Beginning this year, Meridian is teaming with CHOICE Humanitarian on a project to eliminate extreme poverty in a region of Nepal that includes 100,000 people. Many of you have already joined our Circle of Abundance in raising money for the project. Devin Thorpe, has just mentioned this project and the efforts of Jim Mayfield in his column in Forbes magazine. Here’s an excerpt and link:
Dr. James Mayfield has spent much of his life working to end poverty and he thinks he’s got it figured out.
“Go to the people, live among the people, learn from the people, plan with the people, work with the people, start with what the people know, and build on what the people have,” he says.
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The CHOICE model has three distinct phases:
- Organizing: All projects are village based and begin by having the village identify leaders and key community resources to build upon; this process can take up to one year.
- Mobilizing: The village, over the course of two to three years, develops and completes discrete projects with the help of local government leaders, NGOs and CHOICE resources; the key is what the village learns about completing projects and making change happen.
- Institution Building: After three or four years, the village begins to develop a stronger local economy and greater independence with better connections to the national government and national economy, allowing the village to carry on the work of lifting itself out of poverty