From the ground up: grassroots organizations making social change

Abstract

In the Egyptian Delta, hours away from the nearest city, is a small village called Basaisa that is different from most of the villages in the delta because of its socio-economic transformation, engineered by a small grassroots organization, the Basaisa Community Cooperative (BCC). The BCC literally transformed the prospects of several thousand villagers both by providing needed services such as job training and supporting collective action aimed at transforming existing institutions. For Mona Ismael, the daughter of poor farmers, the Basaisa initiative provided educational opportunities and supported the creation of a savings and loan infrastructure that changed her life. Using skills she learned from the BCC, coupled with small loans from the BCC savings and loan, she successfully started a small business and now makes over 1500 LE a month, about what her parents make in a year. Over the years, more than 50 grassroots, change-oriented organizations had been initiated within several hours’ drive of this village, but the majority of these had failed. This raises the question of why the BCC was so successful in promoting and sustaining change, while a multitude of similar organizations foundered and, more importantly, why we know so little about small, local-change organizations. Chetkovich and Kunreuther provide the answers to many of these questions in From the Ground Up.

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