Strategy

EDUCATION and RESEARCH – ERI’s Living Labs, located in sub-Saharan Africa, provide the opportunity for hands-on education in sustainable development. We create a space of exchange between villagers, students, researchers, professors and experts from both Africa and around the world. Our EREV program offers fully accredited academic study abroad semesters in sustainable development and microfinance. This program joins teams of Senegalese and international students for a semester long program in which students work with local communities of a partner eco-village to design and implement development projects. We now offer a summer program through the University of California Los Angeles. For more information visit Earth Rights Ecovillage Institute.

BUILDING ECOLOGICALLY SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES – Much of our work focuses on the promotion and implementation of the Eco-village, a model of development which encourages communities to minimize their ecological footprint through conservation and effective use of natural resources, such as permaculture and Jatropha plantation. Eco-villages are a model that supports healthy human development. In accordance with the social norms and values of each community, eco-villages govern by consensus decision-making, based on an active choice to respect diversity.

ADVOCACY - ERI participates in and organizes awareness and advocacy campaigns that promote a healthy and sustainable world for all its inhabitants. ERI advocates a fair market economy, and is concerned in large part with land rights and land value capture/taxation policies that promote easy access to land and ownership, fundamental elements of sustainable development policies. To learn more about Land Rights issues and how you can make a difference sign up for the Earth Rights Institute Land Rights online program.