Community Development Projects
Empowering Communities – Eradicating Poverty
Beginnings
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Marie Louise Irving, who retired after 35 years of accomplished community development work, had a vision to help end world poverty. In 2012, Marie started training leaders in extremely poor African communities. Leaders were equipped with skills and knowledge to help themselves and villagers transform their lives by using local resources.
Marie self-funded her work until 2019 when CDP was incorporated as a registered charity.
In 2021, Marie’s autobiography “Unstoppable” was published by Tiffany House Australia.
She wrote
“Sometimes in poverty-stricken villages, it is hard to articulate beyond the obvious need for water, food, shelter, shoes and clothing.”
“Then it happened, the roaring sound of touch down at Nairobi airport. Now, I was for the third time in Keyna, and having worked on the Community Development course, I was excited to teach it.”
” Instead of relying on overseas aid, they learned to identify their specific needs and then find those in their community who might have the skills, knowledge and resources to meet those needs. This was a welcomed start and the very first step in the eight-hour course. Each village then organised community banking. By collaborating, they set up small businesses. I dreamed this program would be taught throughout Africa and be taken into all the developing countries in the world.”
“The students were about to graduate from the first ever Community Developoment course. To celebrate, I decided to call a formal ceremony to present their certificates. Knowing about African time, I knew I would be waiting around a bit, so I handed out a questionnaire. I wanted to find out what they had done with the training, whether they began the projects, how they improved their families and communities, and their plans. When the questionnaires were returned, I was stunned to read that each village had done something different. “We have started chicken farms, and we are raising goats, pigs, sheep, rabbit and fish.
We are growing vegetables. We have a welding business, brickmaking business, tailoring shop, a hairdresser shop, and even a driving school for motorbike drivers.” “They had done all of this using the eight-hour teaching given them the previous year. They had formed groups with very little money and started saving and set up income-producing businesses, just as they had been taught.
My first reaction was, “oh, are they telling me the truth?” So, I organised for an independent survey team to go and visit the twenty villages. They came back and told me, “They are not at all exaggerating, and we found them faithfully doing as they had said.”
