The creative level of the Swiss community's natural resource development and management, the precise technology inputs in the particular areas and the resulting level basic amenities and lifestyle available throughout the mountain communities have impressed Dr. Joshi very much. In comparison to the Himalayan mountains Dr. Joshi found that even though the Indian mountain system is highly rich in natural resources, up to now, the utilization of technology and the effective management of the resources are quite poor.
However, throughout the Swiss community of the Engalin valley it was possible to organize a knowledge and technology transfer. Money within the community was collected so that a delegation of 7 Indian locals of the Himalayas region have been able to visit the Swiss mountain system and to get training in certain technology packets. A community of successful business owner/operators in the Alps Mountains freely hosted the Indian visitors in their country and provided training. The Swiss community thus is voluntary sharing its resources with others. Three participants of this delegations are women entrepreneurs, which are members of WISE. They got training in fruit processing, with special focus on the production of honey, training in bakery and candle making.
Before they left India they have been very excited to see their partner community and to be able to learn from the Swiss technologies. They hope that they can adapt them within their own businesses. Furthermore they will give 6 moth trainings to other entrepreneurs of their region so that the newly gained knowledge spreads.
Upon their return from Switzerland the travelers held a press conference allowing local media to get a glimpse at the valuable lessons learned in the Swiss Alps. During their 10 day stay they were able to gain insight to many technologies that could be taken back to their community and put to use. Amongst many other information they were introduced by the host community to new technologies such as food processing, this includes not only the exchange of new bakery recipes and a detailed look at modern bakery machinery, but also a close look at meat processing and butchery. In addition another food processing technology was explained and demonstrated to the Indian visitors, which was cause for many questions during the press conference. Cheese making, both in form of goat and cow cheese, was one of the most exciting technologies exchanged. Furthermore the visitors were allowed to find out more about bee keeping and honey production.
But besides food production and processing lessons were also learned in the field of agriculture. These lessons include automatic feeding mechanisms of cows and goats. Information on raising young livestock and fodder storage.
The horticultural advancement includes a detailed insight to the proper care of plants. Soil protection methods and growing aids in from of wooden support structure were displayed. Additional information was also received on vineyards and grape production.
As intended by the community-to-community idea these lessons were not taught in from of dry lectures but on the spot. The Indian visitors were taken to the different locations were the technologies were applied and got a close look themselves how everything was being done.
But the travelers did not only discover new technologies, they discovered an entire different community set in world unknown to most the visitors. They were warmly welcomed in the host community and considered their visit not only a technological advancement but also a cultural advancement, a lesson they would never forget. By the time to leave most of the visitors had grown fond of their hosts and could not help to wave good bye with tears in their eyes.
All this has been possible without any dependence on governmental or outside donors - in fact everything was sponsored by the individual members of the Swiss community, which have been willing to share their knowledge and organized the stay of the delegation of their Indian partners.
Background - Indo-Swiss
The basic idea of the Community to Community co-operation is the willingness to share knowledge between advanced and less advanced communities. Through mutual co-operation, it is possible to enlarge the level of knowledge in the less advanced communities and also give the more advanced communities the possibility to calibrate their knowledge and get inspiration from the way in which less advanced communities try to improve their way of living. It can also act as an eye-opener and it is a way to get an insight in the two characteristics of both communities. Without any financial dependence on government or state grants - which often prove to stand in connection with time-consuming administrative work and many restrictions - it can be possible to build up a knowledge transfer that serves the benefit of rural and less developed communities. This can be the transfer of needed technologies, trade-knowledge, marketing techniques or any other kind of information between similar types of communities. Hence Community Initiatives for Communities give a possibility to build up and organize a fraternal network of people coming together for the humanitarian purpose of empowering each other to develop and share their human natural resources. A precondition to share knowledge and technologies is to figure out communities that face the same problems or technologies that can be transferred to the environmental circumstances of the less developed community. Once this is the case, people from the advanced community have to be motivated to share their knowledge and to be willing to cooperate with their partners. For more developed regions of the world there is in fact no problem to be able to collect enough money to actually make it possible to organize an active knowledge transfer through visits of delegations of their partner community. This means every individual as well as other organization can assist HESCO and its idea of an eco-friendly environment in the Himalayan region. On humanitarian grounds, those in more advanced and developed regions and communities around the world certainly have the ability to respond to the poor. These contributions can be (but are not limited to these examples):
- Sharing advanced technologies from your region or country that could have relevant application to economic development in the rural Himalayas.
- Sharing and teaching of management and/or marketing strategies relevant to small business and community development of India's rural mountain areas.
- Sharing of human resources such as scientific/technical experience relevant to development of the economies of rural mountain communities.
- Contributions of direct financial support and/or the provision of raw materials required for specific projects being carried out by HESCO in mountain villages.
An approach to bring two Global communities to come together for helping each other.
The idea of the Community to Community approach to bring people of less developed regions to their partner community can be favored above the unilateral approach of giving development aid, in which it is often the fund supplier who decides for what kind of purposes and objectives the money and the supplied resources should be used. This concept, however, makes it near to impossible for national oriented development organizations to utilize the often first-class knowledge they posses, mainly about the specific need of the less advanced communities in the region. The Community to Community approach makes it possible to adapt the technology offered by the more advanced community, to the specific needs of less advanced communities, by giving them an example of how it can work and by bringing them in contact with people facing the same problems.
