NESFAS reaches out to partner communities during COVID-19 crisis

    27-Apr-2020
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Newmai News Network
Shillong, Apr 27: With the elderly being categorised as one of the most vulnerable members of society to Covid-19, the North East Slow Food and Agrobiodiversity Society (NESFAS) has extended its help to them during this time of crisis.
NESFAS initiated a pilot project with community members of Nongtraw under East Khasi Hills district, one of the first communities to work with NESFAS who reached out to the organization for a need to understand precautionary measures.
Keeping the tight knit nature of rural homes, distancing was difficult hence the need for constructing retrofit rooms was decided upon. The community first identified three out of the eight elders in the village who were vulnerable with lesser resources. With local construction  contractors who was guided by The Indigenous Partnership (TI)P and NESFAS architecture and infrastructure consultants on comfort, ergonomics, self reliance, services, seismic design and use of local material resource in times of COVID-19 a design was worked upon.
To avoid delays and to set the ball rolling, Anita Roy and Phrang Roy, Chairman of NESFAS, contributed Rs.30,600 on Sunday which is part of the larger seed fund of Rs 1 lakh that will be shared for retrofits with other villages NESFAS is working in. 50 percent of total cost will be contributed by the community and the other 50 percent raised by NESFAS staff and friends.
This is being done to demonstrate the need-based solutions to be activated during the pandemic at an efficient cost and time to safe guard our community's assets, in this case the custodians of the traditional knowledge.
It may be noted here that NESFAS had always looked up to the elderly members of its partner village communities as traditional knowledge holders, many of who are the custodians of its Food Network initiatives like millet, rice and honey and more. The organisation has been working closely with them over the last eight years on how one can preserve this indigenous heritage, which they see as the value chain in preserving the biodiversity hotbeds.