Local Empowerment Quotes

For our welfare reform efforts to be successful, we must empower local charitable organizations with the resources to address their local community needs.

Democracy should be home grown.

Real change never occurs from the top on down, [but] always from the bottom on up.

I am a small man who wants to do big things for small people.

A much better course would be a gradual development of democracy, not through general elections, but rather through civil society and the strengthening of local institutions.

I know people don't like America very much, but the one thing it's very good on is local government.

I am so proud to be a Philadelphian. I believe there's a different drive and hustle that's instilled in us.

These powerless people at the bottom are the ones with whom we must begin. They must have the insight and the knowledge to work together and recognise that they are on the right track.

But as important as the job to be done by government in the neighborhoods, the people must also be involved.

Ultimately, success is going to be up to the reformers, just like in Iraq. It's going to require Iraqis, the will of Iraqis to succeed. I understand that. And that's why our strategy is to give them the tools necessary to defend themselves and help them defend themselves; in this case right now mainly in Baghdad, but as well around the country.

A nonviolent struggle necessarily involves construction on a small scale. It cannot therefore lead to tamas or darkness or inertia.

I believe that change comes from the bottom, not the top.

If there is to be an ecologically sound society, it will have to come the grass roots up, not from the top down.

After two decades of reconstruction work, I want to work on projects that lay at the intersection of cultural diplomacy and national identity - ones that empower local communities to define progress, not have it sanctioned by others.

Place-based initiatives can provide a useful framework to judge our progress in raising people out of poverty. They allow us to see whether or not a neighborhood is improving and its residents are living better.

The health of our republic depends on shared principles like the First Amendment, but it is also built on the Teddy Roosevelt-like vigor of its citizens and local self-reliance.

What I can do is to go out and talk about the problems and solutions, make people aware of the scope of the problems, get them to become advocates for a turnaround, and convince them to develop an action plan, targeted to their community, to deal with young people. [They need to] find out what the kids want to do - dances, midnight-basketball leagues.

I believe that one of the most important things to learn in life is that you can make a difference in your community no matter who you are or where you live.

There's something really happening and really moving, and it's exciting and it makes me very optimistic because it is going to be the engine for how we really combat climate change. Which is strong communities.

Government can't completely take care of people by making a bunch of promises and programs. Organize your communities

We are entering an era in which national government, instead of directing, enables powerful regional and local initiatives to work, where Britain becomes as it should be - a Britain of nations and regions.

Democracy cannot be a plaything for the capital cities. It has to infiltrate every nook and cranny in the country, including the village.

Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person...Withou t concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.

For me planting a tree is a very doable thing. It's not complicated, it doesn't require technology, it doesn't require much knowledge, but it can be a very important entry point into communities understanding how they destroy their own resources, but how they can also restore those resources, and not wait for their government or international agencies to come and help them.

What America was built on was being able to say, 'Hey, we're going to come in and use our resources to build for ourselves and our communities and build around that. We're not going to depend on others.'