Ecologica, a post graduate student organization from Bogor Agricultural University (IPB, became the first recipient of BIOTROP’s Youth Environmental Outreach (YEO) Grants Program for 2014.

Ecologica’s project is on “Organic Verticulture Gardening for Community Household Food Security and Environmental Sustainability.” The project aims to maximize the available limited land and space of village households to become productive for vegetable and medicinal plant production, thereby helping address their food and nutritional needs. It will be piloted in Cibanteng Village, Ciampea Sub-district of Central Bogor District involving 40 households. It will consist of training of households and local officials of the said village and actual setting up of verticulture vegetable and medicinal plant gardens using recyclable materials and organic inputs.  

BIOTROP’s YEO Grants Program is one of Centre’s special initiatives under its 9th Five-Year Development Plan (FYDP 2012-2017).  It generally aims to heighten the roles of the youth in helping realize the real values of tropical biology for community welfare and environmental integrity by supporting the implementation of meritorious action research project proposals from deserving youth organizations.  For its initial launching in 2013, the Program confined the call for proposals from youth organizations from Jakarta, Bogor, Tanggerang, Sukabumi, and Bekasi cities for easy monitoring of project implementation. The Program received six proposals that were evaluated by external reviewers and BIOTROP Board of Directors.

As a post graduate student organization from the Faculty of Natural Resources and Environment of IPB, Ecologica was formed in 2002 as a vehicle for students to serve communities for livelihood improving by applying their knowledge and skills on natural resource and environmental management.

Incidentally, BIOTROP is now calling for proposals for YEO Program implementation in 2015. For further details of the program, please click here. Interested youth organizations can submit proposals on or before 9 June 2014 to:

Dr. Jess C. Fernandez
Deputy Director for Program
SEAMEO BIOTROP
Jalan Raya Tajur Km 6, Bogor
Email: j.fernandez@biotrop.org