(By the way, I should say that I'm working with the ngo PACT to roust up
funding for this project. If anyone has any good ideas on where to get
support, we'd certainly appreciate it.)
Might I get some reaction to the possibility of using graduate students
in tropical agriculture to participate in the project. Ideally
bi-lingual students would be easiest to work with. I was was thinking in
terms of a Univ. giving credit for participation of grad students in two
aspects of Connections (that's the name of the electronic extension
system we're formulating) as we visualize it now: one is marketing, i.e.
seeking out markets for campesino associations and helping them with the
marketing process.
The second would entail getting information to the campesinos about
their expressed agricultural concerns. This second would be via a "list"
in which would be "charged" i.e. with people committed to the list for
at least it's first year to make sure that questions get responses.
Peruvian agronomists have already expressed their own interest in such a
list and I was wondering if it would be possible to get graduate
students specializing in one area or another to bring their accumulated
"outsiders'" sources of information/new research to the list and in turn
would get a concrete view of the 'real world' out in the tropical
jungle.
Alternatively, I was thinking also of the possibility of setting up
"bi-lateral" relationships, i.e. a graduate student acting as a junior
"mentor" for just one campesino group on a more personal basis, but with
the information exchanged put on a public website and/or list so that
the value of the exchange is not lost. For students who are not
bi-lingual, we are toying with the idea of convincing bi-lingual
Peruvians (there's a mass of them located in New Jersey) who are
interested in helping rural folks, to volunteer to act as translators
who could then work with the graduate student and the campesino group.
Some sort of screenging process for the translators would have to be set
up.
Thoughts from some of you experienced university types or how beneficial
this would be to grad students and whether it would be feasible for them
to get course credit or independent study credit for a project like this
and if anyone has heard of it being done before?
"Anita Graf (Staff)" wrote:
> Hi Sharon,
> I just read your post on Sanet. I just wanted to suggest that you
> look into the possiblity of getting the help of Peace Corps
> volunteers. I'm not sure if PC serves in Peru,
...Anita Graf
> 313-F Conner Hall
> Dept. of Agricultural and Applied Economics
> University of Georgia
> Athens, GA 30602-7509
> (706) 542-1915 phone
> (706) 542-0739 fax
> agraf@agecon.uga.edu
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