SEED organised two days’ training programme on planning of incomegeneration activities at Rudranagar Gram Panchayat area in Sagar Island,Sundarban (West Bengal) under Integrated Coastal Zone Management. The programmewas organised with faculty support from SPADE (Society for Professional Actionsin Development) and sponsored by Ministry of Environment, Government of WestBengal.

The training programme was attended by total 33 participants, amongwhich only 1 was male and the rest are females. The training conducted at theLodha School in Trank Par, Rudranagar, had 4 members from Scheduled caste, 26General and 3 from OBCs. The participants included members of various CBOs andSHGs of Sagar Island.

Resource persons from SPADE Kolkata Mr. Rajkumar Laskar and Ms KakaliHaldar offered their expert knowledge to the trainees. The programme startedwith Mr. Bapan Haldar (MIS and Documentation Coordinator) of SEED speakingabout the activities of the organization focusing on livelihood promotion. Theparticipants got introduced with each other in an interesting way by usinglivelihood games. Then the participants were oriented on rating of SHGs using‘Panchsutra’ through an interesting exercise.

Later, Mr. Rajkumar discussed on steps of planning Income GenerationActivities (IGAs) through the screening of a film titled ‘Setubandhan’. He alsoprovided ideas about the cost-benefit concept of a business including fixedcost, recurring cost, total cost, working capital, gross profit, net profit,break-even point, cash cycle and depreciation using, exercises and case study.

Next, Ms. Kakali explained the concepts and features of three types ofIGAs, viz, manufacturing/production, trading and services. Following this, theparticipants were divided in to three groups and a case study on feasibilityanalysis of a Piggery Farm was given. They discussed among themselves and eachgroup presented their ideas.

Overall, it was a learning experience for the participants and theypractically benefited through this two day training by SEED.

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