News and Articles
Networking with Nature: Implementing the Bioregional Approach
Living with a bioregional awareness does not require that we begin by mapping our entire bioregion. We can start small, with our own home and immediate surroundings. Here are some ideas on how to get started.
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Make a seasonal wheel, a circle bisected by twelve angles (one for each month of the year). Record the cycles of plants, animals, weather and cultural events within and around the circle. Note the date or week when a bird began building a nest near your house, when the chicks hatch…
Becoming Regenerative Designers
We enter this new season and look back at 2020, remembering that millions of people in every region of the world have been personally affected by economic loss, health challenges or the loss of loved ones due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our hearts and prayers go out to all of you in these difficult times. Stay strong, we will get through this together.
As we adapt to a new reality, we see before our very eyes what it means to live in a time of transformation and the urgent need for regeneration. …
Gaia Education COVID-19 Update
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Gaia Education has taken precautions to protect our staff as well as participants and stakeholders. Due to the situation, almost all face-to-face courses have been cancelled, however, we are slowly starting to introduce new and innovative ways of conducting Ecovillage Design Education programmes (EDEs) that follow the social distancing rules of the country and where part of the training takes place online. We encourage ecovillages to contact us s…
What is Integrative Whole Systems Design and how do we achieve it?
There are many different definitions for the word design and many different types of professionals that call themselves ‘designers’. The attitude taken by Gaia Education is that we are all designers! We all co-create the world we live in, and are all responsible for the future of our communities, the well being of generations yet unborn, and all life on the planet. Design is much more than simply the beautification of material objects or some nature-detached aesthetic tool to express human indiv…
What is required for me to get a course certificate of the Social dimension?
Creating Community
Building community is the process by which a group becomes aware of its own existence as a living collective unity – and of the life force that sustains it. To build community is to nurture the group spirit and its social cohesion through a shared and clear vision. It’s to take care of the group through compassionate communication, empathy and assertiveness, generating trust and a pleasant work atmosphere. It’s to sustain the group through appropriate liberating structures, such as good deci…
A Regenerative Education for our times
The current education paradigm holds the idea that the sole purpose of education is to educate individuals within their particular society, to prepare and train them for work in an economy that integrates people into the national cultural reality and passes on to them the values and morals of that society. In Carol Sanford’s critical analysis: “The Role of education is the means of socializing individuals and to keep society running smoothly and remain stable.” In other words, to form people who…
Goal of the Month | August 2020: Responsible Consumption and Production
Did you know that every year about one third of all food produced – equivalent to 1.3 billion tonnes – is wasted, yet food security continues to be a growing global concern, affecting millions of people. Or that the world’s freshwater supply such as rivers and lakes are polluted at a much faster rate than nature can recycle and purify?
COVID-19 lockdowns may have led to a dramatic 5 per cent drop in greenhouse gas emissions but not all measures to contain the pandemic have had a positive im…
Local, Bioregional and Global Outreach
INTRODUCTION
“A growing number of people are recognizing that in order to secure the clean air, water and food that we need to healthfully survive, we have to become guardians of the places where we live. People sense the loss in not knowing their neighbours and natural surroundings, and are discovering that the best way to take care of themselves and to get to know neighbours, is to protect and restore their region.” First Continental Bioregional Congress
Building community is one of the …
Giovanni Ciarlo stepping into the Role of Leadership at Gaia Education
Dear Gaia Education family,
Recent events in North America and globally have deeply affected us and reminded us that there is a critical need for all of us to confront racism and inequality in our societies while also restoring our natural environment. We will not remain silent amid acts of racism, injustice, brutality, and violence.
At Gaia Education, we believe that learning is a force for human transformation and progress towards achieving resilience and change. We are committed to providin…