Thailand
Students spend time at a village cooperative learning about community organising and environmental campaigning. They learn firsthand about water resources development, environmental change and social conflict, and discuss these issues with community members, NGO workers and government officers.
Under the supervision of program creator and leader Dr Bruce Missingham of Monash University, students live with local families and participate in everyday activities such as harvesting rice, cooking, fishing or making fish nets. Students experience the realities of water in village life, learning about how it is bound up with culture, livelihoods and health.
Dr Missingham is an anthropologist with interests in community development and political ecology. He has a long-standing relationship with the communities and village cooperative on the Mun River in Thailand who whill host the field studies experience.
The first overseas field trip for IWC’s Masters of Integrated Water Management students was held in Thailand late last year (2011).
Masters student Abdulhamid Adamu of Nigeria said he found the Thailand field trip insightful and beneficial. “Staying with host families in the village, allowed locals to share with us the impact of water on their lives and livelihoods,” Mr Adamu said.”
“I learnt so many things during the field trip particularly how the women of the village were leading local movements to address big issues such as the effects of dam structures on their livelihoods.” Mr Adamu is one of Nigeria’s Federal Ministry’s water project managers in charge of small-town water projects in two Nigerian states.
