Findhorn
Eco-village training voor Samanta Badra Barua Bangladesh
Samanta Barua lives in Bangladesh
and is director of the NGO Swanivar Bangladesh (Self-reliant Bangladesh).
He earned his Bachelor Engineering degree and worked as an engineering
consultant but concentrated on developing innovative educative materials
for rural area's to help fight poverty and illiteracy. He won several prices for his work in developing
the rural communities and by now there are nearly a hundred Swanivar
communities. Barua works on the principle of motivating the community
members to work on their development themselves by creating committees
of represenatives of the farmers, the landless, the women, etc. who
then make a socio-economic plan for the development of the community
concentrating first on skills, litteracy and family planning.
Local government and other instutions are asked for practical and
financial help and Swanivar itself has a credit program where small
loans can be obtained (70% of the loans are given to women).
Barua is recognised widely, amongst others by UNESCO. Barua wanted
very much to follow the eco-village training of the Findhorn Foundation
in Scotland to learn more about re-using materials, building with
existing materials, environmentally friendly producing, setting up
democratic management structures, etc.
He could contribute € 200 himself,
the cost of the training and the travelexpenses where paid for by
Moments of Joy € 1790,--
