PROGRAMME

As iiINTERest and Ahead Initiatives have taken on more project activities over the past decade, there has been a growing desire to integrate the various project activities into a more holistic effort. This became a reality on January 1, 2024, when we launched our program with new funding from CISU. The program runs over 4 years with the same total budget as we previously had for our projects combined, which is just under 12 million DKK.

With the program, we aim to demonstrate that it is possible to think about development in a more holistic way: that it is possible to simultaneously increase food security for the poorest, create more (craft-related) income opportunities, improve (primary) school education, and use After/Evening Schools to bring the village together socially and culturally through singing, dancing, theatre, and more. While the poorest 10% of the village residents, whom we have previously focused on, have a particular need for more food, the reality is that most of the other village residents—except for the very wealthiest—also do not get enough to eat in many of the rural areas where we work.

We also want to show how so-called ‘Village Councils’ can be (re)established, where all village residents, or at least most of them, participate and collaborate democratically to define and plan the development initiatives that they find most relevant for their context. The ambition is thus to create a much higher degree of direct democracy that starts locally in the villages and holds the political system accountable to its mandate and responsibility for the development and well-being of the rural population. Hopefully, this approach will eventually enable the residents to ensure a greater degree of food sovereignty, more local opportunities to create a dignified livelihood in harmony with the surrounding nature, and nurture the potential for intergenerational lifelong learning across the village.

On the following pages, you can read more about the program’s sub-goals: food sovereignty, ecological livelihoods, and intergenerational lifelong learning.

More information about the program will be available soon