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INDIA
A group of stonebreakers have formed a co-operative, bought their own tools and freed themselves from exploitation by a contractor.

MAURITANIA
A farming improvement scheme is being based on traditional agricultural methods – rather than the high technology approach that often drives small farmers into debt.

AUSTRALIA
A bi-cultural aborigine school is being financed – the government refuses to fund it because the local community will not relinquish control.

MEXICO
An illegal squatter settlement that is a constant thorn in the side of the city authorities has set up its own community enterprises and workshops.

BANGLADESH
A health programme is training paramedics from village people to give health care in rural areas where doctors refuse to work.

PARAGUAY
A legal programme helps Indian communities get a secure title to their land so that it can’t be taken from them by commercial interests.

COLOMBIA
An advice centre provides factory workers with up-to-date information on labour legislation and on government health and safety regulations.

HONDURAS
A women’s chicken project is improving levels of nutrition and allowing women to organize themselves and achieve more independence in a male-dominated society.

INDIA
A harijan farmer organization is pooling one-acre plots to farm co-operatively and breaking their dependence on the moneylenders.

FIJI
A programme is supporting community opposition to the damaging cultural and economic effects of nuclear bomb tests.

MALAYSIA
A research centre investigates multinational corporations and runs education programmes so that Malaysians become aware of the ways in which the companies effect their lives.

MALI
A group of women, mostly of polygamous marriages, have set up their own cloth production co-operative to give even the poorest of their group an independent source of income.

BRAZIL
A scheme is helping fishermen and women cut out exploitative middlemen by marketing their own produce – and helping them influence government policy towards the fishing industry.

UPPER VOLTA
A village health scheme is setting up its own pharmacy to sell basic medicines and break the hold of local monopoly traders and drug company salesmen.

PERU
A nutrition and health programme in the capital’s slums has also helped organize the communities to obtain basic services from the city authorities.