OL 440 Elective Course Descriptions

OL 440 Diploma Program: Integrated CBA, DRR, and Rural Development
Elective Course Descriptions.

After successful completion of the prerequisite courses (OL 102 – or – Ol 342), you will be invited to enroll in elective courses. There is a reason why there are prerequisites. Please don’t ask for an exemption from the prerequisites. These electives will be most useful after successful completion of Diploma OL 340, but can be taken after successful completion of 102 or 342.

These courses start throughout the year. Choose four electives from the list below that meet your needs and interests to complete the diploma program.

OL 303. Food Security, Nutrition, and Home Gardens 1
Implement a 12-month family gardening project. Learn about food security, good nutrition, and the garden activities that support them — and then learn how to build a project that puts your community on the path to using their own skills to address their specific needs. Become a Solution.

OL 304. Food Security, Nutrition and Home Gardens 2
How do you care for & maintain a food garden? How do you control pests? What happens if you have desert soil – or a shortage of water? Learn how to combine garden produce with daily staples to prepare nutritious meals that contain vitamins A, C and D.

OL 332. Water conservation and management.

• Facilitate the organization of community-based water conservation and management committee.
• Identify and prioritize important water sources and challenges using participatory methods.
• Participatory mapping of water sources and challenges.
• Stone and soil bunds to control runoff, increase soil moisture and reduce soil erosion.
• Bio dykes. Bioengineering: Planting grass strips, trees, and hedgerows across the contour to reduce runoff velocity, improved water infiltration, and trap sediment.
• Depressions to catch water for soil penetration; infiltration ditches.
• Rainwater harvesting.
• Wetland conservation, restoration of aquatic habitats and ecosystems services.
• Forming water user associations to ensure lasting commitments and sustainability.
• Water storage and reservoirs.
• Point of use water purification.
• Identifying local knowledge on conservation techniques.
• Developing joint plans with communities for conservation and management activities.
• Community flood resilience: hazard identification, flood preparation and recovery.
• Prioritizing water sources for protection/restoration.
• Reinforcing watershed management targeting soil and water conservation in upper and mid-level watersheds including reforestation and afforestation programs.

OL 333. Climate Smart agricultural practices for your CBA project.

• Participatory mapping of soil and water challenges for agriculture.
• Participatory methods for identifying changes in agricultural cycles vulnerabilities and the use of coping strategies.
• Collecting traditional agricultural knowledge.
• Strengthening community crop related knowledge on adaptation to climate change.
• Low input agricultural technologies.
• Conservation Agriculture
• Water conservation through changing cropping cycle and crop mix, multiple and rotational cropping.
• Drip irrigation. Micro drip irrigation.
• Sustainable agricultural practices including soil restoration and conservation techniques, water conservation and management techniques.
• Mulching for reducing evaporative water loss and increasing organic material in the soil. Improving the organic matter of soils.
• Contour leveling: level planting rows across hillside.
• Stone and soil bunds to control runoff, increase soil moisture and reduce soil erosion.
• Depressions to catch water for soil penetration; infiltration ditches.
• Bio dykes. Bio-engineering: Planting grass strips, trees, and hedgerows across the contour to reduce runoff velocity, improved water infiltration, and trap sediment.
• Contour hedgerow/grass inter-cropping on cultivated sloping land.
• Agroforestry techniques.
• Crop diversification.
• Developing plans that combine resilience and improved agricultural techniques with traditional knowledge for an improvement in productivity.
• Establish pilot plots and demonstration gardens demonstrating better cultivation practices.
• The application of weather and climate information.
• The use of drought/flood resistant crop varieties.
• Buffering against extended dry spells, the late arrival of rain and/or an early end to the rainy season, and from strong tropical rains.
• Early maturing and/or drought resistant crop varieties.

OL 345. Community Based Disaster Risk Assessment, Reduction and Preparedness.

• Conducting a participatory capacity and vulnerability analysis.
• Setting up a CBDRR committee.
• Developing a DRR plan.
• Promotion to the community.
• Organizing teams: Early warning systems; evacuation training; search and rescue training.
• Evaluating Capacity Building Needs for Community Members
• Workshop Planning
• Capacity Building