A sustainable rural livelihood can be defined as follows:
“A livelihood comprises of the capabilities, assets and activities required for a means of living. A livelihood is sustainable and can cope and recover from stress and shocks, maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets, and provide sustainable livelihood opportunities for the next generation…” (Robert Chambers & Gordon Conway)
If there is one piece of God’s earth that has all the resources for sustainable livelihoods, it must surely be Dominica. Yet instead of getting on with the job we run around in circles and struggle to make ends meet. Could it be that we need to rethink the way we go about making a living?
Our perception of employment is modelled on other countries, rather than on our own assets and capabilities. The same goes for our lifestyle. It is no good hankering after a way of life and a way of working that is insupportable for our 72,000 population and incompatible to our 290 square mile island home.
What I have in mind goes beyond cottage industry and beyond making craft items for visitors. The products would be essential for everyday living and manufactured to meet local and regional demand. It could be something as simple as an environmentally friendly egg carton. At the other end of the scale, I have on the drawing board a vehicle specifically designed for tropical environments and island terrine. Unlike the current crop of SUV’s it has no fancy devices. But it does have good looks, ground clearance, stability, easy maintenance and low fuel consumption. Moreover, it could be assembled from component parts right here in Dominica. Sorry, I’m dyslexic and my brain can’t think the same as a normal person.
Regardless of my flights of fancy, the basis of manufacturing must relate to our abundant resources: resources that the rest of the world would give an arm and a leg for. A significant percentage of what we import could be produced locally from our own raw materials and with a surplus to export. And this is not limited to agriculture, although exporting rather than importing fruit juice would be a good start. With innovative and creative thinking we have the wherewithal to make paper and paper products (thus eliminating plastic and polystyrene) and building materials that are not totally reliant on imported cement and steel. In a recent edition of the Sun newspaper Henry Shillingford makes a valid case for cultivating hemp to these ends.
Whatever your take on cannabis, he deserves credit for offering a Dominica alternative to imported petrocasas houses. Bamboo, banana stems and sugarcane bagasse are equally adaptable.
To create a livelihood we do not need large factories or industrial estates. Environmentally friendly small scale units, village to village, would be more efficient and better suited to our nature island image. Neither do we need High-Tec machinery but we do need high quality. Given a team of skilled mechanical engineers the equipment can be designed, built and maintained on island. A few years ago I designed for DEXIA a machine for washing dasheen. It worked entirely by gravity and water pressure: no electricity and no moving parts. As you might guess, it was cast aside in favour of an imported “State of the Art” energy consuming device.
I am not advocating that we return to the dark ages. As an engineer I embrace technology and as an artist, I believe that all work should be creative and pleasurable. The internet enables information to be shared world-wide and offers un-tapped potential for working from the home environment.
My approach to developing livelihoods would reap benefits beyond material advantages. Skills would be developed along with job satisfaction and pride of accomplishment. Keeping the workplace within easy reach of home (walking distance for many, rather than a one-hour La Plaine to Roseau bus ride) would have benefits in terms of health and wellbeing. Moreover, Dominicans would be working for their own improvement, rather than to the advantage of an overseas conglomerate.
In my earlier commentaries I highlighted how we can build differently using our own resources rather than imported materials. Plastic, steel rebar, cement and galvanize are not home grown whereas hardwood, bamboo, stone, sand, clay and lime mortar are available in abundance. A building, and by extension a lifestyle, that may be fitting for Florida or Dubai, is not necessarily fitting for Dominicans living in Dominica. And by keeping a vernacular identity we enhance Dominica as a visitor destination.
Dominican is blest with the raw materials for sustainable livelihoods, in other words jobs. What we desperately need is the creative vision and skill to use these resources to our best advantage.
Heny Shillingford is quite right about hemp. It really does have many environmentally friendly industrial uses and could be easily grown and used in Dominica. And yes, it’s unsmokable, as it’s a different strain of the plant than cannabis.
You know; livelihood is simply defined as a means of support; subsistence to the quality or state of being alive, doing something which aids in an individual existence.
In reality there can be no livelihood without a job; hence, there can be no meaningful way of maintaining a livelihood if there is no source of employment.
Good start Roger we need more people like you who thinks and work hard to change the world . We all received a bad British education to serve others and not to think and create any thing . The British created beggars to depend on others to feed them. To show you how prevalent poverty is in the caribean , Jamaica has 8 billionaires none is black , you know why. The politics we engaged in are for loosers, it was not designed to create winners . We are at war and we don’t know why.
Emile-DominiQue is correct , stop matching, writing , fighting , and begging, start creating the things people needs. A country with water , rocks, good soil, population 70 thousand should be easily managed . There are companies like Berkshire with 350 .000 employees that’s run properly and makes good profits. Black company in Nigeria owned by Aliko Dangote employs50.000 people well run company . All we have in dominica are beggars waiting for government to think and do everything for them. There is not enough money in the world to do that . Every thing is so it is. Very few thinkers all we have is a bunch of beggars . Family fighting family in the name of politics , every body thinks the money is in government . Let’s create this program , or that program, any country if government is the largest employer look out you are going no where. Get together and sell your water that’s your oil, stop begging government for crumbs. Sell crush stones, supply chicken to caricum countries .
Best post
Great ideas keep em coming. I wish you were 45 again with the drive to network the people, resources and long-term funding to impliment (dislexic too) this model to fruition eventually. I am indeed hopeful for us and also hope some CBI money can be put aside not only to study this but to start putting this model together for future generations and for our own immediate survival. Too many families are broken up just looking for livelyhood in unfamiliar settings to great expense. Thanks Roger(never mind my 45 thing).
Before one can create a good livelihood for him self and family , he or she have to be of sound mind and understands what’s their purpose on this planet . Dominica and Dominicans have several problems . Number one , bad and unproductive British education that does not produce critical thinkers to create anything . We have to change the entire system of the way we educate people in the whole caribean . We have to create a brand new model to educate people to be entrepreneurs. The home needs help to have a better foundation . In dominica there is very little family left , all we do is share the same blood . It looks like we are at war with each other all the time fighting over. Alcoholism number two in the caribean , men are not supporting their kids, violence on the rise, Lazy begging , dependending on government to solve all problems , 90 percent of money made leaves, to many people in roseau doing nothing , the UN tells you what to do and treat you like kids. Respect , love missing
One other idea.. Cant you design (or import) a hatchery to support the government policy for self sufficiency in chicken. Design chicken feed from local produce. (N.B. you is inclusive of others)
You have to change the mindset. Can you ? You have all this expertise do something. Stop talking (or writing ) Stop pointing fingers. You design a dashing washing machine which was cast aside. So why did you not start your own dashing exporting business. There is no monopoly laws on export of dasheen or other agricultural products. If I had the resources would start a business focused on import substitution and export. We can make a lot of what we use or consume. All we do is import, retail and export money. Look at our water as a resource. We just let it flow to the sea. We once exported water. We can sell water to all those boats and ships, even the tourist ones (idea).
Look at our dormant private sector, no growth no improvement no expansion no professionalism. Because of the MINDSET that development is a public sector activity. We like to think of the USA and the develop world as a model, but when you hear of their labour stats it always highlight private sectors.
Dear Emile,
I spend very little time writing and even less time talking; and I don’t point fingers.
In a couple of week’s I enter my 75th year. As a sculptor, painter and inventive engineer, my working day starts at 6.00am and ends at 8.00pm, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
Sorry, but I just don’t have the time to manufacture and export dasheen/dashing(sic) washing machines.
Then go sleep stupes