“Na ka Mei Ram-ew sha u Khra” (Khasi language) / Mother Earth to the Stew Pot Project

This project was launched with the support of AYNI Fund’s Seed grant. The Faith Foundation team worked with women farmers in two villages of the Ri Bhoi District, Meghalaya, India, to revive and revitalize traditional and organic farming practices and indigenous food systems. Thus, food security and sustainable livelihoods were promoted. 

As rights holders, the women farmers learned about the importance of their individual and collective rights over their lands and resources as Indigenous Peoples. The project offered workshops on vermicomposting, biopesticides, the local mapping of indigenous seeds and plants, and other forms of organic, traditionally healthy agriculture.

Additionally, the Faith Foundation promoted the role of adolescent girls as keepers of traditional knowledge. Teenage girls engaged with these farmer women, also their mothers. There was an intergenerational exchange of knowledge and information on native seeds and edible wild plants through biodiversity walks and documentation workshops between teenagers and farmer women.

“These workshops made us realize the importance, richness and strength of the resources present in our communities,” said one of the farmers. “When the world shut down due to COVID, we understood that we needed to rely on the resources of our community, which was all we had.”