This Thursday at Change Mayank Goel and Praveen Shekhar will be leading a discussion on local participation and the decentralization of development work. *Is local participation and decentralization of development work necessary to make it sustainable?* In Rajasthan, India, there is school: Barefoot College, that trains local people from the villages to become solar engineers, artisans, dentists and doctors. Most of the students in the college are illiterate women. They help in these communities to become self-sufficient and gives the locals in the village the ownership of their projects. The movement has spread to many parts of India, Afghanistan and Africa. Is this model of training people in fields that would directly affect them, giving them the ownership of their projects and letting them come up with their own unique solutions more sustainable than introducing them to new infrastructure abruptly? *What:* Discussion led by Mayank Goel and Praveen Shekhar *When:* Thursday, Nov 10th at noon *Where:* Paul Allen Center, Room 203