Rural and economic development efforts are inadequate responses to changing rural conditions. They fail because they are often top-down driven and few influential people are involved. Minnesota's Project Future is designed to help distressed communities take charge of their own direction. Developed on the principle of collective empowerment, this…

A non-government program trains local action-researchers from villages of Java, Indonesia, to work for grass-roots social change within their communities. Begun in 1977, the program trains local men and women to work with their neighbors to revitalize existing institutions and to gain control over the development programs and social services…