Page 16 - VMFT News Letter _Ajeesh_New Design_26.03.2020_Copy Revised

Consultative Workshop on Project Formulation
The purpose of the meeting was to generate
ideas for some action-oriented projects. A
total of 16 experts participated and discussed
possible research collaborations and projects
at VMFT. The meeting was chaired by Prof.
V. K Damodaran, President VMFT. During
the welcome address, the Vice chairperson
of VMFT, Dr. Sajitha Bashir briefed the ethos
of the organisation. She emphasised that the
foundation stood as a platform for developing
and sharing knowledge and engaging with
knowledge remained as the guiding principle
of foundation. She brought to the notice of
participants that the foundation was engaged
in action research to influence the thinking
process.
Dr. Manisha Priyam (Associate Professor,
National Institute of Educational Planning,
New Delhi), Dr. T Sabu (Program Director,
Centre for Environment and Development), R.
Harikumar (Energy Management Centre), Dr.
Shashikumar (Rtd. Professor), Dr. K Soman
(Rtd. Earth Scientist), Ram Kamal (Consultant),
Prof. Achuth Sankar (Professor, Dept. of
Computational Biology & Bioinformatics,
University of Kerala), Dr. K. S. Zeenath (Director,
School of Distance Education University of
Kerala), Dr. K. Mohankumar (Consultant), Dr.
T. K. Anandhi (Gender Advisor, Govt of Kerala),
Dr. C. P. Aravindakshan (Rtd. Professor), Er.
A. Suhair (Chair Person, VMFT), Prof. V. K.
Damodaran (President, VMFT), Dr. Sajitha
Bashir (Vice Chair, VMFT), Sultana Bashir
(Trustee, VMFT) and Dr. O. G. Sajitha (Director
(Programmes), VMFT) participated in the
discussions.
VMFT NEWSLETTER JANUARY-MARCH 2020
Some of the major recomendations by the
participants were to start a programme to
prepare school children to think in terms
of innovation in science and technology,
making of 3-4-minute science videos/other
videos, start online courses, foreign language
training for languages like -Chinese, Japan
and Arabic, training for women to work
from home, visualisation technologies
clubs, research methodology workshops,
democratise the arena of research by
including the SC, ST and minorities and help
them reach the higher education, annual event
of media activists collaboration with science
people, NGOs etc. equip the master level
journalism students to develop proposals
on areas like forestation, agriculture, climate
smart agriculture, programmes for tribal
empowerment. Organising short film festival
on environment or other issues. Create
our own YouTube channel and upload the
videos, continue the work with Wikipedia
and sensitisation of science communication.
The chapter related to reproductive organs in
the schools are not taught in the class rooms
properly. Hence suggested to make videos
in such situation. Gender sensitisation in
the class rooms and work place, generate
monitorable continuous data to study
climate change and implement ecosystem
approach in the coastal area, sensitisation
of the communities of environmental issues
and conduct studies on the climate change
impact on fishery were the other suggested
areas by experts.
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