Community-Led Development
When a community partners with CWS, they are pulling themselves out of hunger or poverty. We're proud to be the toolbox they need to make sustainable change.
Throughout a CWS program, the community is at the helm. They weigh in on what their most urgent challenges are. As the program unfolds, CWS provides expert guidance, supplies and funding. Communities provide the time and effort to make the program successful. They care for shared gardens, help with construction, attend workshops, and mobilize their neighbors. When a new water system or other infrastructure element is finished, the community assumes responsibility for it.
When we invest in people who are vulnerable or under-served, they can fulfill their own goals.
The Movement for Community-Led Development
CWS has been a member of the Community-Led Development movement since 2015.
Learn more here.
Latest Updates
Hope and recovery for 800 Kenyan families after the desert locust emergency
In 2020, swarms of desert locusts resembling dark storm clouds descended ravenously on the East and greater horn of Africa. They roved through the region and flattened farms and pasture lands posing an unprecedented threat to the food security of millions of people and their livestock in already vulnerable areas. Farmers could do nothing but watch with dismay as the …
Poor Farming Families Change Their Lives in West Timor, Indonesia
“In the past, each family was only able to plant Chinese cabbage, tomatoes, and chili on about 100 square meters (2% of an acre) of land per family,” says Dominggus Liunokas. Dominggus is the leader of the Tosilo Toselo farmers group in Oe Ekam village in West Timor, Indonesia. “We could not eat vegetables year-round since there wasn’t enough water …
When Pipe Dreams Start Becoming Reality
“One of the aspirations of Plataforma NNAPES [and CWS]…is that children can be protagonists and speak with their own voice about their reality and can articulate their demands and their vision about this issue.” Martín Coria, CWS Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, said this in a 2016 interview that went on to be part of a documentary …