This essay will discuss two educational programs to improve the living conditions of students from low income families that Pedro T. Orata conducted during the middle years of the twentieth century. The question this paper will investigate is whether Orata considered the people he was trying to help as being trapped by the conditions of poverty to…

This paper describes an organization developed by and for people with physical disabilities in Malaysia, as a case study of self-help action in the southeast Asia region. The paper reviews the origin and growth of the organization, its program of activities, and the nature and future of disability self-help. (Author/JDD)

A community water supply project in Cameroon illustrates the following constraints on community participation in development: paternalistic authorities, prescriptive role of the state, selective participation, bias toward "hard" issues, inattention to negative results, group conflicts, gatekeeping, pressure for immediate results,…

This special issue contains nine articles on labor-intensive public works, social investment funds, rural infrastructure projects, grassroots socioeconomic rights, remuneration systems for self-help projects, road construction and rural transport, employment and environmental rehabilitation, and water as a source of employment. (SK)

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…

The Fundacion Social, a grassroots organization in Colombia, uses profits from its 14 companies to fund community self-help initiatives aimed at eliminating poverty. Social programs focus on community integration, microbusinesses, recycling, education, and communication. The organization seeks to eliminate structural poverty and is currently…