Sustainable development is a controversial phrase. Some people feel it’s an oxymoron and others bandy it about, as though it’s going out of fashion (maybe it is!). The reason it invokes such great passion, is probably to do with the environmental implications of development and the sense that development is inherently linked with greater consumption and therefore is environmentally unsustainable.

We have a couple of issues with this. The first is that there seems to be an assumption that ‘development’ follows a linear and singular path, where developing communities are destined to emulate the over-consumptive habits of high income countries.

The second is that marginalised and poor communities should be the ones to cut back on consumption and forego any betterment to their lives, whilst life goes on as it always has in the gas-guzzling west.

With Educate for Life, we’re placing an emphasis on environmentally sustainable change, because we recognise that it would be a mistake to emulate development models from the industrial revolution, when so many new technologies and alternatives exist.

As such all our building work uses local materials and methods, with as little high-energy steel, glass and cement as possible. There’s no wired electricity in the village, so when we do decide to have some power it will be solar, and we’re working toward using solar cookers for the children’s lunches.

Similarly in the UK, we’re not into flyering or unnecessary print-work, our only real presence is on the web, making our carbon footprint over here almost negligible.

As with the rest of our work, we’re doing our best to negotiate a balance between working for social change and ensuring the processes by which that change happens are sustainable and ecologically responsible.