Strategies

Grass-roots Development

We believe that development is most effective when it includes a “grass-roots” component. “Grass-roots” denotes operation at a local level. Thus, grass-roots development encourages local participation and decision-making. It is a bottom-up approach that requires few inputs and helps local communities decide what they value and what is best for them.

Sustainable Projects

We believe that development must be sustainable. By this, we mean that projects should be self-sustaining for the people that they help. Our goal is to be involved with projects that work on a long term basis, using local resources and abilities to implement solutions that last. Continuous, sustainable projects allow impoverished families to restore lost assets and deal with emergencies and unexpected disruptions to their primary source of income.

Maintaining Relationships

As being in a state of poverty is a tenuous existence, the impoverished tend to rely heavily on a social network for support. Thus, it is essential and necessary for them to maintain relationships within the community. We believe that development projects should account for these relationships and the unique context of the particular community being helped. Any solutions to what Westerners would call “technical” problems should take into account the social, cultural, economic, and religious context.

Technical Knowledge

We seek to incorporate science and research components into development. We believe that science can and should be made practical for use by all people including those generally lacking an understanding of that science. We aim to give opportunities to scientists and researchers to use their skills in helping the impoverished gain scientific understanding. We strive for the transfer of technical knowledge from researcher to field staff and then from field staff to beneficiary.

Use of Demonstration

VI will seek to learn from the people their current techniques and methods for earning a living. They will then use demonstration, as it is the best learning strategy for people with little formal schooling, to teach methods that could improve their current practices. Demonstration allows VI to assume the risk of trying methods that are new to a given location before asking others to take on that risk. Then, there is no need for convincing people of the benefits; they see it for themselves.