About Us
Mission
Create sustainable prosperity in underserved villages around the world by leveraging proven development frameworks, empowering local people to lift themselves out of poverty.
Vision
Village Corps aims to connect people, organizations, and businesses and provide a space for participants to create solutions to some of the world?™s greatest challenges. In coordination with individuals, aid organizations, governments, businesses, universities and public interest groups, we work to create a system to generate sustainable prosperity in some of the poorest villages throughout the world.
Background
Village Corps is the non-profit initiative of Aedi Group, a diversified holding company focused on green innovations and technologies. Aedi Group operates a ?œsystem??of companies in the real estate and enterprise-technology sectors that help individuals and organizations get on the path toward sustainability. Each portfolio company bears the ?˜Aedi??brand name and uses our unique co-profit business model, meaning each employee contributes his/her talents and skills to operate Village Corps, allowing 100% of donations go directly to those in need.
Values/Beliefs
We believe that the only way to generate sustainable prosperity is to provide individuals with the tools and skills necessary to pull themselves out of poverty.
We believe in a ?œwhole systems approach??in order to enable villages to fulfill all of their various needs in a coordinated manner.
We believe in development projects that provide permanent and sustainable answers rather than quick and unsound fixes.
We believe Sustainability can be scientifically defined as a dynamic state in which global ecological and social systems are not systematically undermined. The Brundtland Report defined sustainable development as that which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. To ensure that the ability of future generations to meet their needs is not compromised, we must ensure that our activities do not systematically undermine ecological and social systems.
Ecological and social systems can be undermined in four basic ways (as originally articulated by The Natural Step):
When social systems are subject to
- Conditions that systematically undermine people's capacity to meet their basic needs (e.g. oppressive conditions, non living wages)
And, when nature is subject to systematic increases in:
- Degradation by physical means (e.g. deforestation, overfishing);
- Concentrations of substances produced by society (e.g. CFCs, DDT);
- Concentrations of substances from the earth's crust (e.g. fossil fuels, heavy metals)