Over 21 mentors and resource persons from 16 Caribbean countries participated in the final regional training of trainers workshop for fisherfolk mentors, held in Anguilla, from July 6 to 9.
The workshop was delivered by resource persons from the Centre for Resource Management and Environmental Studies of the University of the West Indies (UWI-CERMES), the Caribbean Network of Fisherfolk Organisations (CNFO), the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM) and the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI)
This workshop was a follow on from the first regional training of trainers workshop in Saint Lucia in November 2013, in which a group of regional fisherfolk mentors was established to provide support to fisherfolk organisations in the Caribbean islands to enable them to more effectively participate in fisheries governance and management.
The key objectives of the workshop were to strengthen the mentors’ capabilities in mentoring and facilitation and project cycle management. It was also aimed at familiarising them with the positions of fisherfolk on key fisheries and related policies for small scale fisheries development in the Caribbean.
During the opening ceremony for the workshop, Othlyn Vanterpool, advisor on fisheries and agriculture, commended the Anguillan fisherfolk on making the formation of the Anguilla Fisherfolk Association (AFFA) a reality. He noted however that often times groups were created and left without any support, so much would be expected of the mentors.
As part of the workshop, mentors were taken on a field trip where they learnt about the challenges being experienced by fisherfolk and fisherfolk organisations in Anguilla. These included inadequate facilities for landing, storage, processing and marketing of fish and fish products; limited capacity to maintain the quality of fish from harvesting to marketing; insufficient market opportunities; high operating costs; inadequate cooperation among fishers and other key stakeholders in lobbying and advocating for change in national fisheries and related policies.
The mentors acknowledged that many of these issues were common to those faced by fisherfolk and fisherfolk organisations in their own countries.
Access to funding to help fisherfolk organisations overcome their many challenges was a key concern identified by the mentors coming out of the workshop. Mentors signalled their intention to continue to provide support to the fisherfolk organisations and make use of the training provided in project proposal development to build the capacity of their mentee fisherfolk organisations to gain access to funding under such funding sources as the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Small Grant Programmes and from development partners like the European Union (EU).
The workshop was convened under the EU funded project enhancing food security from the fisheries sector in the Caribbean: Building the capacity of regional and national fisherfolk organisation networks to participate in fisheries governance and management, which is targeting fisherfolk organisations in the countries of Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Belize, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Lucia, St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and Turks and Caicos.
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