A man saw a person drowning in a river and dove in to save him. The next day, another person was swept down the river, and once more the courageous bystander plunged into the waters to save the struggling victim.

The following day, there were three people drowning, and this time the bystanders had to seek help to make the rescues. The day after that, more people needed saving, and many citizens had to join the rescue effort. Soon the river was full of drowning people, and the entire community worked without end to save them.

Finally someone said, "We should go upriver to find out where all these drowning people are coming from." But others answered, "We can't-were too busy saving lives down here."

An Upstream Approach: Social Capital and Capabilities Development Through Experiential Education

A recent survey revealed that around 50% of the population believes that one becomes successful by stealing and breaking the law, 29% do so through personal connections, 9 % through luck or fate, and only 9% believed that hard work or personal merit had anything to do with personal success! (Research Institute of Romania)

Is sustainable economic development - based as it is on a climate of trust - even possible in such a moral environment? It is true that a few may get rich at the expense of others, but broad based development, based on the trust and credibility required for investment, is hardly possible. And the fight against corruption-now recognized as the principle cause of global poverty-becomes a Sisyphean task. Transparency International ranks Romania as the most corrupt EU candidate. Indeed, the United Nations Human Development Index (HDI) is lower now in Romania than it was in 1985, the nadir of communism. A recent Gallup survey revealed that 84% of respondents longed for an iron-fisted leader to bring order, while more than half said that their standard of living has decreased in Romania over the past five years.

Though communism has fallen externally from political power, its internal psychic patterns linger. Civic apathy, interpersonal suspicion, Machiavellian/predatory ethics-all these conspire to make trust, and therefore sustainable development, impossible.

The primary mission of our organization is the development of social capital-the moral competencies that build trust and make sustainable development possible. Social capital development is the upstream issue in Romania. Until this is solved, the downstream issues of poverty, child abandonment, environmental degradation, and corruption will continue. Through two proven experiential education strategies-adventure education and service learning-we are facilitating a shift in perception away from a win-lose way of thinking, towards a win-win cooperative ethic, and the long-term benefits (not least economic) that result.

But individual capabilities must be developed as well. The individuals' importance is not just their function as a group. Individual humans are ends, and not just means to social groupings. The capability aspect reflects this individual component.

Effective development requires a two-fold process: experientially developing pro-social norms as well as enhancing individual capabilities. Though sustainable economic development involves more than the development of moral norms that make trust possible, it is surely not less. This domain is the distinctive contribution of the New Horizons programs.