FORGE is a United States-based nonprofit organization that works with displaced communities in Africa. FORGE was founded by Stanford University graduate Kjerstin Erickson at the age of 20 in 2003. Since its founding, FORGE has implemented over seventy community development projects that have served more than 70,000 refugees in four refugee camps in Zambia and Botswana. An official Operating Partner of the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), FORGE works in Zambia, hand-in-hand with refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Rwanda, Burundi, and Sudan. FORGE’s Mission FORGE aims to build upon the capacity of African refugees to cultivate empowered communities and to create the conditions for peace and prosperity in their countries. FORGE believes that individuals affected by war are a key factor to breaking the cycle of war and poverty in Africa. Instead of providing relief work for refugees, FORGE aims at providing education and training to refugees in order to empower them with greater economic and leadership capacity. There are five main project areas that FORGE is now working on: Education, Economic Development, Health Education, Women’s Empowerment and Community Enrichment. Recently, FORGE has launched a new program called the Collaborative Project Planning Process (CPPP). Believing that the most effective, relevant and sustainable development projects come from the insights and vision of the refugee community itself, FORGE launched the CPPP to provide refugees with the resources that are unreachable to them when building education and enrichment projects for their communities. Collaborative Project Planning Process (CPPP) The collaborative project is a partnership built between FORGE and refugee leaders in the refugee camps where FORGE currently works. The planning of the project involves the following four stages. Stage I - Identification of needs: The refugee community identifies its top needs and priorities. Stage II – Assessment of needs: Selected community leaders research and evaluate these needs. Stage III – Project proposal: The best intervention point is selected and leaders submit a Project Proposal to FORGE’s website for funding. Stage IV – Funding and implementation: Once funded, the project is implemented, monitored and sustained by the community. To begin the CPPP, FORGE first recruits potential refugee leaders who are especially capable of spearheading development initiatives in the refugee camps. The CPPP then goes through the Stages I, II and III. The preparation work is all done by the refugee leaders and the role of the FORGE staff member is to give