Learn about all the latest news and updates from Village Earth. As well as information about community-based development, appropriate technology, indigenous rights, and sustainable development.
By George Stetson, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Political Science, ColoradoStateUniversity
Leaving aside, for the moment, the questions of whether or not mainstream development actually works, what are the ethical implications of treating people as development-objects? Is it possible to get away from the inherent logic of “development,” which suggests that people are under-developed, and that they need us (the West) to develop them, to fix them, and in the end to save them.
I recently presented an academic paper in Montreal, Canada at the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Conference to explain how Village Earth was doing something quite different than mainstream development. The key shift, I argued, was a move away from the logic of project-management to the logic of alliance-building, which opens up the possibility to work WITH people as partners and as co-subjects rather than as development-objects. More concretely, it then becomes possible for an NGO, like Village Earth, to strategically use its geopolitical position in the world to acquire resources, to advocate for, and to collaborate with our allies on their ongoing projects, ideas, and creations. To be clear, this does not imply that we at Village Earth cannot be involved in local projects like water, health, or micro-enterprise development, but that our involvement is based on the terms of our alliance, rather than on the terms (and logic) of development per ser.
One of the best examples is the Village Earth approach to participatory filmmaking. Children of the Anaconda, a documentary co-produced, co-filmed, and co-edited with the Shipibo in January of 2005, among other things, increased the bonds of trust and friendship between Village Earth and the Shipibo, leading to multiple projects, workshops, partnerships, and (this summer) to the First Indigenous Tribunal of Chiefs in the Ucayali Region. The act of making a film WITH the Shipibo, of literally giving the cameras to the Shipibo, so that they could present themselves to the world through their own eyes, was built upon a logic of trust and solidarity, as opposed to a logic project-management where outsiders assume the role of “expert” and “manager.” It is this same logic that guides the Village Earth relation with the Lakota on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The coordinator’s approach is much less about managing projects than it is about collaborating WITH the Lakota on multiple projects, ideas, and Lakota creations. The Adopt-A-Buffalo program, the videos about land issues, and working WITH Lakotatiyospayes (roughly translated as extended families) to recover land, I would argue, has been successful because of a move to dignify people as partners (and friends) rather than objects of development.
In my own work as a scholar, I relate this very logic to the ideas of Edouard Glissant, a Caribbean poet and novelist. For Glissant, all peoples of the world have a right to opacity. Glissant’s message almost counter-intuitivehinges on a critique of the West’s obsessive desire for truth and transparency. Glissant argues that reducing things to the “Transparent” is a potentially violent act of appropriation. Even the simple, seemingly benign process of understanding, by rendering all things transparent, by making the Other (other peoples, cultures, etc.) perfectly knowable, introduces the potential to control and dominate the Other. Glissant’s advice is simple, but radical: “For the time being, perhaps, give up this old obsession with discovering what lies at the bottom of natures.” Glissant invites us to stop reducing the Other to something that we (in the West) are fully able to understand, something that we render transparent and visible. Opacity is to respect diversity (even to celebrate it) without creating a hierarchy that inevitably is based on something Western or “modern.” It prevents us (as an outside NGO) from digging too deep into the inner-workings of local communities, reminding us that there are certain places that might be “off limits,” and certain questions that might be offensive.
I bring in Glissant to highlight that the logic of project management, based on transparency and reduction, might not only be inefficient but unethical. Anyone who is involved in development should consider the ethical implications of rendering people transparent and manageable. Is there inherent violence built into questionnaires, excessive planning, analysis, diagnostics and, in general, the process of acquiring information so that it is possible to manage projects? This is not to deny the seriousness of poverty, but only to consider the human dimensions of development planning and project-management. The shift from project management to alliance building in these Village Earth projects is promising precisely because it gets away from treating people as (transparent) objects to be developed. Rather, it dignifies people as empowered subjects, recognizes and celebrates diversity, and inspires relations of alliance, friendship, and solidarity.
As many of you know, Dr. Maurice Albertson, one of the founders of Village Earth, recently passed away. Thank you to all of our supporters from around the world who sent their love and support. His memorial service had a wonderful turnout and was a really beautiful event in his honor. He was an inspiration to everyone at Village Earth and we are honored to carry-on his bold vision for the world.
Also, THANK YOU to all of our supporters who made our end of year fundraising campaign a great success!! This year we plan to continue to improve and expand our training programs, while continuing to work with communities as they direct their own path of development and work toward a sustainable future. And we hope you will be able to continue with us on this path as allies!
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Cambodia Evictions
By Drew McDowell, Cambodia Project Coordinator
It’s been 1 month since the eviction of the Dey Krahom community in Phnom Penh. During most of this time my ability to concentrate and work at a computer has been diminished, but I have been on the ground getting our school going again and helping our students the best I could.
After the eviction the school was an open oozing wound, literally and figuratively. The oozing is the sewage problem that has arose, and the wounds are sometimes emotional, and sometimes cuts on feet, etc. Neither of them received the usual attention we give because our problems were so mounting. A part of our daily jobs is to take care of problems, and often get involved in people’s lives on a very personal level. For the past weeks so many people around me all had serious problems occurring at the same time, and it hurt me badly to see the suffering and not be able to help like I would like to.
For those that didn’t get my initial email, on January 24th the bomb was dropped immediately outside my school (I always say ‘our’ school, but this was personal). Maybe it could be better described as a staged series of bombs orchestrated by the government and developer 7NG. The morning of January 24th, after sleeping on top of the desks for 2 hours, I woke to the sound of chaos, and as I walked closer to the edge of the slum I saw a mass of people aimed at destruction. A destruction of houses and lives.
As the reality unfolded, my priorities were to gather information, provide logistical support, emotional support, and try to think to the next hour, 6 hours, 12-18 hours... The luxury of longer term thinking was still far off. I had to take inventory, and every resource needed to be utilized, but we had staff out of town and lots of challenges. An Emergency Response was needed to the crisis that enveloped my every sensory, in panoramic view, in the form of loud noises from houses being bulldozed, piles of rusty nail filled debris that needed to be traversed to be able to go anywhere, and a blur of things happening; my phone ringing and receiving text messages, trying to gather and disseminate information, sunburn, students crying, pressure from the officials to clear everything out, anger coming out of my body in the form of tears, irritability, not knowing what to do next, moving people’s things out of their collapsing houses… It was a day far unlike any other in my life, and I have never been called upon like I was that day.
Life continued in a similar vein for the next days, until the trauma started to wear off and we could start to think about how to help on another level, when we began addressing getting kids back into public school, housing, hiring someone to cook meals, keeping our school clean, getting our sink fixed, and giving care to traumatized people… I’ve never been so focused. I didn’t talk to anyone unless there was something that needed to be said, like “can you…?”
To write what we did would take a lot of effort. We found housing for at least 6 families/people, we’re providing daily transportation to school for over 40 kids to come 20km from the relocation site, where they are homeless, give them breakfast and lunch, delivered clothing and other donations, provide a doctor, kid activities, day care, professional counseling, and a thousand other things, most I am not yet aware of. Our team leaders are amazing, and what we did could not be attempted without a mass of dynamic people. Many friends came at a time of need and their efforts were true kindness. We didn’t do it to be nice, but felt we needed to be there for them because their situation was so dire, and couldn’t not help. Many generous donations came in as well, some from people I have never met, and for that we are incredibly grateful. I hope to write thank you notes soon.
Today the last family will move out of our computer lab, but we still have extra students living in the school and no great solution to their housing problem. Patience often is a good strategy, and they will find solutions. We’ll be here for them and do our best to make sure they continue with their education, and are stepping with aid as appropriate. Every Aziza student’s family that was evicted has received some assistance from us.
The people that were evicted fall into 4 categories, from a housing perspective; owners with house numbers, unrecognized owners, renters, and people from the market (market stall owners). By now, the vast majority of the owners who were recognized have taken a house at the relocation site, 20km from Phnom Penh. They didn’t want this house, and many have simply put a lock on the gate and left it empty while they have found a place to stay or rent close to their jobs in the city. They are the lucky ones. There are 335 families from the latter 3 categories living without a roof over their head, in terrible conditions, and the situations is getting worse as their resources are depleted. The future of the people living homeless is unknown, and they feel they need to camp in front of the developers office, as instructed, in hopes that they will be given some compensation, such as a small plot of land somewhere undesirable. Included in this mass of haggard souls are some of our students. Beautiful, intelligent, hard working, committed to a better future, and trying to keep it together through an unbearably tough time, sleeping without security or hygiene. Some of our students living there are high school girls, and I worry about them the most. Actually, I try not to think about them because it is so sad. Their situation was tough to begin with, then a mob of men came and broke down their house while they scrambled to salvage their personal belongings, and now they are camping far outside of town with no toilets or running water.
Other stories turned out better, but in our research of the effects on students education in the aftermath of the eviction (to present to the government), when questioning just the people camping at the relocation site, we found 45 students had dropped out of school because of the eviction. Others went through a tough time, but are getting back on their feet. It will be a life event for all who went through it. We have received some generous donations that made our assistance possible, but will need lots more to continue to help them. Thank you for caring. It means the world to me, and was crucial to getting me through a tough time.
By David Bartecchi, Pine Ridge Project Coordinator & Executive Director
This January, the Lakota Buffalo Caretakers Cooperative launched retail sales of packaged grass-fed buffalo meat raised on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The Lakota Buffalo Caretakers Cooperative (LBCC) is a 100% Native American owned and operated cooperative association on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Its membership is made up of small family buffalo caretakers who respect the buffalo and the land.
Buffalo raised by members:
Live on open ranges, never in feedlots
Eat wild grasses their entire lives
Are Free from antibiotics and hormones
Respectfully harvested in the field
Members of the LBCC are committed to the restoration of the northern plains ecology, self-sufficiency and strengthening the sovereignty and self-determination of the Oglala Lakota Nation and all indigenous peoples. To the best of our knowledge, the LBCC is the only Native American run cooperative of small family buffalo caretakers in the United States.
Village Earth helped to establish the LBCC starting in 2007. The LBCC was officially incorporated in South Dakota August of 2008. The LBCC has partnered with the Fort Collins based Allied Natural Meats, LLC. which will function as its fair-trade distribution partner. The LBCC currently has the capability to ship wholesale orders throughout the country. However, at this time, the LBCC and Allied Natural Meats, LLC are only set up to do online retail sales in the Fort Collins, Colorado area but plan to be selling national via mail order soon. For more information please visit the LBCC website at http://www.lakotabuffalocaretakers.org.
The Lakota Buffalo Caretakers Cooperative (LBCC) is a 100% Native American owned and operated cooperative association on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Its membership is made up of small family buffalo caretakers who respect the buffalo and the land. Members of the LBCC are committed to the restoration of the northern plains ecology, self-sufficiency and strengthening the sovereignty and self-determination of the Oglala Lakota Nation and all indigenous peoples.
The roots of the LBCC come from the Adopt-A-Buffalo program initiated by Village Earth, a not-for-profit organization based in Fort Collins, Colorado. Adopt-A-Buffalo was started to support Lakota families to utilize their legally allotted lands, over 60% of which was being leased out, primarily by non-tribal members. Through this initiative, Village Earth helped recover over 2000 acres for buffalo restoration, releasing over 82 head of buffalo onto these lands. Some of the families Village Earth worked with were just getting started, others were already raising buffalo on their lands. Over the years, these families helped one another care for their herds. In 2007 the Lone Buffalo Project, the Knife Chief Buffalo Nation, and the Black Feather's began discussing the possibility of forming a cooperative to help market their natural grassfed buffalo. By August of 2008 the cooperative was officially incorporated in the State of South Dakota and by November their labels were approved by the USDA.
While the members of the LBCC seek to earn some income from their herds, their overarching goal is to restore the buffalo, restore the native ecology on Pine Ridge, and help renew the sacred connection between the Lakota people and the buffalo nation. By purchasing meat from the LBCC you are supporting these goals. We also invite you to visit us and the buffalo on Pine Ridge.
Update from Guatemala By Ann Jefferson, Guatemala Project Coordinator
Here’s a little update on the Women’s Association of San Pablo Xucaneb’, the Mayan village where we have been working since 2002. Last summer we began building on the land managed by the Women’s Association. Now we have a little house made of wood, the standard building material in this area of Alta Verapaz.It is all finished, except it has no furniture yet, and it’s the most wonderful little house you can imagine. Everything in it except the nails, the tin roof and the lock on the front door is completely handmade of local pine, some of it taken from the Association’s own land. The husbands of the women in the Association provided most of the materials and did the work. And out behind the house they made a lovely little all-wood latrine over a hole they proudly told me is “two meters deep!” That should last us awhile.
MOL.E.R. wants to use the land and the house to demonstrate some of the new techniques that are being employed in rural areas of the developing world. We will soon be working with an organization that comes to villages in Central America to show people how to build closed-box stoves with chimneys, combining the advantages of cleaner air, home heating, and fuel efficiency. This will be a departure from the norm for these villagers whose usual practice is to build a separate little structure for the kitchen and to have an open fire there which does heat that part of the home, but at a high cost to women’s and children’s respiratory systems. The kitchen is women’s workplace, and they and the kids are there nearly all day long, especially in the winter when it’s cold and the kitchen is the only warm place to be.
In addition to helping us build our house, your donations have gone a long way toward paying our technical assistants. Adriana Lázaro, the Cobán coordinator of MOL.E.R. for the past 6 years, continues to spend a day a week in the village, providing assistance with micro-lending, crochet classes for interested women, and management of both the scholarship program we have been operating for five years and the one-acre lot where the women plant vegetables for their families and for sale in local markets. She has also been working with a men’s group in the village to help them go through the bureaucratic process of legalizing their group so they can apply for various programs made available by the Guatemalan government and non-governmental organizations that work in Alta Verapaz.
We also get assistance from a technician who is a member of a different Q’eqchi’-speaking village in the area. Macario Can Pop, who has been trained in community organizing, serves as a translator, supervisor of the scholarship students from his village, and advocate for members of the Q’eqchi’ community around Cobán. We would like to hire Macario to visit Xucaneb’ once a month to help the Women’s Association, but this would mean paying him Q.150 each time (about $20) and we’re not sure we can afford to make that a regular monthly commitment.His work is needed though, and Macario is not only a native Q’eqchi’ speaker and trained community organizer, but has demonstrated his commitment to the Alta Verapaz Q’eqchi’ communities, so it would be a boost to the Women’s Association if we could contract his services.
We also pay $100 a month to our office person, Aliria Ruiz, a struggling university student and computer whiz who manages the office in Cobán, and does all our bookkeeping. Aliria also tutors scholarship students when they need help and visits the village from time to time.
One outcome of the project is that the members of the Women’s Association are learning to understand, though not often speak, Spanish; as a result they have a better understanding of what’s going on around them and are beginning to feel more connected to the world outside their village and more able to move about in the larger community. For one thing they have a bank account, which was a big step. Next they’re going to work on learning the alphabet and how to sign their names. Only two of the older members, about 12 women, can sign their names; the usual way of authorizing documents is with a thumbprint.
So that’s a quick sketch of what we’re up to at the moment, or would like to be up to if we could afford it. To those of you who have donated to the Guatemala project, I want to convey the deep gratitude of everyone involved with the project: the U.S. coordinators, Flora Terán (Colorado) and me; our employees, who desperately need the work; and the members of the Women’s Association who open every meeting with a prayer and never neglect to put in a word for their Northamerican sponsors.
Happy Spring 2008! Village Earth continues to learn and grow as we expand our efforts as allies with indigenous communities and through our training programs. Village Earth believes it pays to be small and non-bureaucratic. This gives us the flexibility to be responsive to the grassroots and the ever-changing nature of the community empowerment process. Furthermore, our staff is committed to the people and communities we work with and relate to them as partners and friends rather than as experts or managers. This solidarity encourages honest communication and dialog necessary to determine what is working and what is not. Just look at what we're accomplishing... Oil Exploitation will NOT bring "Development"
Besides working with indigenous organizations in the Peruvian Amazon to defend their territories against oil exploitation, Village Earth is working with communities on micro-livelihood projects.These projects such as small-scale communal fish farms, women's artisan cooperatives, and a micro-credit program will allow the indigenous communities to take their futures into their own hands.For hundreds of years indigenous Amazonians have been at the mercy of large plantation owners, mining, and other extractive industries for any kind of income.By working with indigenous communities to create their own business ventures they can be proactive and take control of their own livelihoods in a sustainable manner with the income and working conditions being controlled by the indigenous peoples themselves.The Peruvian government uses poverty as the excuse to open up the Amazon to oil exploitation as if no sustainable alternative development opportunities exist.Yet, oil exploitation will only further impoverish the people of the Amazon as it destroys the natural resources on which they depend.By expanding Village Earth's efforts to include more indigenous communities in these micro-livelihood business ventures they can take a stand against the oil "development" proposed by the government.
Village Earth recently supported and accompanied a Shipibo leader to attend an important oil meeting at the Houston Petroleum Club.There, PeruPetro, the state-run oil licensing agency of Peru, was present to try to sell off the remaining 30% of the Amazon rainforest to oil companies.Fortunately the presence of the Shipibo leader and the information he was able to give investors about the risks of investing in oil exploitation in the Amazon helped to turn potential investors away from this very risky investment.However, the discourse of PeruPetro continues to be that oil exploitation will bring "development" to the Amazon region.After a speech by the Shipibo leader asking the oil companies to stay off indigenous lands, Daniel Saba, President of PeruPetro, said to the group of potential investors to visit the Amazon and see the poverty. He says there is no way the people of the Amazon "want to live like they did in the past" with 66% of the population in poverty.However, in the decades of oil exploitation throughout the Amazon in places like Northern Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia, oil exploitation has brought nothing but severe health problems, environmental devastation, and an influx of new migrants to the Amazon-all with severe consequences for the indigenous peoples who call this region home.Children in Northern Peru have toxic levels of lead and other carcinogens in their blood from an oil-contaminated environment.The Camisea pipeline in Southern Peru has ruptured multiple times causing untold environmental damage.As well, the roads and infrastructure built by the oil companies opens up the Amazon to colonists and logging companies.
Together we can offer alternatives to the unsustainable development offered by the government and corporations, and instead, the people of the Amazon can determine their own futures.
Advanced Training Program on Participatory Practices for Sustainable Development at Bidham Chandra Krishi Viswavidyala - Calcutta, India
A team from Village Earth and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) held our flagship course Participatory Practices for Sustainable Development at Bidham Chandra Krishi University in Calcutta, India. January 25th through February 1st, 2008 a group of approximately fifty graduate students attended the seminar jointly organized by IISD and Bidham Chandra Krishi University. The training was well received by the students who all plan to work to support village development across India after they complete their studies. For more information about organizing a specialized training courses for your group or organization, please visit International Institute for Sustainable Development. Guatemala Scholarship Program
Providing annual $150 scholarships for Xucaneb, Guatemala students (as pictured above) has been a big success.
For just $150 a year, a student can pursue a ninth-grade certificate, which hugely increases their opportunity for a job with a future. Book groups and others have each sponsored a student, so that we have been able to provide a total of 50 scholarships since 2003. With that success has come a tremendous word of mouth, such that this year we have double the number of students hoping to participate. Checks to sponsor a student ($150) or smaller checks toward a scholarship can be sent to Village Earth, P.O. Box 797, Fort Collins, CO 80522. For more information, contact MaryLou Smith at mlsmith@aquaengr.com.
Cambodia Education Project Update The Cambodia Education Project has expanded, and moved to a new room not far away. "The staff has increased their capacity, and we have some really dynamic students, who are taking on a lot of initiatves. The best feeling is showing up and learning what is going on. By giving them so much control it has a life far beyond what I could have ever provided," said Project Coordinator Drew McDowell.
The Appropriate Technology (AT) Library is one of the most comprehensive technology resources for anyone working in the field. The AT Library is full of thousands of small-scale, do-it-yourself technologies on everything from alternative energies to sanitation.
Participatory Practices for Sustainable Development Training Course
May 19-30, 2008 Colorado State University campus Fort Collins, CO USA
Registration deadline May 2. Join development practitioners, community leaders, activists, and academics from around the world in this important course.
We are pleased to inform you of this summer's accomplishments, which were only possible with your support. Thank you!
New Indigenous Organization
During the Indigenous Tribunal this past June, Shipibo leaders from throughout the Ucayali region of the Peruvian Amazon decided to form a grassroots development organization. The new Organization for the Defense and Development of the Indigenous Peoples of the Peruvian Amazon, or ODDPIAP (as they call it), will work to bridge the gap between the poorly represented indigenous peoples and the government as they work to defend their territories and provide development assistance.
Above: The newly elected President of ODDPIAP.
Village Earth is currently working with the democratically-elected leadership to build the capacity of and support for ODDPIAP. We are also working together to raise the funds necessary to legalize ODDPIAP so that it can be officially recognized by the Peruvian government. The leaders of ODDPIAP are busy planning workshops throughout the region to mobilize students and community leaders to work together, and they are already preparing for the next Indigenous Tribunal to be held January 2008. Village Earth will continue to ally with ODDPIAP in their struggle for the self-determination of the indigenous peoples of the Peruvian Amazon.
Village Earth and the International Institute for Sustainable Development recently pulled off another successful Participatory Practices for Sustainable Development training course, August 6-17, 2007. Participants came from all around the world including Sudan, USA, UK, Kenya, Guatemala, Peru and Americans working in Southeast Asia and Africa - in all their diversity to contribute to a dialogue about participatory community-based development.
Above: Training participants on tour at a local organic farm.
Participants learned the theory behind the Village Earth Approach and how it is constantly refined through action and reflection as the Approach is put into practice in the field. One highlight of the training included the participation of Limber Gomez from Peru and Adriana Lazaro from Guatemala, two Village Earth project partners, who contributed their perspectives and experiences as "internal activators" within Village Earth-sponsored activities and illustrated the effectiveness of the Approach as applied in their communities. The two-week workshop also included lively discussions about the importance of Appropriate Technology to building sustainable communities, the role of Monitoring and Evaluation, and a new section of the course focusing on non-governmental organization (NGO)-Community dynamics.
The group also decided to form a global network of development practitioners as the focus of the strategic planning session part of the workshop. Far from seeing themselves as competing NGOs, participants saw the need to pool their resources in a common task of building a dynamic network where expertise could be shared globally.
We are very grateful for the level of wisdom and experience that each participant brought to the training that helped to make this course a truly consciousness-raising experience.
Village Earth Partners with the Indian Land Tenure Foundation to do Strategic Land Planning on the Pine Ridge Reservation
Village Earth is now accepting applications from allottees who own undivided interests on the same allotment(s) on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to do land planning workshops. For more information, visit the Pine Ridge Project Blog Contact: David Bartecchi - david@villageearth.org, 970-491-5754
Village Earth Founders Recently Returned from West Bengal, India
Drs. Maurice Albertson and Ed Shinn visited Milan Dinda and the Purulia project team on their way home from teaching at Trisakti University in Indonesia. They hope to return soon and hold a Village Earth training program with students from the agricultural university in Calcutta. For more information, visit the Purulia Project Blog.
And we would love to hear from you - we welcome comments, questions, and feedback to our newsletter editorial board. You can reach us at: editor@villageearth.org.
