‘Water literacy on a continuous basis should become an essential element in society’

DHAN Foundation organised 11th Madurai Symposium to focus on community dev. Need for financial literacy, self-help grps for social transformation, institutionalising community contribution, water literacy, local food system promotion, innovative agri practices, resilience funds for Agro advisory centres discussed. #DHAN #Madurai #Symposium #FinancialLiteracy #SelfHelpGroups #CommunityContribution #WaterLiteracy #LocalFoodSystem #InnovativeAgriculture #ResilienceFunds #AgroAdvisoryCentres

The need to improve financial literacy across villagers by establishing community literacy centres for promoting financial wellbeing of marginalised communities and the need for self-help groups to serve as platforms for fostering cultural and social transformation among women were stressed at Madurai Symposium organised by DHAN Foundation.

DHAN Foundation organised the 11th edition of ‘Madurai Symposium’ with the focus on community development. The theme of the symposium was ‘Advancing inclusive development for a new social order.’ The main objective was knowledge-sharing, said DHAN Foundation Executive Director M.P. Vasimalai.

The symposium also passed resolutions on the need to institutionalise the practice of community contribution, localised community management of production, distribution, consumption, thus reaching self-sufficiency and sustaining the local economy.

Water literacy on a continuous basis should become an essential element across individuals, families, institutions and society. The ancient water management practice, ‘kudimaramathu,’ should be made more pervasive through consistent joint endeavours between the people institutions and the mainstream institutions for a wider and sustainable conservation of water bodies.

Water bodies should be free from encroachments and this should be ensured through consistent monitoring and collective governance. Urban water governance shall be scaled up through an active partnership with multiple stakeholders, including government, industries and academia in safeguarding urban water bodies from pollution, encroachment and to ensure clean and safe drinking water through effective water harvesting measures.

Local food system promotion was the need of the hour. Marketing of the local foods through Farmers Producer companies and Farmer Federations should be taken up. Transforming farmers for responsible irrigation and fertiliser usage to optimise resource management and as a way of comprehensive risk management.

Farmers must be encouraged to adopt innovative agricultural practices such as organic farming and technology-based solutions. Establishing resilience funds at the panchayat and village levels for setting up Agro advisory centres to disseminate information, to follow ethical fair-trade practices while marketing their produce to the consumers and to identify crop-wise commodity cluster, mobilise data, draw action plan for production and marketing of produce, were some of the resolutions and declarations passed at the symposium.