The second part of the “Training for monitoring and advocacy through the utilization of spatial data for youth and students“ was successfully implemented during the period of 8-10 of October, 2014

The second part of the “Training for monitoring and advocacy through the utilization of spatial data for youth and students“ was successfully implemented in the city of Kazanlak. Nineteen students and youth who participated in the first part of the training got acquainted with the basis of working with GIS and spatial data as well as the utilization of the aforementioned for the needs of conduction of civic monitoring and advocacy for policies for regional sustainable development.

During the three day training the project experts of BBF gave a series of presentations and practical tasks which facilitated the process of improving the skills and the capacity of the participants to work with GIS and the use and analyze spatial data. The presentations and the practical tasks covered several topics: introduction in GIS – history and development of GIS, components and architecture, data and main functionalities of GIS. The different training modules put the focus on gaining of a practical knowledge and skills in the fields of: representation of spatial and tabulated data, spatial and attributive requests, editing of spatial and attributive data and cartographic design. All the theory that was provided to the participants during the three days of the training was accompanied with a series of practical exercises, which help the participants to apply the newly obtained knowledge in real life situation. All examples and exercise were chosen in a way that they clearly present the link between the spatial data and the possibilities for its application for the needs of execution of civic monitoring and advocacy for policies for regional sustainable development.

The training also provided the participants with the possibility to exercising the gained knowledge directly in a field work situation.

The students and youths visited an area in the vicinity of Kazanlak and had to work on a practical exercise, the successful implementation of which required application of the knowledge and skills gained during the first and the second part of the training. The conditions of the exercise challenged the participants with a hypothetic situation which required undertaking of several consequent actions in order to understand if certain development activities, applied in an area poses a threat for its biodiversity. The successful solving of the task required the use of knowledge provided in the first part of the training, related with the civic monitoring and advocacy: determining the protection status of a certain territory, undertaking of steps for determining if there are any violations of the status and the related regulations, handing in of a signal to the relevant authority, and gaining of support for the society. The students and the youth also had to determine the exact spatial location of the territory, and to visualize their findings through the designing of a map, which also helped them to exercise the knowledge gained during the second part of the training in a real life situation.

At the end of the training the participants also  made an assessment of the two parts of the trainings. Predominant were the positive comments concerning the quality of the training and the benefits related with improvement of the capacity of the participants to work with GIS and spatial data and to use them for the needs of the civic monitoring and advocacy. The results of the assessment also pointed out the positive role of the training as a tool for establishing of contacts between the students and youth and  non-governmental organizations, a fact which is important since it helps the youth to get acquainted with the way  NGOs function and also give possibility for further realization of the youth who are willing to further develop professionally in such fields of work.

All participants received a certificate for the successful participation of the training as well as braned flash cards whith the materials of the training.

All the materials used during the training can be found in the project web site under the “Download” section: http://gis.biodiversity.bg/en/Download-c135

The conduction of the ”Training for youths for monitoring and advocacy through utilization of spatial data in two parts” is part of the implementation of the project ”Building Capacity of Non-governmental Organizations, Youths and Citizens for Use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Strengthening  the Monitoring  Skills and Advocacy of Policies for Regional Sustainable Development” which is funded by the NGO Program in Bulgaria under the European Economic Area Financial Mechanism 2009-2014.   More information for the NGO Program in Bulgaria under the European Economic Area Financial Mechanism 2009-2014 can be found at  http://www.ngogrants.bg/

This document is created with the financial support of the NGO Program in Bulgaria under the Financial mechanism of the European Economic Area. The Bulgarian Biodiversity Foundation bears the full responsibility for the content of the document and under no circumstances can be assumed that the content of the document reflects the official opinion of the Financial mechanism of the European Economic Area and the Operator of the NGO Program in Bulgaria.