Select PDF Print E-mail Building Sustainable Communities

At Lift Kids, our focus is on sustainable development - helping to develop sustainable communities based on our comprehensive model which measures progress based on all factors of sustainability. Sustainability is viewed as an integrated whole consisting of these five interdependent components: Economic, Environment, Culture and Community, Health and Security.

In economic terms, self-sustaining means that the village creates enough revenue through diverse business opportunities to pay the village's operating expenses for schools, orphanages, medical clinics, and other services essential to breaking the cycle of extreme poverty.

Lift Kids understands their responsibility to the environment, because it's the environment that will, in turn, sustain the people of the village. The greatest contribution Lift Kids can make in this regard is to identify and manage environmental risks by facilitating the transfer of environmentally clean technologies, designs and practices.

Lift Kids respects the culture and traditions of the communities where we work. Local communities are engaged in development. Projects are village-driven, based on buy-in and ownership by the community.

In much of the developing world, the ability to work depends on an individual's health. Lift Kids understands this situation and works to ensure that the development of the village includes or provides for sustainable healthcare.