Gary Sage said: I created ‘The 144 PROJECT’ - a way to create change in the world and make it 'stick', by building sustainable ‘Community Campus in a Box’ franchises that empower Developing Communities one community at a time.


WHY READ ANY FURTHER?
Africa is home to 70% of the ‘bottom billion’. Provide them with franchise; business facilities and partner with them and together they will fuel an enormous new economy. It would be truly stupid to ignore or disenfranchise those of the 700m who are potential producers and consumers and even venture capitalists of the future. What with the West and East poisoning the very space they live in Africa has the potential to become the worlds economic food basket.

Poverty, the chasm that separates the world's rich and poor is unnaturally wide. International Agencies and NGOs struggle with a daily burden of providing basic aid for millions who face malnutrition, AIDS, displacement, disease, conflict and illiteracy. It isn't chance or bad luck that keeps their clients hopeless; it’s bitter unrelenting poverty that sucks these people into its paralysing grasp.

It's not just man-made factors like a depraved global trade system and its self serving ideological clash with corruption; it’s not just foreign debt so great that it suffocates any chance of recovery or insufficient and ineffective aid. It’s lack of sound business opportunity and active empowering globally connected social networks in local communities.

Poverty paralyses entire communities. To war orphans and AIDS affected orphans in Africa human rights take on a different meaning - they are a matter or life and death for countless single infants and children who have no identity because they have no living family members whatsoever.

In the developed world the average person has no idea what it’s like to live without fully equipped community systems, systems that protect our human rights and provide all the ‘givens’ that define civilisation.

We know Africa is not full of stupid people, it's full of opportunity, and they already know how to catch a fish. Disrespectful? We don’t think so. By way of example, teach a community how to farm fish and sell fish and fish products, how to grow organic produce in a desert, and then we are talking business; then you have created real opportunity and delivered the components of real empowerment.

That being said, many of you are anti-poverty activists, millions give generously and contribute to charity, while others lobby for funding. Aid keeps millions from starving and dying every minute of the day, however there is a glaring issue. Traditional aid, as in ‘filling a begging bowl’, has yet to provide any community with an economic solution - it promotes dependency, period.


SO WHAT IS MISSING?
To wipe out poverty and consign it to history requires many contributors and to truly bring about real change, someone and something needs to be the contribution. To us the real opportunity lies far beyond passively or actively contributing; the real opportunity lies in being the contribution – being the contribution is about starting something that becomes the big idea that empowers communities that changes the world.

One important cause of unequal access to technology and modern community systems is the historical lack of joined up community access. It is this very lack of ‘a place to start’ that discourages many people and global companies from creating holistic solutions.


SO HOW DO WE START?
First I would like you to imagine a Community Campus In a Box - imagine a campus that is ethically, ecologically and environmentally sound and economically self-sustaining; a campus that supports and provides an entire living environment for 144 kids, kids who are AIDS affected and war orphans. Imagine proving these folks with a home that sustains their human ‘givens’ from cradle to career, by providing an integrated systemic approach to housing, pastoral care, water and sanitation, food, education, economic development, health, safety and community building.


SO WHERE DO WE START?
Let's start at community level and connect them all up. My vision is to kick-start by building 3 pilot franchises; each will provide up to 144 orphans with a title to land and a full service COMMUNITY CAMPUS IN A BOX franchise.

Oh you mean the place - let's start with a relatively ‘stable’ and known area of poverty that is a microcosm of the issues facing communities all over the developing world: providing a ‘home’ environment for AIDS affected and war orphans in Southern Africa – with an initial focus on Namibia followed by Angola and Southern Africa – followed by the world.


WHAT CAN YOU DO TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN?
Two things
1. Help me start-up the 144Project - help me to raise €25Million to establish a foundation and fund the first 3 pilot COMMUNITY CAMPUS IN A BOX orphanages – then if you are still on board – help me make the world a better place – one community at a time.

2. Get involved, I need an active empowering globally connected social network system of Entrepreneurs, Bankers, Lawyers, Auditors, Technologists, Educational masterminds, Agriculture innovators, telecommunications visionaries, Construction movers and shakers, Security and Safety, New world economists and of course special people with those special skills that don't have titles.


WHAT OPPORTUNITIES ARE IN IT FOR THE US WHO LIVE IN THE FIRST WORLD?
Fabulous opportunities abound, opportunities beyond many a person’s wildest dreams. You are not being expected to give up the good life. On the contrary – this 144Project is about creating a better life

What’s more, consumers are the solution to world poverty. They have a major direct effect on a huge intangible force that affects global markets of the world and its future. If we consider that G20 green house gas emissions are controlled directly or indirectly by consumers, and their lifestyle choices. The power to change is not really in the hands of faceless policymakers, anonymous bureaucrats and corporate goliaths; it’s largely in the hands of consumers because their lifestyle choices influence the very policies of the authorities.

When consumers put their individual skills and passions together, the cooperative force becomes more powerful than any single one of us. Wisdom of crowds, the hugely passionate sports supporters and lifestyle influencing teams, the power of love in families, they all point to this observation. What is important in this space is that the bigger the group, the more extraordinary the change they can effect. Nowhere is this truer than in supporting our actions and attitudes toward creating a richer and more sustainable world.

The opportunity base will become immediately apparent as the various components of the pilot COMMUNITY CAMPUS IN A BOXs are installed and implemented. We have no forecasting pretentions here because it goes without saying that all participants in the pilot would have a ‘front row’ seat at the table of an emerging opportunity and challenge. There is an added opportunity; the first phase steering committee will have a strong influence over the technological and consulting direction and further commercial opportunities.

If you are serious about making the world a better place and are looking for opportunity – let’s talk.

Ari Krepostman Spot on insight. Definitely would love to hear more about this and get nvolved in any way possible.