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CHOICE views development as a people-oriented process requiring a carefully balanced allocation of resources; a precise configuration of human energy, technology, and organization that aims to accurately reflect the needs and aspirations of the people involved. CHOICE believes that true development is best seen in terms of "people development," which emphasizes individual knowledge, will, and purpose. This perspective is supported by Roland Bunch, former Central American representative for World Neighbors and author of Two Ears of Corn, the fundamental guide on achieving success with community-based agriculture. Bunch asserts, "Development is a process whereby people learn to take charge of their own lives and solve their own problems ".
CHOICE’s long term goal is to establish local institutions that can eventually function without outside supervision. These autonomous institutions may take the form of cooperatives, village committees, women’s organizations, small scale enterprises that enhance employment opportunities, or social and cultural organizations that stimulate villager pride and individual dignity. Villagers, however, are taught not to be limited by any of the systems that may have been established with the help of CHOICE; the ultimate goal is to teach villagers to rely on their own ingenuity. Roland Bunch explains, “The goal is to train and motivate the villagers to teach each other the innovations introduced and, on the other hand, to teach them how to improve on those innovations by themselves."
CHOICE assists these village organizations in building a network of resources outside their traditional boundaries. This process of gaining 'social capital'* allows them access to the tools, resources and knowledge to develop their own solutions to their own needs. The process requires a long-term commitment. It also requires the training of local village leaders to be para-professionals in development work. CHOICE teaches the skills and principles of development by guiding the village through the process of self-evaluation, community consensus of the greatest felt needs, and by exposing villagers to possible solutions. CHOICE supports the villagers in the mobilization of their own resources in order to carry out the chosen solution. Assistance and intervention from CHOICE is provided only in areas that villagers cannot provide for themselves.
When village enthusiasm is coupled with sound development training, CHOICE begins its departure process and allows the village leadership and structures take over. This is not a clean cut but a gradual process. As understanding, knowledge, skills and networks strengthen, the need for oversight and guidance weakens.
"The development process, whereby people learn, grow, become organized, and serve each other, is much more important than the greener rice fields and fatter coin purses that result. Although the two must go hand in hand, the ‘how it is done’ matters more than the ‘what is accomplished.’ Neither giving things to people nor doing thing for people will be of much long-term benefit, and both may have serious negative side effects. Development is basically a process whereby people learn to participate constructively in the solving of their own problems. The driving force behind this participation is enthusiasm; the direction in which the people must move is toward gradually increasing participation; and the goal is that the program itself gradually be lost in, and replaced by, a totally participatory movement of the people, by the people, and eminently for the people." -Roland Bunch.
The CHOICE approach is to develop people, their skills, knowledge and networks through the carrying out of physical projects in the village. As villagers become organized, well trained and are making progress, CHOICE fades from the scene. How long a program lasts and how much it spreads to other villages after CHOICE leaves, is the real test of the effectiveness of the development. CHOICE will never reach every village in the world, or even all the villages of a single country, but if we can teach villagers the skills of self-development and that knowledge spreads throughout the region, the long-term, doubling impact will be far greater than the initial limited resources of CHOICE Humanitarian could possibly begin to cover.
*Social Capital: a person's or group's sympathy toward another person or group that may produce a potential benefit, advantage, and preferential treatment for another person or group beyond that which might be expected in an exchange relationship, or in simple terminology, the process of networking or creating social networks. | 
Mission Statement
