Community
Independence Initiative
CII is the implementation division of the Center for Peer-driven Change. Through CII we operate CII-Liberia and will temporarily start and operate other demonstration sites. CII is part of the collaborative of partner sites coordinated by the Center for Peer-driven Change.
Peer-driven Change
History is replete with examples of people helping themselves and each other from barn raisings to building entire all-black towns after slavery – all this happened before there was a ‘helping sector’. There is a growing awareness that the embedded power of outsiders who are seeking to help may be a barrier to the very change they want. How can we shift the power for change back to everyday people? ‘Peer-driven Change’ is a key strategy for this shift. ….
Mutuality Platform
This online platform allows participants from all over the world to connect and help each other. It contains elements of Facebook, GoFundMe and LinkedIn and is an open platform that any group that shares our values of self-help and mutuality can join.
Residents already lead some of the best local efforts though facing huge barriers of discrimination and paternalism. Those efforts go unrecognized and un-resourced. On the Mutuality Platform residents can come together, learn from each other, inspire and even pool funds together to advance their own agendas. The Mutuality Platform also lets diaspora and supporters to invest directly in resident led efforts.
CII Demonstrations
Approximately 6 billion people, about 80% of the world’s population, live in and around poverty. Not waiting for government or programs, CII supports self-help initiatives, led by the participant’s themselves as they work together. In Liberia, our surveys discovered a multitude of ventures and community projects that the residents had take up to get ahead or survive. We credited those efforts and then invested just $100 to each participant willing to share their progress monthly. Within 6 months 59% more than doubled their income and their efforts more than doubled the jobs created for others. Within 3 years incomes grew almost 400% and they are now forming their own groups to improve the community. Also within those 3 years this approach grew from Liberia to eleven countries and 19 different sties. In all cases the families declare and demonstrate they do better with this approach than in any of the countless programs that have tried to help them.
Stories, Data & Postings
Included are the inspiring stories of the self help initiatives that CII partners with. Shared are the lessons learned and how supporting their efforts creates new pathways towards showcasing capacity, shifts mindsets and shapes a more just “ Mutuality Society”.
“Mutuality Demonstrations represent nothing short of a much needed systems change. With the Mutuality Platform, this important peer-driven change model will scale, to the benefit of all of us.”
– Bob Spoer, Ashoka
“This is truly an Alternative Approach that puts individuals, families and their communities in charge.”
– Jeff Edleson, Dean, School of Social Welfare, University of California at Berkeley
Mutuality
Is The Alternative
What is called The Alternative represents a different starting set of values that are chronicled in the book, The Alternative: Most Of What You Believe About Poverty Is Wrong.