This is an exciting idea. The Villages In Action Conference is a reaction to the U.N. Millennium Development Goals meetings in September. From the VIA website: "In September 2010, international organizations, heads of state, celebrities and specialists gathered to review progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). As you may know, the MDGs were set in 2000 to achieve eight anti-poverty goals by 2015. In the midst of the coverage of these grand events, high profile attendees wined, dined and debated the relative merits of each MDG plan, while the actual “poor,” (the object of these goals) were not invited to these elite events.
Project Diaspora is dedicated to change perceptions about the poor by building a platform whereby the voices of the poor can be heard. On November 27, 2010, the first conference will be held in a village outside Masindi, Uganda. The goal of this one-day conference is to showcase the grassroots efforts driving economic development and improving the welfare of the community – all with little or no assistance from international aid organizations."
I love it. I hope there's video to come.