Discusses how cultural vitality drives successful community development. Links cultural, community, and environmental values. Examines successes and failures of programs attempting to link culture and development in Panama, Ecuador, and Colombia. Examines role of cultural self-examination for creating new development paradigm. Examines prospects…

The Citizens' Campaign Against Hunger and Poverty and For Life is a nongovernmental organization in Brazil that recruited and organized more than three million volunteers to distribute food baskets, support gardening and water projects, provide basic health care, create jobs, assist homeless children, and encourage local and state governments to…

A qualitative study examined how formal and informal social and cultural learning for political action was incorporated into two women's organizations in Colombia: the Association of Daycare Mothers and the Community Mothers. Research was guided by the historic hermeneutic method, which identifies experience through the narrative testimonies of…

Rural communities are often dependent upon their agricultural bases, which have undergone drastic changes. For communities to remain viable as economic units certain measures must be taken. Strategic planning can assist communities in assessing their situations and in developing plans and implementation schedules. Initially used in the business…

A strong local economy which allows residents of a community to work and shop near their homes is perhaps the best safeguard against the threats of urban sprawl, economic stagnation, physical deterioration and loss of unique identity facing many small towns. Utilizing a six-phase process advocated by the University of Wisconsin-Extension,…

Of the total number of illiterate people in the world, half are in India. National programs for adult education in India are the Community Development Program, Farmers Functional Literacy Project, and National Adult Education Program, participants in which include voluntary agencies, state resource centers, and district resource units. When the…

An ecological framework for predicting citizen participation in grassroots community organizations and predicting community disorder problems (such as crime and fear) was developed and tested. The framework, which is called an ecological framework for sustainable community learning and development, delineates the relevant economic, political,…