Basic Development Projects
 All CHOICE projects are designed to be self-sustaining,
to leverage other resources, and ultimately to
make the village completely self-sufficient.
Where construction is involved, for example,
the village is responsible for providing virtually
all labor and natural materials. CHOICE provides
only supplies too expensive for the village to
afford, and skilled project management so that
the project succeeds. With our help, the village
usually secures large additional resources from
area governments; if the village and CHOICE build
a schoolhouse, for example, then the government
provides a full-time teacher and school supplies.
By the end, natural village leaders have emerged
and learned to organize and complete projects
on their own.
Our seasoned in-country staff works hard to
ensure that we never do anything for villagers
that they can do for themselves.
Classroom construction: In many of our villages,
children must walk for up to two hours just to
be able to attend school. Coupled with cultures
that don’t yet place a strong value on
education, this results in many children not
receiving even basic schooling.
$7,000 for 2 rooms.
Clinic construction: In these poor, rural villages,
health clinics are even more rare than primary
schools. This makes it extremely difficult to
provide the most basic care for illnesses typical
in the area, or a clean environment for childbirth.
It can often mean the difference between life
and death. In the case of a major fracture, laceration
or burn, a person can die from the rigorous journey
for hours on bad mountain roads. With a clinic,
they can be stabilized well enough to make it
to the regional hospital.
$7000-$8000
Village water system: In most of the villages
where CHOICE works, one in eight children will
die before age 5. The greatest danger, by far,
is waterborne disease. A village water system
provides not only safe water for drinking, but
also enough clean water for simple hygiene in
food preparation. A typical water system consists
of tapping a natural spring, transporting it
to a storage tank, and gravity-feeding it to
the homes of the village.
$4000-$15000
Rain harvesting systems: In arid regions that
don’t have natural springs, a village water
system is impractical. Instead, CHOICE works
with villagers to install a system for capturing
rain from the roofs of their homes during the
wet season, then storing it in large water cisterns
for use throughout the dry months. This provides
clean drinking water throughout the year and
eliminates the need for these families to drink
from the same stagnant ponds that they wash clothing
in, bathe in, and share with their livestock.
$500 each
Family pit latrines: Equally important in preventing
disease is having a basic latrine. Simply keeping
human waste in a contained area and preventing
groundwater contamination directly improves the
health of everyone in the village. It is also
critical to education on proper hygiene in other
areas.
$150 each
Lorena stoves: In most CHOICE project areas,
women and young children spend hours each day
in the smoke-filled cooking area. That makes
upper respiratory disease and permanent eye damage
a fact of life. These simple adobe stoves are
a vast improvement. They require less firewood—meaning
less impact on the local forest—and channel
smoke out of the cooking area to improve villagers’ health.
$50 each
Bio-gas digesters: This is a unique technology
that converts waste to fuel. The digesters process
cow manure, excess corn or rice stalks, and human
waste from a connected latrine into methane gas
for cooking, lighting and heating safely. Even
more than Lorena stoves, digesters reduce respiratory
and eye disease and demand on the local forest.
They also alleviate groundwater contamination
and produce a rich fertilizer to increase production
from local fields.
$600 each
Cooperative corn mill: In countries where corn
is the villagers’ staple food, women often
spend 4 hours each day just hand-grinding the
corn for tortillas. A corn mill can accomplish
the same thing in literally 5 minutes. Freeing
up 4 hours a day from a mother’s activities
translates into much more time and energy focused
on caring for and teaching her children. Under
CHOICE leadership, the women of the village organize
to own the machine cooperatively, each maintaining
and cleaning the mill for the day. CHOICE lends
villagers the initial investment; it is normally
repaid within a year, enabling CHOICE to fund
another village corn mill.
$2500
Micro-enterprise revolving fund: Because CHOICE
in-country staff work closely with many villagers,
always toward local self-reliance, they quickly
identify those who are most disciplined and entrepreneurial.
By lending them animals or simple equipment to
start a small business—and providing technical
assistance—CHOICE can sharply increase
opportunity for entire villages. All loans are
closely monitored and repaid with interest; the
interest covers our very limited management costs,
while the principal is continuously re-invested
in new micro-businesses. In a typical scenario,
a one-time investment of $10,000 enables 90 families
to establish small businesses over the course
of just 5 years…and the original capital
is ready for continued re-investment.
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