Raising the Voice of Farmers

One of my major activities is finally complete. I completed a two day lobbying and advocacy training with farmer leaders in Malawi. We invited the Executive Board of the Farmers Union of Malawi, the Lobbying and Advocacy Standing Committee, the Coalition of Women Farmers Association and our District Farmer Union Chairpersons. It was a great workshop. My Malawian colleague Cindy Kacherenga did the initial morning session which involved a session on roles and responsibilities of the different agents of Farmers Union of Malawi (FUM) with the emphasis on farmers having the main responsibility in raising their voice. The FUM Secretariat which I am a part of has a role in supporting the farmers. The issues come from the farmers the secretariat provides the necessary support such a research, technical advice and communication. This meeting also allowed us to get the participants, all of whom are farmers to prioritize the more than 70 issues that have been given to me since I arrived. We had them split into three groups on different themes and pick the six most pertinent issues. Then they chose the 3 most pertitnent from those and finally they chose one to work on in the workshop. For the next day and half I led them through the nuts and bolts of advocacy with a lot of group work where the real learning took place while they put into practice what they learned. At the end I expected them to present an actual advocacy message on their chosen topic. They could have