Ecovillage Design Training of Trainers 2008

Social Design - Week 1

October 11th, 2008

Pracha Hutanuwatr and May East

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: Conflict, Facilitation and Decision-Making

We will learn how to shift from a defensive to a collaborative communication of our perspectives. To turn what could be a challenge into an opportunity by harvesting the creative potential inherent in diversity. We will introduce a wide variety of easy-to-learn and simple-to-use methods and tools designed to bring renewed inspiration and a sense of achievement to group work.

Topics include:

Nonviolent, compassionate communication and feedback
Designing productive meetings and events- methods for increasing participation and enjoyment
Decision-making processes - from autocratic to consensus
Steps for facilitating differences and conflicts successfully

Personal Empowerment and Leadership

We will explore issues of power and leadership in the context of building group synergy in organisations, communities and ecovillages. Participants will learn methods for facilitating circles, rotation of leadership, leaderless circles, the use of silence, ritual, pacing, conversation, dialogue, and other aspects of the ageless art of maintaining or facilitating circles.

Topics include:

From power over to power with
The art of leading in a circle
The Way of Council
Training in the dynamics of rank, power and privilege and their influence in group dynamics
Governance and ecovillages

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:

What is health?
Personal health and planetary health
The healing potential of community: birth and death
Diet that sustains. Modern food - the sabotage of Earth's food supply

Local, Bioregional and Global Outreach

“If we could think locally, we would take far better care of things than we do now. The right local questions and answers will be the right global ones. The Amish question- What will this do for our community? - tends toward the right answer for the world.” Wendell Berry

We will end the social week by exploring the principles and practices of bioregionalism, or “living in place”, when we are aware of the ecology, economy and culture of the place where we live, and are committed to making choices that enhance them.

Topics include:

Connectivity and synchronicity- principles of how to work in network formation
Engagement in local elections, working with local authorities and neighbours
GEN - international outreach
UN NGO system

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's present positions include 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, which contained 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.

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
£1595 payable by participants with low income
£1835 payable by participants with medium income
£2125 payable by participants with high income
£455/£515/£605 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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