Generating income for social change: a Mexican experiment in solidarity

The paper presents a brief account of a development programme in southern Mexico. DESMI AC, a Mexican NGO based in the southern state of Chiapas, provides and encourages economic and educational assistance to groups of marginalised indigenous Indians, in order to help them improve their quality of life. In the early days, DESMI's efforts were focused on health and training in cooperatives. As ideas on social development themselves changed, so DESMI gave increasing emphasis to education and production, stressing the need for collectively organized productive activities to be underpinned by a shared understanding of and commitment to the broader objective of social transformation, as well as being backed up with administrative skills. Abstract supplied by kind permission of CABI.