MEXICO: Facilitator team building and the par process
The facilitators team is made up of 5 facilitators and a local coordinator. IAP has allowed us to generate a non-hierarchical, but inclusive, participatory and constant training process. There are three axes that guide the thematic content of the Training Plan:
1. Research tools around productive diversification and the food system
During the training process, the facilitators have known and put into practice different forms and tools of Participatory Action Research, such as interviews, surveys, focus groups, exchanges of experiences, milpa and beekeeping fairs, among others. The IAP has allowed us to be part of the investigation and not be "the investigated ones", because our facilitators are partners or children of members of the cooperative. Every time the researchers "propose" some research tool or return of results, the facilitators "decompose" it, adapting it and / or proposing new ways of doing the research.
2.Cafeticulture: strengthening the main activity of the cooperative
It has to do with the facilitators knowing beyond the production process of coffee, which goes from its origin, advantages and disadvantages of the new varieties, to the importance of specialty coffees and their market niches. This has been an adaptation response to climate change and the adaptation of livelihoods that the moment demands.
3. Human development and sustainability
Which refers to the understanding of the existence of human capacities and their implementation in favor of life. At each monthly gathering, we create a space for dialogue that we have called “the coffee ceremony”, whose objective is to get to know each other, share feelings, analyze and reflect on a topic and improve our attitude towards the work we are going to undertake. Capacities such as experimenting, investigating, discussing and sharing, fundamental to strengthen the development of the project in which you are participating.
In this way we have been part of this process of Participatory Action Research, whose principles are in each of the three training axes and which has allowed us to meet people, ways and ways of life, exchange ideas and knowledge, but above all, generate experiences both at an organizational and personal level