But if your product is, for instance, flour, we can give you advice on how to go about selling bread instead. To make such expansion possible, the infrastructure ventures continue. Local leaders have applied the telephone-cooperative model to other infrastructure projects. With guidance from Helping Ourselves, villages are building roads and sewage systems. Some have pegged electricity lines as their most pressing need, while others are drawing up plans to build their own schools.
Money is the main stumbling block.
Locals and valley governments may be willing to foot part of the bill, but completion funds for, say, a village sewage system are still hard to get. Sometimes the money does not come, but when it does, feasible plans are in place and ready for execution. Not all of the projects are geared toward selling more potatoes or bringing producers higher profits. Jaworski stresses that economic success cannot occur in a vacuum. Social ills must also be addressed.