Innovations for Rural Community Resilience

The project "Innovation Demonstration Workshops for Rural Community Development and Resilience Building" was funded by International Visegrad Fund ( http://visegradfund.org/home ) and aimed to familiarize and introduce communities’ aspects and benefits of Innovation Technologies in rural development, strengthening local livelihoods, resilience and climate change adaptation.  Four experts from Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia conducted ToT trainings and demonstrations for community members, local entrepreneurs and representatives of municipal authorities and CSOs. Experts shared their knowledge and experience as well as introduced low-cost, community affordable facilities for innovative energy saving (solar, bio mass, briquette) and income generation (fruit/vegetable dryers and processors) that could be developed from inexpensive locally available materials.

The workshops were planned in two municipalities of Dusheti and Tianeti which was actively supported and co-facilitated by local DRR Resource Centers. Expert support also included remote supervision and consultancy. In the first phase of the project, training participants together with experts select the most relevant and needed technologies and based on it the relevant stock of materials were purchased and stocked. In the final phase, during the follow-up visits, experts jointly with locally selected individuals constructed two facilities (each per municipality) as practical demonstration to encourage local individuals and communities for a replication of presented new technologies.

Demonstration workshops were accompanied by media exposure tour which familiarized and introduced journalists to aspects and benefits of Innovations, as well as constructions set up in above-mentioned municipalities. Within the media campaign regional and national media provided media coverage for the project and innovative solutions introduced and technologies assembled.