider clicking on the often overlooked “Services” button (top right hand corner of our home page) and then clicking on the “ Build Your Tool Box” link (https://ctb.ku.edu/en/build-your-toolbox) as it looks to me like what you’re talking about is what we call a “ mashup.” Let me explain. Given that we don’t have any information on eco-agriculture in small communities per se, a mashup would be an excellent way for you to partner with us to integrate and implement curated tools from the Tool Box to, in this case, enrich your two modules in terms of food security and poverty reduction, As noted in this section of the Tool Box we have supported mashups, or supports for taking action with many different types of partners so it would be an honor to partner with you. As we mention at the very end of this section, if you think creating a similar “mashup” of free Community Tool Box resources could be helpful to your efforts, please contact us at toolbox@ku.edu or 785.864.0533 and we’ll talk through your ideas. I hope you find this information useful, if not please do not hesitate to re-engage with us through Ask an Advisor and I will do my utmost to make sure you get the resources you need. Be well and take care, the Advisor.