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Demonstrations in North and Northeastern India provide some of the most concrete examples of the Future Generations’ SEED-SCALE approach to community based change. Pilot sites in Arunachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal show how three way partnerships, the collection of local data and the empowerment of women through locally based training can launch a larger process of community transformation.

This work in Arunachal Pradesh is entering a new phase of extension, both in terms of quality and in the number of participating communities.  The momentum of positive change and program expansion has reached exponential proportions.  As this network of communities grows, more communities want to be a part of it, and as the program matures, communities that have used the SEED-SCALE process for several years reach their original objectives and look to new ones.  In Palin, Sille and Ziro, where work focused initially on the need for basic healthcare, communities have started their own adult literacy classes and weaving centers, and are looking to improve the sustainability and productivity of agriculture and to cultivate medicinal and aromatic plants and other non-timber forest products. 

Achievements in these three initial sites are radiating out to neighboring villages. Mothers are mobilized as groups, and from their groups they select a woman to be trained. Training is short, but yearly the person receives more advanced training. These women then train others. Extension builds by self-assembly.

Unlike other systems of community change, this approach does not control communities. The process differs also from most community-based approaches because while growing from the community level, it recognizes that bottom-up change requires top-down enabling policies from government and outside-in expert help to build the skills communities need. A partnership creates the enabling environment of self-capacity so communities then empower their momentum, make it specific to their circumstances, and pay the costs to keep it going.

 The government of Arunachal Pradesh is now working to provide an enabling framework to allow the process of community-change to go to scale statewide. In a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), signed in June 2004, the Government of Arunachal and Future Generations Arunachal have partnered to build the capacity of local people by training the locally elected Panchayat members in realizing their roles and responsibilities as envisaged in the 73^rd amendment to the Indian constitution for grassroots level, democratic, participatory community development. According to the terms agreed upon in the MOU, the government of Arunachal Pradesh will provide an enabling context and framework to support the training programs. Future Generations will impart training to the Panchayat representatives on the SEED SCALE process and on the roles and responsibilities of Panchayat representatives in association with other organizations and institutions.

The 73rd Amendment to the Indian Constitution created an enabling national-level framework to support local democratic institutions of self-government. Specifically, the 73^rd Amendment requires States to transfer government funds and functions to locally elected Panchayati Raj Institutions in order to promote economic development and social justice through community-based decision-making. Today there are about three million elected representatives at all levels of Panchayats in India .  The 73^rd Amendment also required that 33% of all locally-elected Panchayat members be women, and as a result, India has the largest number of women elected to public office.

Following the last election in Arunachal Pradesh in October 2003,  8000 Panchayat representatives at various levels were elected. Of these, 6000 are Gram Panchayat (Village Assembly) representatives. Future Generations is preparing a phased training program to train all 6000 elected representatives along other community, government and non-government partners in order to build the capacity Arunachal villages to implement their own process of sustainable and equitable community-change.