Rural Community Development Initiative

What entails a “sustainable youth livelihood”?

Am working in a youth organisation that we co-founded with my fellow youth here in Thika,Kenya and we have been involved in community projects even with local and international organisations like GTZ-PSDA programme,FAO-SARD Initiative.Through this we have really reached-out to many needy youths in our rural and village areas.Our organisation which is Youth Intercommunity Network,we have been working for and with the youths to enhance “youth participation in sustainable development”.Though we would like to understand from other peoples perspective what can we call a sustainble livelihood for the youths and what activities can we implement or put in place to achieve it? Also we welcome those organisations and individuals who have been in this field before to come and we join hands to achieve this suitable livelihoods for our youths.Please answer us and let’s educate each other.

There are different types of livelihoods. They vary in types of needs met, numbers of people with the needs met, and rate of change of needs met for people over time.

The needs are:
- physical: food, water, shelter from envt
- safety: from disease, predators, etc…
- love: community, affection, etc…
- esteem: respect, position, etc…

The scope of needs are:
a – self
b – a and mate
c – b and children
d – c and extended family
e – d and community
f – e and other communities

The rates of change of meeting of needs are:
- constant
- decreasing
- increasing

The quantity of people grow over time, so need grows over time. Population change where food is infinite, is exponential growth. There are no places where food is infinite, so the growth is “logistic”, or it follows a logistic curve. Although there are limits to the system the world is very able to support new growth.

The US is a very “developped” nation, but it makes so much food that it sells to other nations. Only a few percent (under 5) live in the kind of apartment that has only one room, most apartments, and houses have from 2 to 5 different rooms, clean running water, electrical lighting, appliances, heating and cooling. The poor in the US are fat, so much so that it is causing a health crisis. The US is considered a first world country. When a family is so poor they can not feed their children, the children are fed. The only reason a US citizen goes hungry is a mental illness causing them not to eat. This state of affairs was around long before globalization.

Third world places, like Kenya, have a huge capacity for growth, but are not utilizing it. Very unwise governments that allow widespread corruption and exploitation, and cultural norms that also enable the corruption, have created climates where the poor live in huts, hunger is common, and death by starvation actually occurs. Disease rates, especially preventable disease rates, are astronomically high. The factors limiting the individual wealth, and sufficiency are primarily social.

Sustainable development in these countries is a combination of teaching methods of developing resources, and working to influence governmental policies and defective cultural norms.

In a first world country sustainable development means planning growth of needs and growth of meeting those needs so they are equally matched, and sustainable for long time scales (like hundreds of years). The technology, especially how the industries us it, and its impact on the environment are the primary arenas where the battle for sustainable development is fought in the US.

In a third world country sustainable development means working through and around the man-imposed limits on meeting needs as best as possible, and trying to remove those limits so the false, man-imposed very low ceiling on meeting needs is displaced. The primary adversary in a third world country isnt the industry or technology, but human imposed limits… people are the arena. Corruption on individual, community, and national levels radically limits the overall needs-met, the overall productivity, and the wealth of the nation in a third world country.

When integrity, hard work, and understanding (engineering/scientific like understanding, not just speak the same language, or get along without eating each other) are a fundamental community value then people dont go hungry, trade surpluses and exports can be developed and maintained, and growth can occur. When profit is made it can be re-invested not in individual luxury, but continous, long-term, sustainable, community profitability. That long-term vision that serves todays needs, tomorrows needs, and the needs of your great grandchildren and their grandchildren along with a vision for continuous growth for the entire community, is what is really meant by sustainable development.

Like the war in Iraq, it can only be won if the youths adopt the values that enable the idea. If they cannot be honest, hard-working, or just then “sustainable development” is just a sequence of sounds that really means “a continuance of exploitation and corruption”.

Modernizing main street: Rutgers University’s Entrepreneurship Pioneers Initiative hopes to revitalize New Jersey’s urban centers by putting the … from: Diverse Issues in Higher Education $9.95 This digital document is an article from Diverse Issues in Higher Education, published by Cox, Matthews & Associates on September 2, 2010. The length of the article is 1588 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.Citation DetailsTitle: Modernizin…

HUD’s national community development initiative: Hearing before the Subcommittee on General Oversight, Investigations, and the Resolution of Failed … Congress, second session, April 19, 1994 …

Approaches That Work in Rural Development: Emerging Trends, Participatory Methods and Local Initiatives (Ierd Series, Vol 3) $16.00 …