A single project includes approximately 1 million people with some 20 Resource Access Units. The Village Earth Model holds that villagers already possess the seeds of their own development. Unlike traditional methods, it employs a bottom-up approach to development. It listens rather than dictates. It provides access to resources rather than aid.
Pilot projects are already underway in India and Indonesia.
Recently, three members of the consortium's board of directors toured the university system of Indonesia at the invitation of the director of private universities in the Ministry of Higher Education, sharing their vision of sustainable village-based development. Then when asked whether they would go to the village if there were real opportunities there for which they could use their newly acquired university training, approximately one-third said they would. Unless a mechanism is created to empower the residents of rural areas to participate fully in the extensive resources available, the vast human potential of the rural populations will be wasted, and the future of the planet Earth will see most of its citizens living in poverty as a permanent underclass. This program can radically and rapidly put in place, in rural communities strategically located around the world, resource access mechanisms that release and empower millions of people in rural villages to participate vigorously in the 21st century.