Region’s premier community-focused biodiversity conservation organisation Aaranyak (www.aaranyak.org) have organised five capacity building workshop for over 200 community members on administration of first-aid in three human elephant conflict (HEC) affected villages located in West Garo Hills district of Meghalaya and two such villages from Jorhat district of  Assam during Feb 24 to 26 this year.

These workshops are part of Aaranyak-British Asian Trust's initiative of promoting human elephant coexistence through community empowerment and implementation of effective HEC mitigation strategies, which is supported by Darwin Initiative.

Aaranyak collaborated with SDRF, Meghalaya and Civil Defence Department of Jorhat district of Assam respectively, to conduct the workshops that aimed to build capacity of local community members to secure lives in the event of incidents of human- elephant conflict as well as other incidences of exigency that may occur in their life lived in HEC-affected areas.

The workshops are modelled to impart hands-on training on first aid administration in time by community members to save the life of the needy.

Usually such a workshop begins with an introductory session that briefs the participants from the community on the importance of first aid. The workshop model focuses on imparting hands-on demonstration on first aid administration to an injured person, mock drills and disaster management.

The participants are sensitised as to how first aid administration turns out to be a life saviour in remote areas till proper medical facilities can be accessed for the needy.

Altogether five such capacity building workshops were held in villages of Borogobol, Jamdamgre and Bordubi of West Garo Hills in Meghalaya; and at Sargunaraj and Hatishal Chapori village of Jorhat district in Assam. Altogether 103 women and 112 men from these villages were provided training of first aid in these workshops.

A team of seven officials from the Civil Defence Department of Jorhat and six SDRF personnel from Tura in Meghalaya conducted the training workshops in Jorhat and West Garo Hills respectively. Aaranyak's project team with support from the Village Champions facilitated the event.