Guwahati: Aaranyak, a leading biodiversity conservation organization in the Northeast, has conducted a series of crucial capacity-building workshops focused on first-aid administration for communities living in human-elephant conflict (HEC) hotspots.
The workshop, held from February 24 to 26, reached over 200 residents across three villages in Meghalaya’s West Garo Hills district and two villages from Assam’s Jorhat district.
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 the Meghalaya SDRF and the Jorhat (Assam) Civil Defence Department to deliver first-aid training workshops to equip local residents with the skills to save lives during human-elephant conflicts and other emergencies common in their area.
The workshops provide practical first-aid training to enable community members to save lives.
Generally, such a workshop begins with an introductory session that briefs the participants from the community on the importance of first aid.
The workshop featured hands-on first-aid training, mock drills for injury scenarios, and disaster management instruction.
The workshops emphasized the critical role of first aid in saving lives in remote locations, where access to medical facilities is limited.
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.
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Altogether 103 women and 112 men from these villages were provided training in first aid administration during the 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.
