• Shared participation:

Without the contribution and the participation of the community to the alternative suggestions and projects it is very hard to reach our goals. The methodologies of observation, of human dimension analysis between the stake holders and the focus groups, allow GEA’s projects and the solutions elaborated to be shared, co-generated with the community and thus to have a wide participation base.

 

• Formation:

This is the aspect of cooperation which is least expensive but at the same time it’s the planning approach which offers the highest guarantee of success. The knowledge and the understanding of the problems of failed sustainable development generate awareness and set off natural processes of recovery and research of alternative solutions in the communities.

The cause of almost all of environmental degradation is the lack of knowledge of alternative solutions. GEA’s projects try to facilitate this knowledge through informal courses of formation-education on the field, modelled on the local cultures, with the participation of the community.

• Low cost:
  

Cooperation often has extremely high costs, together with a scarcity of results, and our country is just another example of this. GEA’s projects, differently from many other institutional forms of cooperation for development, are all extremely low cost. We don’t build infrastructures, we don’t bring materials, aid or other such stuff, but we offer awareness, and low cost formation. Here too, in fact, we employ volunteers which have participated to the phases of environmental monitoring, and which have thus developed very specific knowledge of the problems of the area and which can participate in the realization and implementation of the demonstrative and formative projects. The knowledge of the factors and the will of this voluntary labour, in fact, side by side and supervised by experts with an adequate preparation on the field, are sufficient for conducting a valid and effective work.