Since the launching of the Communitor in Tanzania in December 2021, several activities/events have been held in line with Communitor’s objectives of building a knowledge and expertise- sharing network for collective learning, collaboration, co-creation and commitment. The details of these activities, which are mostly online, are available on this page. In February 2023, the Communitor had an opportunity to have another live event in Tanzania which included a series of meetings among the Outreach Team (OT) members and an academic session on community-based monitoring/citizen science (CBM/CS) with Mzumbe University. Communitor also had an outreach event with the Belgian Embassy in Tanzania that involved interactive panel discussions, roundtable discussions on benefits/ challenges of CBM/CS and a citizen science fair featuring 17 poster presentations of different projects from different countries and the Communitor awards.
OT Meetings
The OT (including Prof. dr. Nathalie Holvoet, Dr. Sara Dewachter, Dr. Alellie Sobreviñas, Narayan Gyawali, Abu Said Md. Juel Miah, Doreen Kyando, Solomon Mwije and Diana Tiholaz) conducted a series of meetings in Tanzania in February 2023 to discuss important matters that could help plan for the future of Communitor. A review of the different Communitor activities was done, together with assessing the degree of participation of the members. With 214 members as of 2022, the Communitor aimed to expand its network and engagement among its members. The interests of the members as reflected in the database were again reviewed to help in planning for the future events and activities. As we strive to strengthen the Communitor, the challenges faced in the past year were identified, together with the strategies needed to address them. There were also discussions on the value-added of CBM/CS and the challenges of CBM/CS and monitoring and evaluation, in general. Moving forward, the OT aims to expand its network of members, organize more relevant activities, and engage more its existing members. As part of their role, the OT members also planned the activities for 2023, including the member of the month talks and workshops. Details about these activities will be made available to members through the Communitor’s various communication platforms.
Academic sessions on CBM/CS
The Communitor, in collaboration with Mzumbe University, organized an academic session for students on 7th February 2023. A brief introduction of the Communitor and the OT members present during the event was delivered by Doreen Kyando. This provided an opportunity to invite participants who may be willing to join the Communitor. The academic session focused on discussing interesting projects which involved CBM/CS. Two of the OT members presented their experiences on using CBM/CS in their countries. Narayan Gyawali presented on how community-based monitoring is used in building cross-border flood resilient communities in Nepal and India. Meanwhile, Abu Said Md. Juel Miah shared his experience on the use of community score cards for projects that provide cash transfers, food and health assistance to marginalized groups in Bangladesh during the COVID-19 period. The participants were able to interact with OT members during and after the sessions.
Outreach event with the Embassy of Belgium in Tanzania
The Communitor, in collaboration with the Embassy of Belgium in Tanzania, also organized an outreach event with the theme “Citizen science in Tanzania… the new magic bullet?”. Around 80 participants from the government, civil society organizations, academia, and the general Communitor network fraternity attended the event. The first part of the event involved interactive panel discussions on the usefulness of CBM/CS for policy making, the potential to provide better and cheaper data and the possibility to save lives. As such, the deliberations were organized in a way that it allowed full participation of both panelists and the audience. The second part involved small group discussions with a focus on gender and CBM/CS covering various aspects such as empowerment of women, collecting sensitive information (e.g., gender-based violence) and women's access to data. The small groups were diverse and the OT members served as moderators for the discussions. The third part of the event was the citizen science fair which involved 17 poster presentations on CBM/CS projects from different sectors and countries. Two poster presentations were, then, selected to receive the COMMUNITOR 2023 awards based on the votes from both the jury and the rest of the participants. The jury included a representative from the academia, a representative from the government and the Ambassador of the Embassy of Belgium in Tanzania. Based on the selected criteria used by the jury, the Communitor award was given to the LEAD project on landscape restoration in Tanzania where community collaboration helped in the restoration of the barren grazing rangelands. Meanwhile, based on the number of votes, the audience choice for the second COMMUNITOR 2023 award was given to the FUATILIA MAJI project in Tanzania which works to increase the technical skills, awareness about water quality and use of data for evidence-based policy making. After the awarding, there was a networking event where participants had the opportunity to interact with one another, learn from each other and build networks.
We would like to express our gratitude to Communitor members and our partners who made this a successful live event. We look forward to many more other events that would allow us to collectively learn, collaborate, co-create and build relationships!
This blog has been jointly created by Alellie Sobreviñas, Doreen Kyando, Solomon Mwije, Juel Abu Said Md. Miah, Sara Dewachter, Narayan Gyawali, Nathalie Holvoet.
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