Clodomir Santos de Morais is to organizational and entrepreneurial literacy what his Brazilian confrere, Paulo Freire, is to ordinary literacy. This book introduces for the first time in English the experiences of grassroots development workers who have applied his ideas of the Organization Workshop (OW) and capacitation in highly diverse social settings. One of the most exciting aspects of de Morais's methods of working with the most marginalized sectors of society is their relevance not just to Third World countries, but also to Eastern Europe's economies in transition and the most deprived areas of the industrialized countries.
This highly distinctive grassroots development approach to empowering socially excluded strata in economic and organizational terms holds out the prospect of becoming a very important factor in the struggle against poverty.
Industry Reviews
'The kind of book that comes only once in a while. Important for progressive educators, community organizers, and all those concerned with non-formal education.'
Carlos Alberto Torres, Latin American Center, UCLA
'In the link de Morais establishes between autonomy, self-organization, and creative
enterprise building may well lie feasible guidelines for the much needed task of thinking beyond development and the neoliberal economy.'
Arturo Escobar, author of 'Encountering Development'
'At last a book that offers the English-speaking world a window into a startling body of theory and practice on building democratic forms of economic organization.'
Simon Zadek, New Economics Foundation, London
'One of the few books to cross the boundary between social and organizational change, and a 'must' for all organization and social development practitioners.'
Bill Cooke, Institute for Development Policy and Management, Manchester University.
'The success of these worker-owned enterprises makes this book essential reading for anyone concerned with issues of poverty and development.'
Frank Youngman, author of 'The Political Economy of Adult Education and Development'
