FSL India Blog

From the 24th to the 30th April Katharina, Daya, Rohan and Steffi participated in the International Sea Turtle Symposium (ISTS) in Panjim, Goa. The ISTS is an international meeting on sea turtle biology and conservation which takes place every year, but was for the first time in South Asia. It is unique in its nature as it brings together a diverse range of participants from around the world, including scientists, students, conservationists, academics, activists. This year’s theme was “The world of Turtles” and wanted to draw attention to the coastal, near-shore and oceanic ecosystems that marine turtles inhabit and use, while also focussing on the human communities who interact with marine turtles. We took part in order to improve contact with other Sea Turtle NGOs in India, get training in several workshops on topics such as turtle rehabilitation and discuss alternative strategies when working together with local fishermen communities in the Fisheries Forum workshop.

Rotaract Club Kundapur has invited Laura Brücker, volunteering in our tent school project, to talk about her opinion on Kundapur, Indian lifestyle, language, etc. She spoke about her experiences and opinions on Indian family life and in her project, all in our local language Kannada. Her work and the interest and curiosity in learning other language was well appreciated by the Rotaract Club. Finally she was honored with a present from the club president.

Every now and then, we volunteers are asked to take part in some function and prepare a little entertainment program. For our batch it started last year at the annual JC-event, for which we wrote a gripping English fairy-tale - a heavily altered version of Snow White with a strong environmental message -, learned an Indian dance, and sung the Indian pop song “Jinke Marina”, amongst others.

This time we had another week to freshen up and improve our existing program. Again, we danced, again we sung, but we added an energetic new choreography to our glorious interpretation of “Jinke Marina”, a romantic love song that seems at times more like a war cry. Our “Snow White” drama benefited even more from his week of rehearsals. We translated the drama into Kannada, the local language, to the demise of some actors but obvious delight of the audience.

And our next short performance is already booked: Sunday, April 4th will see us dancing and singing for 10 minutes in Vagjyothi school for the celebration of their 50th anniversary.

…organized by Karnataka Forest Department Mangalore circle and Western Ghat Task Force, Government of Karnataka.

FSL India  was invited by  the Forest Department of  Mangalore to give a talk about the work of NGOs for sea turtle protection and problems caused by the modern fishing  methods to the sea turtle population.

Participants were officers of the  Forest Department, members of Western Ghat Task Force, the NGO ATREE, many fishermen leaders, Professors from Central Marine fisheries Regional Institute (CMFRI) etc. For FSL and the sea turtle project it was very important to join this meeting to get new contact with  other representatives and to introduce our work and aims.

The content of our presentation was threats to Sea Turtle population, extinction of Leather backs, and use of turtle excluder devices for the nets used by deep sea boats in our area.  Other speakers in their presentation highlighted the problems with  ground water, modern fisheries methods, water conservations and impact of the industrialization. Many suggestions were handed over to the representatives of the state government to preserve bio-diversity of the Mangalore region which is in  top position among the highest polluting cities of the state.

“Where can I buy postcards of Kundapur?”. This is a question we’re often asked. The sad answer is: There are none. The goods news: The “Eco tourism” project is going to change the situation and will create them!

Please sent us your 5 most beautiful pictures from Kundapur and sourrounding (as normal: as fast as possible). If we choose your picture, you get one of the first ever printed postcard from Kundapur!

Sent the pictures to: ecotourism@fsl-india.org

IJGD has organised first Mentors Training in 2009 in Berlin. Participants from all over the world has participated in that event.

Mentors training 2010 consisted of  following sessions to keep minimum standard to make the WW program successful.

The sessions are,
self reflection on past performance, updating IJGD procedures, Quality management, coordination system, Finance, conflict management and drafting handbook and dialogue meeting with IJGD volunteers.
Also some field trip to project, inaguration of public drinking water filter and eco tourism boat trip.

Finally we are happy to get positive result out of this meeting and for positive feed back from partners.

On the 20th February 2010 FSL and the Eco-Clubs project organized an Eco-Clubs Get Together at Lions Hall at Chaitanya Special School, Kundapura. The 8 schools which are part of the FSL Eco-Clubs project were invited. The children had to prepare a speech competition on the topic “What would the world without plastic?” and they also had to set-up a environmental project that they will realize in their school.
The children as well as the teachers were very well prepared and showed a great interest in the three presentations from resource persons involved in nature around Kundapur as for example a presentation of all the birds you can find in the region.
The Vakwady school was the winner of the environmental project and Siddapura school of the speech competition.
Moreover we could share nice and funny moments with the children that will stay in our memories.

This month we welcome four new volunteers from Germany and Italy. Have a great stay with lot’s of meaningful, inter-cultural moments. We also welcome Girish, our newest addition to FSL staff in Kundapur.

From left to right: Julia (Spandana), Giulia (Kishkinda Trust), Juliane (Kanchugodu School), Aline (DhaniDevelopment, Bangalore), Austin (FSL coordinator) and Girish (new FSL staff)

This month’s Long Term Volunteer Get-together took place at the Silver Sand Beach Resort in Malpe. As always, it turned out to be a great mix of project, host family and personal evaluation, as well as a lot of fun. The Get-together is an important event for many volunteers and their coordinators, because it gives us the opportunity to talk face to face about the volunteer’s experiences, their problems and challenges and their plans and hopes.