About this issue... Contents The projects you’ll find here are successful because the people involved have pushed the powerful out of the way, so they could provide what was really needed: villages in Mexico training their own health workers in preventative medicine, despite the interference of a corrupt government; independent relief workers besting huge organizations, in the middle of a war urged on by opportunistic nationalists; neighborhood farms run by children, on poor land remaining from a conflict between uncaring superpowers; a community in Santa Cruz with an important role for the homeless, who’ve been left behind by a destructive capitalist economy. For their opponents, who wield power, problems that should overwhelm any single individual seem to demand solutions. The result is always a poor solution, which is why individuals shouldn’t wield such power. In Somalia, a superpower leader has decided to avoid responsible, sensitive approaches to a problem by sending in a clumsy occupation force, while a UN leader calls for even more authoritarian solutions, such as disarming an entire people. Whatever their motivations, these rulers avoid any solution that takes away their power, even if it’s clear that divestment of power is the only solution. We hope that this issue is full of evidence of the effectiveness of grassroots solutions, even when stunted by blind, greedy corporations and governments that steal people’s right to self-determination. A Peasant’s House in Bosnia, Bernard Rice. Wood engraving, 1924. Front Cover: A worker at Ecotopia’s campus, Bulgaria. See story page 44. Photo by Joke van Vliet. 2 Cabbages and Compassion In Santa Cruz, homeless people tend a bountiful garden, providing for the surrounding community. 10 Grassroots Relief in the Balkans A committed volunteer argues that small, community-level relief efforts really work in war-tom ex-Yugoslavia. 14 Piaxtla: Village-Organized Healthcare Few people in the Third World have access to healthcare. The poor Mexican village of Ajoya has vastly improved community health by adopting a self-care approach, relying on the training of local health workers. 20 The Oregon Marketplace How a small non-profit organization helped revive a local economy through self-reliance, connecting local producers instead of relying on import and export. 24 Reflllables Reuse should come before recycling, but this is hardly the emphasis in our throw-away economy. Chris Figenshau reviews the current state of one of the few systems of re-use: the refillable container. RAIN Volume XIV, Number 3 Spring 1993
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