Ecovillage
Design Training of Trainers
Ecovillage
Design Training of Trainers 2010
Social Design - Week
1
Saturday 2nd October, 2010
May East,
Pracha Hutanuwatr & Jane Rasbash
Building
Community and Embracing Diversity
The overall focus of this week is on the social
aspect, designed to develop the skills needed to
work effectively with both large and small groups.
Using an experiential format, we will start by looking
at how to create a learning environment that meets
the needs of all, looking at individual learning
styles and needs. From there we will learn how to
design inclusive group agreements as a foundation
for embracing diversity. We will explore the role
of games in building groups and community - both
theory and practice. We will learn the processes
which define community glue and common ground -
including values, vision and mission - and will
understand the relationship between task, process
and relationship.
Communication Skills and Feedback
"I do not know if you have ever examined how
you listen, it doesn't matter to what, whether to
a bird, to the wind in the leaves, to the rushing
waters or how you listen in a dialogue with yourself
to your conversation in various relationships with
your intimate friends your wife or husband. If we
try to listen we find it extraordinarily difficult,
because we are always projecting our opinions and
ideas, our prejudices, our background, our inclinations,
our impulses; when they dominate, we hardly listen
at all to what is being said. In that state there
is no value at all. One listens and therefore learns,
only in a state of attention a state of silence
in which this whole background is in abeyance, is
quiet; then, it seems to me, it is possible to communicate."
Krisnamurti, Talks and Dialogues
The heart of good communication is a simple but
profound capacity to listen. This module will give
participants the techniques and insights needed
for creating environments informed by a culture
of deep listening. We will learn how to support
one another in the shift from a defensive to a collaborative
communication and from debate to dialogue. We will
practice mindful speaking and explore how to handle
and welcome critical and constructive feedback as
a vehicle for learning and growing.
Topics include:
Conflict Facilitation
Conflicts are a part of our life like storms are
a variety of weather. In fact, in groups that are
truly diverse, differences are both a sign of health
and an invitation to creativity. The most important
lesson is to change our attitude from avoiding conflicts
to looking at them with interest and openness. This
means stepping out of a winner-loser and into a
win-win perspective. Win-Win solutions become possible
after all involved parties of a conflict have been
heard and understood.
Topics include:
Health and Healing
We will explore universal principles of health,
including the role of diet, exercise, humour and
beauty. How to design community centred health service
that focuses on healthcare (health enhancement,
health maintenance and disease prevention) rather
than disease care
Topics include:
Facilitation Skills and Decision Making
"Deep democracy claims that all people, parts,
and feelings are needed. Deep democracy appreciates
present democratic forms but adds to them the need
for awareness of feelings and atmosphere in moment-to-moment
interactions and institutional practices."
Arnold Mindell
An organizations performance and ultimate success
is directly related to its ability to make decisions
that are high quality and that can be sustained
over time. Making clear choices about the fundamental
issues of power and process can transform a diverse
group of people into a strong, stable, healthy community.
This module will introduce a range of fair and participatory
decision-makings methods to avoid conflict over
power imbalances. We will look at the role of facilitation
in the process of finding common ground between
people with diverse points of view. We will look
at facilitation techniques that make meetings productive,
participative, cooperative... and fun, while balancing
the focus across three dimensions: Results, Process,
and Relationship.
Topics include:
Celebrating Life: Creativity and Art
This module will explore how to integrate art, land,
creativity and community life. We will learn how,
by creating a culture of ethics, aesthetics and
beauty, we can free ourselves progressively from
the tyranny of a materialistic worldview which has
separated us from each other and alienated us from
the earth. We will look at the role of the artist
in reinvigorating and healing local communities,
and at art as a liberating force for collective
transformation and self-realisation. We will work
creatively with environmental art in a variety of
ways which are not simply about the landscape, but
which actually take place in it. Such art can contribute
to our becoming a less destructive and more benign
presence on our planet. Facilitated by Lisa Shaw.
The Gaia Education Design
for Sustainability is being introduced to the world
at this time to complement, correspond with, and
assist in setting a standard for the United Nations'
Decade of Education for Sustainable Development
2005-2014.
Pracha Hutanuwatr, Thai activist
and intellectual, is a former Buddhist monk with
a socialist background. He has worked under the
guidance of Buddhadasa Bhikku, a renowned, Buddhist
monk and philosopher who developed the concept of
Dhammic Socialism; and Sulak Sivaraksa, an influential,
independent thinker. In 1988 Sulak and Pracha founded
the International Network of Engaged Buddhists.
Pracha is Director of Wongsanit Ashram and Director
of Spirit in Education Movement, an NGO organising
Grassroots Leadership Training in South East Asia.
He has published several major books in Thai. Recently
he and Ramu Mannivan published (in English): Asian
Futures: Dialogue for Change, containing intensive
interviews with 14 prominent Asian thinkers.
May East is a Brazilian social
change activist who has spent the last 30 years
working internationally with music, indigenous people,
women, antinuclear, environmental and sustainable
human settlements movements. Since 1992 she has
lived at the Findhorn Foundation ecovillage in Scotland
where she is the Ecovillage Education Coordinator,
the Director of International Relations between
the Foundation, the Global Ecovillage Network and
the United Nations. May is a facilitator of the
World Wisdom Council of the Club of Budapest and
works internationally as an ecovillage consultant
and educator. She is currently coordinating the
establishment of a UNITAR CIFAL training centre
at Findhorn.
Jane Rasbash lives at Findhorn
Ecovillage in Scotland and Wongsanit Ashram in Thailand.
She has been involved in participatory community
sustainable development in the South East Asia Region
for many years. This included co-founding and establishing
the Grassroots Leadership Training programme a community
sustainability initiative working in Burma, Laos,
Cambodia and Thailand. She served as Executive Director
of the Alternatives to Consumerism Conference in
Bangkok in 1997 and follow up activities on Spirituality
and Globalisation. She has co-written many papers
on Engaged Buddhism with Pracha Hutanuwtr. She now
serves as a 'needs based' consultant for several
NGOs Thailand and Burma. She is also involved with
Ecologia Youth Trust a Scottish Charity with projects
in Russia and Thailand. She co-facilitates training
of trainer courses, proposal writing and deep ecology
workshops.
Lisa Shaw is an artist, designer
and environmental educator. She is a partner in
the Ecovillage Institute, an ecological design and
engineering firm based at Findhorn. She has worked
on water restoration projects in India, China, Bolivia,
Russia and the UK as part of the Ecovillage Institute
team, educating for the restoration and sustainable
use of water and soil. She-co founded Lookfar Connections,
an environmental education cooperative, and Grasshopper
Art and Nature Camp for children in Vermont USA,
which she ran for five years. Lisa uses art as an
educational tool, bringing people together in a
creative and inspirational way, teaching art to
adults and children.
The EDE is being
introduced to the world at this time to complement,
correspond with, and assist in setting a standard
for the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable
Development 2005-2014.
Training fees
For the whole programme
£1675 payable by participants with low
income
£1925payable by participants with medium
income
£2235 payable by participants with high
income
£475/£545/£635 per module
according to income
Fees include tuition, accommodation, vegetarian
meals and field trips.
Please complete
the Application
Form and Enrolment Questionnaire
Enquiries by e-mail: bookings@findhorn.org
Convert to your own currency using The
Universal Currency Converter
*If you cannot afford the full fee, please check
out our bursary guidelines.
* If you can afford to pay more than the full fee
for this programme, your donation will be gratefully
received and used to help those who cannot afford
the whole fee.
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