The HiMaT Indigenous Leadership and Development Program is focused on building the capacity of remote rural communities, local institutions and leaders for sustainable peace, human dignity, prosperity and well being through the creation of a regional training, coaching and support centre, with an initial pilot project in the Gilgit-Baltistan province of Pakistan. This Centre’s programs are designed to enhance a spirit of hope and entrepreneurship and to build the knowledge and skills that will enable local institutions and leaders to manage their own development processes. The Centre will also act as a “window to the world” by creating connections between these indigenous development processes and best practice ideas and organizations, as well as business mentors from around the world. In the first 5 year phase, a prototype training and support centre will be established, and it’s programs will be developed and piloted with 10 clusters of villages (80-100 villages), reaching approximately 100,000 people.

Healing and development must come from within the communities of people who desire change, and must largely be directed by those people.

If the people have no vision of human possibility other than the one in which they find themselves, they cannot heal themselves, they cannot develop and, ultimately, they cannot survive. Culture is the mother of vision. Developing people need to rediscover the life-preserving, life-enhancing values and insights of their own traditional experience.

1. Developing a vision of possibility and the spirit of hope, enterprise and service – Money and technical know-how are not enough to create lasting change. It is only when people have a “sparkle” in their eyes that they are ready to invest their creative energy into social and entrepreneurial action. Unless we can find a way to engage the heart of people, their communities and their institutions, we will not be able to make a shift from mere projects that come and go to a movement that spreads from heart to heart across north Pakistan—a movement that ignites the spark of hope and the spirit of enterprise and service. This will require extremely careful attention to the cultural and spiritual foundations of the communities being served by the HiMaT training, coaching and support Centre.
2. Strengthening indigenous institutions – While hundreds of village and women’s organizations
have been established in Gilgit-Baltistan (and elsewhere in Pakistan), many of them have never been fully trained and supported to play the role for which they were created. The HiMaT Indigenous Leadership and Development Program will support the emergence of local institutions that are participatory and democratic in nature, and that promote sustainable development leading
to measurable improvements in the social and economic life of the people and communities they serve. A fundamental goal of HiMaT Program is for these institutions to become self-sufficient within a five-year period through the creation of social enterprises and other revenue-generation streams.
3. Building capacity to achieve desired development outcomes – To achieve greater peace, prosperity and wellbeing in their communities, people will need to learn how to think, act and inter-relate in new ways. This type of learning does not happen just in classrooms, but also through mentoring as
people make hands-on efforts to solve real development challenges. The HiMaT Program’s
regional training, coaching and support Centre will offer a rich selection of courses focusing on
such topics as mountain agriculture, small/medium business development, community health, youth development, natural resource development, leadership skills, ecology, micro-finance, human relations, and household management. It will provide access to best practice and experienced mentors from around the world.
4. Creating an engine for sustainable social and economic development – As individuals,
communities and local institutions gain awareness, capacity and experience, they will want to undertake a wide variety of enterprises, development schemes and special projects. Examples of such initiatives might include an irrigation project to open up new agricultural land, a micro electrical generation scheme to support household improvement and business development, small to medium value-added businesses such as the production of jam from apricots or seabuck thorn or the creation of crafts from local wool, a community health promotion project, a youth and elder cultural strengthening initiative or a women’s enterprise project. Social and economic development
activities such as these will enable the LSO to become self-supporting and also contribute to
substantial improvements in the social and economic life of the people.