Village Earth has dedicated leadership and a great staff and volunteers. Their clients are more than just their mission; they are also friends and global community members. Village Earth has an important mission and I've always admired how they operate according to their ideals.
Village Earth has the right mix of values and support for our challenging efforts in Burundi, East Africa to turn the corner on years of civil war, the legacy of the European colonization that fomented inter-tribal conflicts and tensions. We are working to pioneer new curricula at the University of Ngozi that promotes the inclusion of peace building into all disciplines and out into the schools and community.
Village Earth has been an invaluable partner to Empowering Youth in Cambodia (EYC, www.eycambodia.org) since 2006, and as an affiliate program we feel lucky to be involved with an organization that understands the issues and challenges we're tasked to work within in international development. Village Earth's philosophy has guided EYC and been instrumental to our ability to work in marginalized communities with few conflicts and many successes.
Eco Village is helping to take our story Worldwide. Its very useful for a small non for profit like us to get their support as there is no other way for us to reach the world attention.
Its very encouraging what they are doing. I wish them very best to continue their great positive impact on Mother Nature.
A professional organisation with a great mission, I am very impressed with how 'ahead of its time' Village Earth is. They are not an organisation that tells others what to do, instead they provide their affiliates (such as the organisation I work for in Cambodia) with the resources for us to realise that ourselves.
I am a big believer in empowerment and sustainability instead of direct aid, and the Village Earth Approach is just that. I am proud to be a VE affiliate.
Village Earth does amazing work in supporting non-profits from the Reservations in South Dakota. Their work with land mapping and housing assessments have contributed to many aspiring projects and ability for them to move forward with their projects
For the past 3 years, I have proudly served as a board member for Village Earth. In that time, I have seen the impact of their work first hand. From teaching development practitioners innovative new approaches to helping empower communities to follow their local vision for the future, Village Earth supports real and positive grassroots change. The Village Earth approach treats each community and individual with dignity and allows them to set the path forward. That means in each location, Village Earth's work takes on a distinct shape. They've worked to help start buffalo co-ops on the Lakota Pine Ridge reservation and protect indigenous land from oil development and logging in the Peruvian Amazon. Their willingness to adapt to any situation makes them a truly unique and caring partner in the development world and sets them apart from other NGOs.
I have worked and volunteer for Village Earth since the 1990's. Village Earth was one of the pioneers of the "Vision Workshops," a process where community members are empower to participate in the creation of a roadmap to their dreams. I have seen, first hand VE assist several Tyospayes-families at the Pine Indian Reservation in the creation of their buffalo cooperatives and community projects. Also, I have been a witness of the projects that Village Earth has supported in the Amazon jungle, where they have facilitated vision workshops and created videos to help indigenous communities with land and water issues.
Unlike most NGO's who work with Indigenous communities around the world, VE never tells communities what they should do, instead it facilitates a process in which "all" community members have a saying in creating a plan to attain their goals. VE does this because it acknowledges that the community are the experts of their own lives and are more than capable at finding creative solutions to their own problems. Doing so, it has proven most effective than most NGO's who come in as experts telling communities what they should do.
I support the work of Village Earth 100% because it has the right approach and because it works.
Raul O. Paz Pastrana
http://raulpazfilms.com
I have followed Village Earth for about a dozen years and am always extremely impressed with the work they have done, and the changes Village Earth has made in thousands of lives all over the world. Almost 3 decades ago, Village Earth evolved from the International Institute for Sustainable Development. The village based, grass roots, extremely effective model that results in sustainable programs and projects in all cultures.
I had the privilege to work with Village Earth on one of their projects with the The Lakota Buffalo Caretakers Cooperative of Pine Ridge. Their work with members of the Oglala Lakota Nation was based on dignity, respect and a genuine interchange of ideas and open communication. I highly Recommend Village Earth.
Village Earth has solidified themselves as a trusted and dignified participant in local and global activities related to sustainable community development, indigenous sovereignty, and human rights in general. It has been a pleasure partnering with Village Earth as an anthropology student during my education at Colorado State University, and now as a business owner of Sweet Grass Consulting, LLC. We have partnered with VE on initiatives located in several Lakota reservations throughout South Dakota involving economic development, household characteristics, homelessness, and poverty reduction. David Bartecchi is respectful, motivated, and is able to accomplish multi-faceted tasks in a timely, culturally appropriate manner.
I like supporting small grassroots organizations and projects, and that is why I support Village Earth. They provide the means to learn about and support many grassroots indigenous groups and projects by providing a web presence for them. Without Village Earth it would be very hard to find and support these organizations. The process is easy and straight forward. Their list of affiliates spans the globe.
I moved to Fort Collins in 2008, and soon after I learned about Village Earth. I have experience doing the type of work they promote and so I was very curious to meet them. I did and was impressed by their open mindedness, humility and generosity with respect to grassroots work; specially their honest commitment to bottom-up development or more precisely, empowerment of everyday people who have been violently and unfairly disenfranchised and silenced. I built a closer relation and couldn't be happier when asked to join as a board member because of my experience in Colombia working with a similar organization, Jenzera (jenzera.org). Do check them out, get in their mailing list, and consider donating. I'm only giving it 4 stars because I don't believe anyone should get a perfect score ;)