Grassroots Development Quotes

“Pretending that the locals ran the Western NGOs was a way to entice donors, grassroots was no longer a true goal but a buzzword. Sadly, the goal was not to empower true local leadership, but to find token locals to be token champions with no real decision-making power...
But I always knew true, long-term change cannot happen without involving the community.”
― Kennedy Odede, Find Me Unafraid: Love, Loss, and Hope in an African Slum

“I am not your run-of-the-mill scholar. My philosophy comes from the streets. My science comes from the soil.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Woman Over World: The Novel

“Leave the pedestals for the stuffed animals. You for one, take the ground. Take the ground, work the ground, live the ground, and lift the ground.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Ingan Impossible: Handbook of Hatebusting

“Soil, The Sonnet

My skin is the color of soil,
My covers are the color of soil.
My heart is the color of soil,
My blood is the color of soil.

Species that forgets the soil,
Is a lifeform abandoned by nature.
Species that values sales over soil,
Will soon be vaporized or drowned by nature.

If we have no place for soil in our heart,
How can we expect the soil to replenish us!
If we have no place for nature in our heart,
How can we expect nature to have a place for us!

Only soil is real, all else is delusion.
Advancement that has no regard for the soil,
is but aneurysm destined for degeneration.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mucize Misafir Merhaba: The Peace Testament