Awareness Campaign: The campaign's main target is the farmer community
·The myths associated with bamboo are addressed
·The community is informed about various applications of bamboo
·The community is informed about the various initiatives taken toward bamboo promotion
·The community is made aware that bamboo could grow in their villages
·The buy-back guarantee scheme was discussed with the community
·The community was informed about the Ajivika Vatika and its role
·The community was motivated to visit the Ajivika Vatika for any further information of bamboo
Linkups established during the Awareness Campaign
Prior to the launching of the awareness campaign the respective forest divisions were informed about the campaign and were asked to support the initiatives, groups from the different villages covered under.
Overall impact of the awareness campaign:
An impact analysis was conducted on a sample basis and on the basis of the post-campaign question-answer session to assess the impact of the entire campaign, the recall rate was found to be high of the skits and the audio-visual presentation of the film. The community by and large has been found to be hesitantly agreeing upon accepting bamboo plantation.
There is a lot of curiosity about the new plant and its viability as a cash crop to the already practiced agriculture practices. A good number of proposals have been received from the gram Panchyats, mahila van Panchyats and other social groups from the different villages covered under the awareness program, some of which are as mentioned below.
Few proposals related to plantation activity have been received at the Partner agency office at Pipalkoti. There has been an increase in the number of visitors visiting the Ajivika Site at Pipalkoti, apart from this other development agencies like the Appropriate Technologies (ATI) working in the region has also shown considerable interest in the activities of the Ajivika Vatika, visitors and beneficiaries of other government run development programs are also visiting the site.
Table – 1: List of villages covered during the first phase awareness program.