This work describes the history and principles of the community development agency Service Volunteered for All (Servol) of Trinidad and Tobago. The founder, Father Gerard Pantin, a Catholic priest, began work with communities 23 years ago to overcome the problems of extreme poverty and hopelessness. Servol has established an island-wide network of 150 preschool centers and 40 adolescent training centers. The principles upon which Pantin founded his program included insistence on the inherent dignity of all participants. Servol programs appear to be dedicated primarily to preschool children and adolescents, but in fact they are oriented to parent and community education and to strengthening and assisting families. The preschool centers have come to resemble community centers, as they prepare children aged 3 to 5 to attend school in conditions of equality with middle class children. The adolescents displaced from public schools are equipped with technical training and knowledge of human relations they need to maintain stable employment. The knowledge gained from Servol's activities has gradually been combined into a unified force to repair the damage of a society in disintegration. The increased economic problems resulting from structural adjustment programs are being confronted in part through the parent outreach program, which seeks contacts with the poorest families. Recently UNESCO honored Servol as one of the 20 best popular education programs in the world.
While child survival programs are making headway, the young people who have survival childhood in Latin America and the Caribbean are living in poverty, dropping out of school, and generally suffering to the extent that their potential contributions to society are obviated. For more than 2 decades, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have been using innovative programs to combat these ills. The Inter-American Foundation (IAF), for example, has devoted 5% of its budget to youth-oriented development during the past 25 years. To choose appropriate recipients, the IAF has worked with NGOs to achieve a workable balance between designing quality programs around the developmental needs of a specific age cohort which keep in mind the myriad socioeconomic factors affecting the well-being of these children. One such program, in Santiago, Chile, provides recreational activities which allow low-income children to build their sense of community, instill values, and bolster self-esteem. With these connections in place, other problems, such as domestic violence, can be addressed. Donors must also choose between programs which aid children directly or those which work indirectly through the family and community. The key to making this decision is keeping the developmental needs of the children in mind. Programs must also be flexible and expect a constant turnover of membership, since youth is a time of transition. It is also vital to include youth in program design and implementation. In addition, donors must find ways to stretch limited resources; for example, by developing alternative strategies for youth development that can be expanded (such as providing technical support to community-based alternative schools). It is also important for information about innovative projects to be shared. Increasing international concern about the plight of children has opened the way for NGOs to play a broader role. The UN World Summit on Youth in 1990 and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child provided a framework for a policy dialogue between public and private groups working on behalf of children. NGOs can also influence policy, and the children they serve can play an important lobbying role.
Over the past three decades, programs to reduce infant and child mortality have spread to most regions of the globe, and improvements in mortality levels have raised life expectancy in developing countries from 50 years in 1965 to over 60 in 1986. Many of the surviving children, however, are impoverished, poorly educated, and living in inhospitable environments. Conditions have worsened for many in the recent past; the World Bank estimates that the proportion living in extreme poverty has increased from 22.4% in 1985 to 25.5% in 1990 in Latin America and the Caribbean. Extreme poverty, once a largely rural phenomenon, has been brought to the cities by millions of rural migrants. War and civil disturbances in many areas have added to the problems of children. UNICEF estimates that 1.5 million children have been killed and six million incapacitated in armed conflicts in the past decade. Advances in education have not kept pace with advances in child survival. In South America, 99% of children begin primary school, but only 48% finish the fourth grade. An estimated 100 million children worldwide leave school by the fifth grade. The very young age structures in most developing countries increase the difficulty of meeting the needs of children and youth. Means must be found to escape the downward spiral of poverty, excessive population growth, and environmental damage. Population control, infant and general mortality reduction, and education reduce the impact of this vicious cycle. Despite the proven contribution of improved female education to child survival, lower fertility, and improved living standards, many poor countries continue to discriminate against girls in education. The examples of some Asian countries such as Korea and Taiwan suggest that investment in primary and secondary education for all broadens the base for development and leads to longterm political stability. International donors, development agencies, and other organizations should invest in human capital so that poverty, rapid population growth, and environmental degradation acting synergistically do not become the dominant mode of underdevelopment in the next century.
Economists are very much interested in theories of impossibility, especially in those that demonstrate that it is impossible for the world economy to increase to the point of solving poverty and the environmental degradation. In its physical aspects, the economy is an open subsystem of the terrestrial ecosystem, which is finite in material resources. As the economic subsystem grows, it incorporates an increasing proportion of the total ecosystem. For this reason, development is not sustainable. The term sustainable development, as it applies to the economy, is a contradiction. The economists claim that the growth of the gross national product is a combination of quantitative and qualitative increase and is not subject to the laws of physics. They are right to some degree, because growth means natural material increase by assimilating accretion, while development denotes expansion to slowly realize the opportunities for a state of conditions that are more, bigger, or better. When something grows, size increases. However, when something develops, different things happen. The terrestrial ecosystem develops but does not grow. Its subsystem, the economy, can continue to develop. Thus, sustainable development means development without growth, qualitative improvement which maintains the interchange of material-energy found within regenerative capacities of the ecosystem. In fact, the term sustainable development utilizes as a synonym the contradiction of sustainable growth. Politically, it is very difficult to admit that growth has its limits. The earth will not tolerate the multiplication of grain harvests 64 times only because in the last centuries a culture has developed that depends on exponential growth for its economic stability. The growth of agricultural plants is not sustainable. For plants there is a limit that the earth can support, as there is a limit for humans and cars, with dire consequences for those who ignore this fact.
Tropical forests are the most important resource of rural communities, offering nutrition, housing, and spiritual sustenance. Yet millions of people dependent on the forests often have no legal means of voicing their views in national policies affecting forests. Tropical forests disappear by the thousands of square miles every year. In the 1980s the rate of deforestation increased by 80% because of accelerated agricultural development, mining, road construction, and timber production. This also meant the destruction of the habitats of innumerable species of plants and animals, with unforeseeable consequences for the global climate. The adoption of community silviculture is fundamental for the utilization of timber resources and the improvement of agricultural activities while preserving pristine forests. At the University of Chiang Mai, Thailand, the sociocultural aspects of self-help and self-dependence relating to development are emphasized. As a component of rural integrated development, community silviculture was adopted in the 1970s. In the US social silviculture was institutionalized in the 1930s by the Civil Conservation Corps. It was demonstrated clearly that stable ownership of both forests and land is the foundation of effective silvicultural projects. However, often local inhabitants' rights have been ignored when clearing major forest tracts for agroindustrial enterprises. Silviculture projects for the community require five components for success: 1) leadership; 2) organizational base; 3) equal participation of community members for the distribution of benefits; 4) the ability to bring in effective external capital; and 5) good financial management for continuous operation. A number of innovative projects have been launched using environmentally viable technology for sustainable production in Mexico (Yanesha Forestry Cooperative) and in Peru (the Quintana Roo natural regeneration project).
