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Luvian Iskandar

Covid Restrictions in Eco-Neighborhood

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This article is originally published in robinallison.co.nz

Earthsong Neighborhood (pic: Robin Allison)

There is a common assumption that all of Earthsong became a “bubble” during the Covid lockdowns, but we are much too diverse for that. We have residents who continued to work in face-to-face essential services, and older people with health vulnerabilities. We have toddlers who would rush up to everyone if given the chance, and adults with differing approaches to distancing and mask-wearing. We have many who are vaccinated, and others who are hesitant or have actively chosen not to get vaccinated. So like other Auckland households, Earthsong households largely maintained their own bubbles, although our proximity made it easy for single households to bubble-up or grandparents to join with their children and grandchildren. It is easy to talk with neighbours on the path at a distance, to do the shopping for an older neighbour, to keep in touch enough to know when a neighbour is needing support. There is always the sense of belonging and security of being surrounded (at a distance) by people we know and have a relationship with.

And although the diversity of views and approaches to Covid does cause friction and conflict at times, the key difference is that we talk about it together, with the intention of assuming good intent, of a diversity of views being welcome, and with a curiosity to understand the views of others. All of our regular meetings have shifted on-line while physical distancing is required, and we have had four on-line “circles” over the last 3 months specifically to share our perspectives about Covid and how we can include differing approaches while being respectful of the needs of all. We haven’t solved it, but at least we are in dialogue, a more creative space from which we can navigate this new territory.

Our common house has been closed for 3 months now except for the shared laundry, and we have a lot to sort out before common meals resume. But at least it is summer, and we can take full advantage of the common green for picnics and outside gatherings. I can’t imagine how it is for those in separate suburban houses, but even without having full access to our shared spaces, there is nowhere else I’d rather be.

What is your personal or community’s response in this COVID times?

This article is written by Robin Allison, founder of the Earthsong Eco-Neighborhood in New Zealand.

Robin Allison’s book Cohousing for Life is currently on discount. Purchase her book here.

Ahimsagram: Wellness is Our Birthright!

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Ahimsagram is a social enterprise, primarily working towards sharing about wellness; inspiring, wholesome plant-based food systems. It is supporting people in transforming their kitchens by giving them the knowledge about the ‘why’ of healthy foods and sharing the skills to actually bring it into their day-to-day lives with ease and joy. On one side we are offering online learning programs for people from all over the world and locally we are also running a cafe that serves wholesome plant-based foods and we also deliver healthy sweets and bakery products throughout the country. Our products are largely organic as we believe that our individual choices have an impact on the health of the planet. 

In its vision, Ahimsagram sees that our actions have far-reaching consequences on the health of the planet as well as our own. Thus it has chosen to create a business that brings deeper understanding and practice of health in our lives. 

The Genesis

In order to understand our work, it will be meaningful to know the story about what led to the creation of Ahimsagram! Shammi, who has been the founder, had been living in Mumbai and working as a cinematographer when he developed breathing issues. Instead of jumping on the regular solution of taking inhalers, he went into looking for the reasons for the disease and others who believed in the magical power of the body and its capacity to heal. He came across people working on self-healing and also the work of ‘The Health Awareness Center’ (THAC) in Mumbai which made him see that diseases are an outcome of what inputs we give to the body (which could be food, sunlight, air, rest, exercise, etc) and live while respecting the laws of nature. For healing, we need to work on what we are putting into our system and be aware of its consequences. He thus began his journey into conscious foods and moved to a plant-based diet using ways of preparing the food that caused the least damage to its nutrients and to make sure that it was easy for the body to digest it. This helped him eliminate the toxins from the body and take care of his physical wellbeing. 

Soon he realized that physical well-being is connected to emotional well being and he got attracted to Nonviolent Communication (NVC). Seeing great value in it he also began sharing it as traveled across the country and sometimes abroad too. He saw the beauty in building a world where we can listen to each other and find ways to meet our needs, instead of living in a space of right/wrong and punishment reward. 

  • Baked potato with vegan cream sauce
  • Grain free burger
  • Gluten-free vegan brownies

Being a community person he has been connected to various sustainable living community initiatives where it became important to understand how to govern in these groups with a sense of collaboration. This attracted him to self-management systems like Sociocracy and Holacracy and he wanted to create an organization that would share NVC and also be governed with collaborative systems, in effect a Teal enterprise. That was the time he created Ahimsagram about five years ago, primarily as a laboratory for practicing and building collaborative processes. While all this was going on he had been working and experimenting with wholesome plant-based foods at a personal level for more than a decade. 

After having developed the knowledge about collaborative systems Ahimsagram moved to turn his learnings and build food as a business, so they built a vegan and organic cafe space and ran it with Holacracy while integrating NVC in its day-to-day practice at Ahimsagram. In this part, Shammi had Lyla FreeChild Join as a co-creator and has taken charge of the food business. She is passionate about leading a life of wellness and has been an avid learner and enjoys researching about living a life that is aligned to natural laws. 

The Cafe

Is one of their gifts to the community and has offered healthy food to people. Their food is made while retaining the nutrients so they steam their veggies, don’t use any aluminum or Teflon vessels, have sufficient raw options, its vegan and largely organic. No white sugar or wheat. 

Due to lockdowns, they were operating in the online delivery space more but once again they are relaunching the cafe by providing healthy meals. 

The Team

In most cafes and food establishments you see more men, and that too in leading positions. Ahimsagram has consciously had women team members who are learning new things each day not just about food but about relating to each other, expressing themselves, and are more able to bring up the challenges that arise while working with each other and process them. The capacity to listen to each other is enhanced here and so is the capacity to empathize with each other and that too when there is a disconnect with another person. 

Ahimsagram team

Besides, the team is also aware of mental health challenges and people here try to become aware of their triggers. They have discussions about such issues and look at ways of taking up power and having the ability to speak up honestly even if it may create conflict. There is no shame around conflicts and the space has processes around conflict transformation. 

Year-long training program to transform your kitchens!

Lately, Ahimsagram decided to coach people in transforming their food practices and re-design their kitchen and food systems, by way of a year-long online course ‘Embracing Wellness’. It is meant to support wellness seekers to learn to create delicious nourishing food, have more energy and vitality by empowering themselves with knowledge & skills of living with the laws of nature so they can experience vibrant health.

The knowledge that Ahimsagram has picked up over more than a decade will be offered in bite-size modules through an online year-long program, with sharing of the vision, theory, DIY sessions, and coaching so people can be empowered to actually change their food systems and practices. This way they can offer their learnings to people beyond borders using videos, audio, text, and webinars, etc. If anyone is interested to know more about this course they can sign up here. 

Lyla is leading this part of the program and it has touched many people’s lives by transforming their kitchen and promise to extend this to whoever is seeking this knowledge in their life from any part of the world. This is going to scale up Ahimsagram’s impact. 

Eco Friendly 

The way you do anything, that’s the way you do everything! So Ahimsagram is also working on the sustainability aspect and has minimized the role of plastic in their online deliveries, which took them a long time before they could delve into sending their food across the country. They have at times also designed 100 percent plastic-free packaging with recycled papers and send Diwali sweets to people all over the country. It was highly appreciated for their health part and the care and sustainable practices in its packaging. They make their own bio enzyme, compost their organic waste, and have their own small kitchen garden in whatever small patch of land it has. 

  • Food garden
  • Planting seeds

Community Work

It has inspired people by them walking their talk and encouraging and supporting them in building their organic gardens. Wherever Ahimsagram is situated it enjoys connecting with the neighbors and sharing their ideas that touch the community there. They have also worked towards building green ecosystems by planting trees with diversity to make space for the natural habitat of birds and animals. It has also been part of a movement for saving a forest patch being turned into an industrial zone and has been part of the initiative to mobilize the community for it. While doing its business it has also adopted and cared for the street dogs and worked with people who are into animal care. 

  • Making roadside forests with local community
  • Street dogs caimpaign
  • Sharing trees with neighbors
  • People’s movement on forest protection

The Ahimsagram Foundation

Lately, Ahimsagram has branched off and created a non-profit organization – Ahimsagram Foundation – which is working on two primary areas. 1) It wants to make their work with food accessible to people across all sections of the society so they plan to establish community kitchens and train people into healthy cooking so as to turn existing food spaces to serve wellness inspiring foods, and 2) they see that we need to work on making our habitats ecologically designed and are working on building green eco-zones around their city to make it more conducive to other beings and also providing clean air to the people of the cities. 

Ahimsagram as a Teal organization

If the world would move to higher consciousness, how would our organizations or businesses look like? Yes, with all the diverse organization design work that Ahimsagram is doing, it is a ‘Teal’ organization or one that has a governance system where the team members experience dignity and autonomy towards their work and also at the same time operate effectively and interdependently with others while moving forward to meet the purpose of the organization. This takes effort and it is not easy, but with the right processes and practice, an organization can become a more evolved organization. 

Also, there needs to be a space where each role filler can bring up their tension and process with their team members who are impacted by their work. Besides, this approach tensions as a normal occurrence and as an opportunity for growth and evolution. 

Impact

Ahimsagram has inspired many people to bring healthy food into their lives with their courses, it has provided opportunities for people to come and learn about building collaborative organizations or made them aware of their communication and shared NVC, thereby encouraging them to share their honesty while holding care for the people around them, inspired many into sustainable living. It has served healthy food to the people in their city and even offered it online across the country. 

One of the key learnings that Ahimsagram has had is that there needs to be training or sensitization around mental health issues or making the team trauma-informed if we expect the team to work with care and effectiveness. 

  • Gluten-free vegan cookies
  • Breakfast bowl
  • Carbide free papayas
  • Farmer’s market
  • Soap making workshop

Learn more about Ahimsagram

About the Author

Shammi Nanda. Ahimsagram, India

Shammi grew up in Jaipur in a neighborhood where he could go and eat in any house, which give him a strong sense of valuing the community. He has been engaging in community initiatives since childhood which has now become his profession by creating a business that operates to bring wellness to the lives of the community members through healthy food. 

At present, he has founded a social enterprise, Ahimsagram, and wants to show the world that business can work with high integrity and collaboration while promoting the health of individuals and that of the planet.  He along with Lyla Freechild has also created a nonprofit that would show the world that sustainable community initiatives can be effectively organized.

The Green Unconference 2021

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For thirteen days, as world leaders, community leaders and climate youth activists met at COP26 in Glasgow to make decisions that affect our common future, We at The Green UnConference gathered daily to listen to each other’s stories.

From the mountains and rivers of the Himalayas to the seas and forests of Palawan, Siargao, Dumaguete, Boracay, and Baler. 

From our metropolises in Manila and New Delhi and Bangalore 

From intentional communities in Crystal Waters, Queensland, Bulacan, Japan, Bangalore, Udaipur, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Taiwan, and Japan

We have seen rivers of gold and silver stars. 

Healing ourselves, our relationships, our projects. 

Weaving together our golden threads of light, spun from passion and purpose, a touch of magic — affirming that at this critical time in the history of humanity and our beautiful planet — we are here for one another, and for Mother Earth.

TGU 2021 truly connected rivers of people, projects to the ocean ecosystem. 

The journey was the destination. It taught us that life is about the little things. 

We are so grateful to co-travel with Binhi Supper Club, Daloy, Ecoversities Alliance, FarmLab, Good Food Community, Green Releaf, Re:Source Labs, Healthyndahan, Inner Moon Well-Being, Isla Medisina, Jabez Perma Research PH Tala, Jail University (TBC), Kayumanggi Organic, New Deli by Kashmir, Permayouth, Project Thrive, ReGEN Nations, Ritual (TBC), Soul Kitchen El Nido, Swaraj University, The Living Library, The Social Enterprises, TI Eco-Village, Weekend Wild Child, and Local Futures 

Together we distilled and displayed what works for our collective wellbeing. 

Our goal was to weave and celebrate learning and unlearning and together reimagine the new map and blueprint of the beautiful world we know is possible if we indulge and converge for radical collaboration. Collaboration begins by knowing our stories and what makes us flow and grow as living systems. We showcased what we need to do to come closer for collaborations and co-create larger connected systems. 

We established that we simultaneously need a culture of inner and outer transformation and transitions to birth the new humanity that takes compassionate care of mother earth and all life on it. 

We focussed our themes similar to the COP26: Regeneration, Agriculture, Energy, Youth, Gender,  Women, Adaptation and Indigenous People, Social Enterprise, Transitions in Education, Transitions in Tech, Nature, Biodiversity, Transport, Travel Cities and Built Environments.

Please visit GENOA FB Page to tune into the Transition Journeys and stay tuned for the TGU 2021 short Film to be launched soon!

Reflections from Edenhope

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This article is originally published in Surrender Now

Picture: Edenhope

An ecovillage is a microcosm of creation; for those who live in it and share in its way of life, it becomes a world unto itself, in which the whole order of existence is related from part to whole. By definition, an ecovillage is a group of people committed to living together as a community, relating sustainably with their natural environment. It is by no means a radical proposition, for the concept simply refers to people creating their culture through place — which has been practiced in varied and innumerable forms for as long as our species has been designated as such.

I have been living in ecovillages, in Australia and Vanuatu, for almost eight years. The life story I have been sharing over the last month is, in one sense, a testimony to the process of adaptation that takes place when one can no longer live functionally as a part of ordinary society and starts actively seeking a sustainable alternative. The story is about other important things too — adventure and awakening, the will to authenticity — but for today I will explore the concept of ecovillage as a place to live purposefully and sustainably, and what that means for the planet.

The corollary relevance of this, I should say, comes from the fact that I’ve recently overhauled the website of our ecovillage in Vanuatu, which includes an invitation for people to visit once the borders are open in 2022. And also that a delegation from the Global Ecovillage Network recently attended COP26 to advocate the ecovillage model of regenerative development as a strategy for climate change adaptation and resilience.

Yet for people to exist in such a way that does not harm the earth requires significant transformations to take place, both within the individual and in the structure and scope of human communities. Having lived this out, to some extent, I wanted to share something about what these transformations look like. My friend Pi had this to say1:

There is this process that happens when people shift over from city to ecovillage and a lot of people don’t really make it, if we’re honest about things. This is what we’ve observed over the years. There’s a reason why we’re not really backed in with crowds.

The process of [adaptation] that does take place can be described through energy management principles. It is both something that can be willed or something that happens outside of our control. The greatest shift would be [away from] energy consumption, or energy competition — which is the norm in the cities — and moving into energy conservation in an ecovillage setting.

As one brought up in a (so-called) developed country and reared on the spoils of a globalized economy, when I started living close to nature it felt like returning to sanity following a protracted hallucination. The dream cities of this world are so captivating to the senses that one almost considers them real, but sooner or later the truth settles in that there is no possible way for life to continue on this planet by adhering to the model of civilization as it currently stands.

When a grown-up individual has been wired for on-demand, immediate satisfaction of his or her needs or desires — be they food, sex, or recognition/prestige — that person will not find their place in a community of people seeking a regenerative way of life. In the dream city, you are doing that world a service each time you honour an impulse to gratify yourself at the expense of the planet. You are keeping the economy going. You are keeping people gainfully employed in the work of exploiting you.

This is not so in the world of ecovillage and ecovillage projects, for the regenerative way of life is not an economically-driven model. It is a culture of giving and receiving according to one’s unique attributes. One’s role in an ecovillage is determined by what one offers to it; accordingly, in order to live as part of an ecovillage, an individual recalibrates their needs and values to align with the vision, context and culture of the place they have chosen.

The sense of self, in an ecovillage setting, expands to include the whole community and the myriad requirements to keep it operational. One must do as the microbes do: perform different and essential functions for the ongoing maintenance of life, and contribute — through succession — to a balanced ecosystem that supports the future generation.

Succession, in communities, is a fact of life. In the evolution of being, ideas and aspirations that work replace those which have become unwieldy through over-expression. On a community scale, that which is regenerative and sustainable inevitably eclipses that which damages and corrupts; adaptations take place, over time, to preserve the culture of place. This is part of the individual’s process as well. As Pi has said:

I don’t feel it stops with energy conservation. I feel it brings about a kind of healing when we no longer need to utilise so much of our psychic energies, our mental faculties, our physical wellbeing to survival issues.

When we start to conserve, a conversion happens. We start to simplify, then our body starts to find access to what heals — enzymes, hormones, neurotransmitters that used to be in stress mode [become available] to undergo some healing process.

From a social dynamic, when the mind is freed up, people can go into actual energy conversations, conversations not just with other human beings, but conversations with nature, spirit, history.

Picture: Edenhope

Biodiversity drives the human ecology towards regenerative practices, just as it drives natural ecosystems towards higher forms of life. Regenerative practices — individual and collective — require the ability to do different things: in an ecovillage, when a thing breaks you either learn how to repair it or utilize its components to improve something else. When you run out of something, you go without. If you fancy food that is not here, you improvise with what’s available and come up with something new.

The invitation is always to be more creative and more skillful with how we make use of the time, energy, and resources of the ecovillage, in order to keep the place thriving and productive. This requires, of the individual, an adaptation to be happy with what is here, rather than desirous of what is not; to adapt, in fact, one’s set of personal needs to the limitations of what is here right now.

The extent that one can survive without the conveniences of the dream city is equivocal, therefore, to one’s level of adaptiveness to a set of resources limited by locality. This does not mean, necessarily, that we have to do everything ourselves in an ecovillage or that we can only eat from the land, but it does mean that we have to learn how to make optimal use of our unique attributes and whatever else we find at hand to serve the community that, in turn, serves us.

Picture: Sigmund

In ecovillage we do as the microbes do: find our niche ability and adapt it towards sustaining the ecology of place, the culture we are co-creating. This level of adaptiveness to do different things in service of our immediate environment cultivates the way of life. Here adaptation is a constant and continuous process, for the power and proximity of nature disrupts whatever mechanical or fixed patterns we seek to impose through our structures of thought and habit.

More from Pi:

Those conversations [with nature] bring about a sense of awakeness that’s not just from the physical point of view. There has to be some sort of ego death that happens when people are asked to listen to other human beings from a really humble level.

It is humbling to listen to the needs of other human beings before the fulfillment of our own desires. In ecovillage, we have the kind of uncomfortable conversations with each other that most people live out their lives trying to avoid. And yet the ‘awakeness’ to other people and aliveness to our own subtle sensations that emerge in the fulfillment of this process marks a qualitative shift in one’s experience of the world.

It is the art of authentic communion, so richly human in its scope and expression, that the dream city and its conveniences have been stifling. An ecovillage is a microcosm of creation, and the human place within it is as creator: of new forms of ingenuity, of greater ferment in ideas, of sheer beauty in the harmony of our relationship with the planet.

Living in ecovillage renews our connection to place, and to our place in the cosmos — creating a culture of place and symbiotically nourishing the earth of that place. The shared efforts of a community are regenerative. If we are seeking an evolutionary pathway to revive this planet, despoiled by dream cities and way of life they offer, then surely ecovillage models a map of the required terrain.

Find out more about Edenhope Nature Reserves

Cover photo credit: Baraa Jalahej

About the Author

Devi, Edenhope Nature Reserve

Originally from Australia, Devi has lived in Vanuatu as
part of the Edenhope project since 2015. Her service
has included the communication, outreach projects
and administration of the Edenhope Foundation. She
is deeply inspired by the exploration of endemic
biodiversity as part of daily life, including immersion
in nature, preparation of natural plant-based foods,
and researching the social issues faced by indigenous
women of Vanuatu. Find more about Edenhope here!

The Green Unconference 2021: Transition Journeys

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The year was 2015. The first TGU 2015 gathering was in Manila, Philippines. A simple and soulful act by friends, with Karla and Amena wishing to weave their world for healing and wellness. The seed was sown for TGU 2017 and TGU 2019. A biennial gathering, a celebration of all things green, nurturing life with compassion, courage, consciousness, and collaborations. 

The Green Unconference 2019

Now in this time of the pandemic, we are being called on to transition to a way of life that supports our collective health & wellbeing.  

In this time of climate crisis, we are being called on to transition to living in a way our planet can thrive.  

The Green Unconference 2021 is a gathering of intergenerational earth carers, wisdom keepers, healers, activists, regenerators, regen-preneurs, creatives, reimagining and making change happen to birth the new healed humanity and transition our earth to a beautiful world we all know in our hearts is possible. 

This year’s theme is Transition Journeys, and we are partnering with groups who are already transitioning and inspiring others to transition. 

Official partners are

GENOA -Global Ecovillage Network Oceania & Asia 

Kai Farms

Kids for Kids 

Lokal Lab Siargao

MAD Travel

Our timing and themes coincide with the COP26 Climate Conference October 31-November 12, 2021

We are collaborating with many people and groups all over the Philippines, India, Australia, and beyond. 

Our line-up includes online as well as face-to-face events where they are possible. We are also curating transition travel journeys next year when possible. These journeys will allow immersion in projects and interaction with people and communities that are supporting regeneration at the grassroots. 

TGU is a call for friendship, to regenerate our relationships and live from a place of unified loving awareness in service to the wellness of all life. 

We welcome you to journey with us for the kind of joyful, radical collaboration these times call for. 
We are supporting and energizing a culture of gifting. Registration is free. We welcome participants to gift what their heart desires. Funds raised will go towards supporting the regenerative community projects of partners.

Southern Life Community Participating at the Daomi ‘ao International Contemporary Art Exhibition, China

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The second Doumi ‘ao Contemporary Art Exhibition was commenced on 30th September 2021 in Doumi ‘ao Village, Songyang County, Zhejiang Province. The village is an ancient village rich with cultural gems, with more than 400 years of history. Recently the village resources have gradually lost their vitality and their resources have been underutilized due to the urbanization trend of young people.

The exhibition is part of an ongoing government effort for rural revitalization and protection of culture. The Songyang County government has started to implement the “One Hundred Artists Settled in Songyang Village Plan” in 2018 in an effort to slowly bring abandoned villages back to life. At present, the county has organized the preservation of 142 old houses, 63 houses and formally signed a contract with 60 artists to create a batch of art villages such as Doumi ‘ao Village. The first Doumi ‘ao International Contemporary Art Exhibition in 2019 hit national headlines and made local villagers see the hope of revitalization in their hometown.

Southern Life Community, participated in the exhibition by renovating an old house in Doumi ‘ao Village and transforming it into an exhibition hall. In this exhibition, they show the development history of their community over the past five years and make art installations using objects from their daily life. Other than being an exhibition space, the house will also serve as a working and living space for artists and other community members.

About the Southern Life Community

Southern Life Community is one of the first intentional communities in Mainland China. It is a community based on openness and sharing. We welcome visitors and residents from all over the world to join our way of life and co-create in working teams. We have always been committed to accommodating groups discriminated against by society including women, people with disabilities, farmers, and sexual minorities. We share the common view that we are friends no matter who we are. So our members often do not care about external image, skin color, gender, and other differences. We believe that there is no garbage in the world, only misplaced treasures. In our community, each of us has access to public resources and a vote. Everyone has the right to speak up during and initiate a meeting.

We have a wealth of crafts going on where women play an important role in this work. Men are often engaged in manual labor. However, people are able to freely explore what they want to do in our community. Our daily activities in the community over the years have been to build houses, farm fields, play music, make sculptures, and build bridges between people from all over the world. Through the daily processes of action, understanding and integration happen quietly.

By organizing and planning a large number of art activities every year, we try to make social integration truly happen through art. Through the beauty of art, beautiful moments where there is no difference between people often appear. 

We believe that ecological civilization is the future. Ecological civilization is a civilization that embraces diversity. Nothing is absolutely bad, and every species has its meaning and value of existence, and its value and significance are balanced. With this in mind, we also engaged in ecosystem restoration and research and have restored 200 mu (1333+ square meters) of wetland in a nearby area over the past years. 

Our community is made of new residents who are attracted to the countryside and want to settle here and also local people who have a passion for active social work to build their area. New residents who came have been paying attention to the countryside, they use their experience and understanding of city living and bring new perspectives and different possibilities to the local peoples’ daily life and work. There are also short-term residents who come for volunteering, research and engaging in different projects. Through interaction with different people coming from different backgrounds, local people get a fresh and different view of their daily life. Gradually, local people become more involved co-creation process of our community as organizers and co-sponsors of on-site projects and facilitating gentle integration of new residents with local conditions. With the gradual deepening of the relationship between new residents and local people, the formation of a common goal of sharing life and mutual assistance happens naturally.

The formation of our community will be an experimental sample of new rural communities in China, exploring the values of sharing and altruism, the worldview of peace and goodwill, and the consensus community with scientific and artistic thinking. Hopefully, we can be a long-term inspiration for the transformation of more villages.

Tang Guanhua, Founder of Souther Life Community

Tang Guanhua is the founder of Southern Life Community. He is an artist and an intentional community enthusiast. At one point in his life, he moved from the city to LaoShan mountain with his wife to experiment with self-sufficient lifestyles and built a self-sufficiency laboratory for youth to learn self-sufficient lifestyles. With such experience, he established AnotherLand NGO, the first and only NGO focusing on eco-community development in China. He organized China Intentional Community Summit two times and helped the Chinese people to understand the concept of an intentional community better by refining the term in the Chinese language. He is considered to be the founder of the China Intentional Community movement by the Chinese media. In 2015 he founded Southern Life Community, an experimental intentional community in southern China that attracted thousands of people to come and explore sustainable lifestyles. He has been awarded the China Post-85 Charity Figure Award, Top 10 Public Welfare Project Awards of People’s Daily, nominated for UNDP Equator Prizes, and shortlisted for the UN 2018 Young Champions of the Earth. His artworks have been collected by the Museum of Contemporary art Beijing, Alibaba Foundation, Tamera Peace Research and Educational Center, Federation of Damanhur, and much more.

Celebrating the Partnership with Hans Handmade

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During these times GENOA recognises the immense need for community and radically interconnected solutions for our collective future, helping to heal our planet from the ground up. We are dedicated to actively forging partnerships for building resilient communities and organisations for climate care by scaling collective impact towards a healthy planet and people care. Our focus on partnerships is to create a shared well-being economy based on social and economic justice in service to ecology. 

Through these partnerships, we are able to engage with kindred spirit organizations and stakeholders who are aligned with the ecovillage movement, who aim to achieve the UN SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) and/or apply ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) framework for better reporting and disclosure of their impacts and externalities. 

As we activate pathways for partnerships, with a grateful joyful heart we are celebrating our friendship and partnership with Navjot Kaur, the founder of Hans Handmade. 

Navi and Hans Handmade have pledged to share a part of their profits with GENOA projects, paying it forward to communities on the ground that are healing and helping for regeneration.

Hans Handmade pieces are made from carefully selected, ethically sourced materials to create the highest quality fashion that you can wear for years. 

Navjot Kaur Hans is the creator and designer of Hans Handmade. She is a mother, and entrepreneur with a passion for sustainable fashion that supports communities. 

Having been born and raised in the Philippines with roots in India, it seemed natural for her to start a brand that combined those two together. Each bag is designed by Navi in India, then produced in a small weavers workshop in Manila, Philippines. 

“Since I was a child, I’ve always loved fashion. Back then, I spent on trends and what we would now call ‘fast fashion’”, Navi explains. “I studied in a boarding school in India, and every year I would come home with a suitcase packed with last season’s trends. When no longer on trend, they would be forgotten and I would buy new things to replace them. As I’ve gotten older and become a mother, I’ve become a more conscious buyer. I appreciate the value and tranquility of living minimally. I prefer to purchase ethically made, long-lasting pieces, to know where my fashion is coming from, and who made it. This is the ethos of Hans Handmade.” 

As a mother, Navi’s compassionate heart feels the deep desire to give back to our Mother Earth acknowledging her love and generosity to nurture us with all her abundance and beauty. 

We are inviting all other enlightenment organisations, institutions, and enterprises that would like to nurture a connection to our mother earth to partner with us and create the beautiful healed healthy earth we all know is possible. 

Let’s partner up and make a difference!

For partnerships please contact amena.bal@ecovillage.org, ngothao.kin@ecovillage.org

Ecovillage Transition in GENOA

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This article is a short summary of the GENOA community call written by Roky Biswas and Thao Kin

On 21st September 2021, GENOA conducted its monthly community call for restoration and transformation of the earth as a global ecovillage. The topic of this month is Ecovillage Transition – transforming existing communities into regenerative communities. At the beginning of the sharing and discussion Amena Bal – GENOA Network steward & Fundraising Coordinator – led the whole group into a meditative spiritual prayer. After that, Thao Kin – GENOA Networking coordinator – described the purpose of this call where she emphasized that a lot of the work in the Oceania & Asia region are with existing communities; supporting and working with how the communities can be more regenerative.  Anna Kovasna from GEN International took us through a tour of the Ecovillage Impact Assessment which is now officially launched, every community and project with a profile on GEN website can now take this impact assessment either as individual or collective.

The focus of this call was to learn from the practices of Ecovillage Transition around the region. We welcomed Thalea Tane – Aotearoa New Zealand, Hiroko Katayama – GEN Japan, Hai Chao Wang – Sunshine Ecovillage Network, China, Karen Wang – Sunshine Ecovillage Network, GEN China, Tanya Mottl – Narara Ecovillage, GEN Australia – five-speaker from four different countries have shared their experience about the regenerative activities in their communities.

Marrying the ecovillage map of regeneration with the local/indigenous wisdom 

Thalea Tane from Aotearoa/New Zealand, shared about her research and experience on ecovillage, she showed how to incorporate the concepts, tools, ideas from GEN to communities in Aotearoa. She said, “In our traditional communities, they already have this regenerative sense.” She is a tutor for sustainable living courses, builder of earth brick homes, facilitator of workshops, developer of people and communities.  The Universal Maori Principles – Mana, Tapu, Mauri, Kaitiakitanga –  are the same principles that the GEN cards have. When she uses the Ecovillage cards, it speaks volumes to her people as it resonates with the Maori principles. They have the belief system that we are the guardians of their landscape – the land, the rocks, the trees, the animals, etc. in their surrounding environment. One of the things that they have realized in Maori culture is that we need to re-indigenize ourselves and the community. People need to go back to the principles passed down by our ancestors and these principles are no different than the GEN principles. She has been incorporating the GEN playing cards for her community, this made the community feel that they are one with GEN.

Modeling a new world that we can live in

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Hiroko Katayama from As One Community shared that Japan has a capitalistic economy and people do not have much interest in environmental or ecovillage issues. In Japan, her community has been networking with different communities and ecovillages. GEN Japan works on networking to connect, raising awareness, education and supporting domestic initiatives around the country. They have also been trying to engage young people in the ecovillage activities and teaching the ecovillage concept. 

ScienZ Method

Communities like As One Suzuka are experimenting and creating a model to showcase a “new world” – showing how eco-communities are the gateway of the next civilization. They are interacting with mainstream society through trade, selling goods, education programs, workshops and other activities. The As One Community has developed the ScienZ Method for living together – learn more about ScienZ Method here.

Demonstrating and educating the ecovillage lifestyle 

Haichao Wang is the co-founder of Sunshine ecovillage in China. Together with Karen Wang, he shared a very motivating experience from his ecovillage concept and practice. In 2015, Sunshine Ecovillage ran the first international ecovillage forum in China. This is the first time the ecovillage network was introduced to China. Now there are already more than 100 aspiring ecovillages in China. People living in the cities are slowly realizing that they need green life. While city people would like to bring their city life back to villages, Haichao and his team bring the ecovillage concept to them to show that there are different ways of development. They wanted to demonstrate what eco-living really looks like by the life in their ecovillage. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the community created online programs for people to learn about ecovillages.

This ecovillage has about 20 ecovillage-related online courses and workshops on permaculture.  The community organized a eco-person gathering activity every new year (Jan 1st). In this gathering the community awarded one person who has outstanding contribution to the regeneration of China for the ecovillage transition. With the high rate of urbanization, the Chinese government is trying to promote rural revitalization. The Ecovillage team in China are building a model ecovillage (like Sunshine Ecovillage) for people to see and learn from. 

Envisioning with the aboriginal community

Tanya Mottl shared how GEN Australia has been engaging with the Jumbun Community to look at the way that the community wanted to come back to their traditional values and not depend on the government so much. They held a 3-day workshop which led to envisioning and strategizing with the local community. A key initiative they are undertaking is a truth-talking circle. The message that came out is strong and clear: we have the power to change this. GEN Australia  is also supporting Permayouth working with the local school in Jumbun. They have created the ecovillage design cards to be culturally appropriate to the community. The Jumbun Community shared that the ecovillage cards align with their community values. What they’d like to work on is to engage their youth in the regeneration of the community. 

The rich sharing from representatives around the network has sparked interest in all of us. It is important to realize that the process of Ecovillage Transition is very much context-dependent, we can utilize the sharing from our network, with the guidance of the Map of Regeneration and adapt it to our local context. As shared from the group discussion, building ecovillages is challenging in many countries and people who are living in urban areas would like to seek ways to live regeneratively where they are as well. This gives us the opportunity to explore how members of the ecovillage network can engage the urban sector and communicate eco-living to more people in different contexts.

For more information, you can watch the replay of this call on youtube here.

Below are some resources to dive deeper and explore other Ecovillage Transition work in the region:

We’d like to take this opportunity to introduce and invite you to take the Skills and Capacities Mapping, this will help us to understand and map the abundant skills and expertise of people within the GENOA network. With the results of the survey, GENOA will build future connections, projects, and consultancy services, which in turn will strengthen resilience for each member and also the network as a whole.

To stay updated with our events and news, please subscribe to our newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/gxtA65

Cover picture credit: GEN Japan

Welcoming Amena Bal into the Role of Fundraising Coordinator

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After reaching a collective agreement in the GENOAcouncil, we are excited to share with you the news that Amena Bal, one of our network stewards and GEN ambassadors, is stepping in into our office circle as Fundraising Coordinator. Amena has been actively involved with GENOA this year and understands deeply GEN and GENOA values and how we work. She is very keen and energized to build our economic dimension stable and abundant. With her economic background, experience and networks, we think Amena would be the best fit to take on this role in GENOA. Below are some words from Amena, as she steps into the role.

Dear Family, 

As I step into this role, I am remembering my university days majoring in conventional economics, never thinking that decades later I would be working towards creating an economy in service to ecology that unites all spiritually. For this, I am grateful for the work of GEN in our world. 

I currently serve as GEN Network Steward and am humbly honored to coordinate the fundraising energy of GENOA, making our economic dimension stable, healthy, abundant, and wealthy – attracting and generating funds to fulfill all our dreams, projects, purpose and to offer support to all those who serve GENOA. 

Before moving to India in early 2020, the Philippines was my home for over 10 years. It provided a nourishing ecosystem for my personal regeneration through which I was able to serve as co-creator and steward of Kai Farms. Birthing Kai Farms- a permaculture farm, was like giving birth to life, an outcome of my personal rebirth into the path of regeneration. Working with land and communities in the Philippines gave me immense experience on how to create and sustain regenerative business models. 

The GEN restructuring process envisions us to be financially self-sufficient anchored in networks. I sense this to be a very creative time to move ourselves and our networks into an entrepreneurial mindset, creating win-win-win projects that regenerate finance and add value to local and national economies – creating systems that view wealth holistically, are in the right relationship, seeking balance and honoring robust circulation and edge effect. 

I am keen that our fundraising circle and solutions, widen our relationships with mainstream and add value by creating a regenerative shared economy slowly transitioning us from donor dependency to self-sufficiency and in the long term building capacity to fund ecovillages, also creating systems to enhance ecovillage to ecovillage support, weaving more friendships. 

Our first step would be to create a CoP – Community of Practice for fundraising and financial sustainability. We welcome all those who are interested in learning about creating a fundraising network focused on generating personal and community wealth and also exploring social enterprise and impact investment. 

If you are inspired to volunteer with us and work as a fundraising freelance consultant, join our journey of reimaging, restructuring, and regenerating together.  

Excited to connect and co-create abundance write to amena.bal@ecovillage.org 

With a grateful heart, Love, and Light to all

Amena Bal

Building Ethnic and Interreligious Harmony in Sri Lanka

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Story of cpbr; Home for Diversity 

We are an organization that evolves as a community working and existing to spread the vibes of humanity in self, community, and universal levels from an island of South Asia named Sri Lanka. In this land of the earth while we experience nature’s offerings of resources and fertility we experience the wounds, pollution, and polarization which were results of acts of humans such as youth uprisings, 30 years of civil war, ethnoreligious conflicts, and Easter Sunday Attack. There were times such as Tsunami, floods, and droughts in which we tested nature. Amidst this context, we were on the journey of contributing to human and ecological well-being together with our initiatives in the last 19 years. 

We are rooting on the values of power-sharing and interdependency and believing, practicing, and promoting conflict transformation through diverse approaches in order to build co-existence and contribute towards justice and equality and have primarily focused on five target groups- Interfaith religious leaders, community leaders, women, young women, and youth. In the journey of engaging in interfaith coexistence, peacebuilding, reconciliation, healing, and connecting related activities 2019 became a crucial year since as the whole world we too met COVID 19 pandemic.

The thoughts of pessimism created positive energy to face the real-life crisis of pandemic while perceiving it as a natural conflict. As Practionaires and believers of conflict transformation, we as a community tried to transform the situation through diverse experiments and exploration in the process.

It is about how a peacebuilding organization that had worked using traditional approaches transformed to initiate our journey in the digital era……. 

Journey of Healing and Connecting

In the mission of finding lost connections between communities through diverse methodologies and models, Center for peacebuilding and reconciliation, cpbr along with its three wings embarked on an initiative called “Religious Leaders, Community Leaders,Women and Youth as Healers and Community Bridge Makers”.

Heal the Past and Build the Future

JOY OF WITNESSING HUMAN CAPACITY TO SURRENDER

On the morning of 21st of April 2021, 2nd Commemoration Day (of Easter Sunday Attack 2019) no one thought it would be a historical moment in APINĀM life.

But it was….

Islam Religious leaders kneel down in front of Christian religious leaders to ask forgiveness. Tears were falling, sobbing and weeping proved that behind robes Nabi was alive. Strong men proved they are symbols of strong fatherhood being vulnerable when it was needed most.

All humans who were there to witness two years-long deep pain and guiltiness in Islam leaders’ hearts were in heavy hearts, full of tears.

It was a moment of DEEP SILENCE sprouted from SURRENDERING.

JOY OF WITNESSING HUMILITY IN ITS MAXIMUM

 “If I, Therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”

Jesus Christ

Following Jesus’ footprints to forgive doing the ritual of foot washing. It was a moment of experiencing humanity in its fullest existence.

THE JOY OF SEEING ONE ANOTHER IN DEEP LOVE

Jesus was alive in the hearts of all Christian clergy when the Islam religious leaders were asking for apology.

Humanhood sprouted …

Holding the other so tightly.

Humanity bloomed who were witnessing the human capacity to surrender and to open the arms to wrap the other with deep compassion and love.

It was just simple LOVE.

Heal Oneself; Heal the Other; Heal the Nature 

Woman as Faith Keepers of Healing and Connecting

There are limitations in accessing resources, knowledge, and skills for Women in developing countries, especially in patriarchal societies.

The pandemic made this situation worse and cornered women to an invisible corner since everything became digital and online …

In this state WOMAN together with cpbr created safer spaces for women to access knowledge, skills and healing spaces through creative and strategic interventions to access internet facilities. Addressing the generational gap brought sons, daughters, young siblings, and neighbors into the training space to support and teach to access cyberspace.  

Homes became workshop locations 

Gardens became healing spaces

Kitchens became starting place of social entrepreneurship 

everything happened connecting in cyberspace…  

They started to learn mute and unmute in zoom spaces are very significant moves since they were heard and listened to by many …

Conflict bloomed another flower 

Women started to learn how to use their smartphone to access knowledge, skills and to connect with the other for a purpose. Some are determined to buy a smartphone. Some started to use their children’s phones or computers. The connection between mothers and children became more meaningful because now their mothers can understand the digital world. 

Moment of giving a meaning to power-sharing and interdependency.

INTERFAITH CAFE: Online space for youth to meet each other

Interfaith café is an online/virtual dialogue space to meet our friends, brothers, and sisters of a fellow community to initiate a conversation about diverse faiths… 

We meet to initiate readings about our own faith and fellow faiths  

We meet our own community to find the meanings and connect with those meanings 

We meet our fellow communities to find the connections and core

We meet to reflect the distance we have between the true meaning and our life. 

We meet a community to find the connection we have lost as humans with nature.

Online Coaching and Mentoring Design was the Innovation

“What is your personal vision for life”

“What is your vision for your community /Sri Lanka? World?”

“What is your vision for Earth”

This is how we started the process of personal coaching and mentoring. It was not an easy task from the facilitator’s end. Instead of group coaching, spending time with close to 100 individuals for 2 to 3 hours with one person was not easy when it happened in cyberspace.

When I was moving with the quest of aligning myself from different social structured roles to a self-healed soul filled with compassion and love, I witnessed that the mentoring and coaching session supported myself for a self-discovered, self-aligned and self-healed individual. The journey which I am now started from that day. Now I choose to live in love, where I feel so light.

Amhar Ahamed, Kattankudy, SANGYOG Core Member

I always want to support and help my community overcome their issues and problems. Until I have been in a conversation with the facilitator in this session, I was only looking at problems, not analyzing and understanding them deeply. I realized that that’s where I stagnated and this realization brings much hope and light in my heart.  

Thevika, WOMAN Core Member Perivaneelavani. 

I have been with cpbr for the last 10 years but online mentoring and Coaching sessions are the spaces which created space to have one on one conversation with facilitator and resource people which give specific deep concern for each participant. During these sessions supported me to release the blockages I had in my personal, social, political, cultural and spiritual spheres

As Sheik. M.B.M. Firthous Naleemi, APINĀM Co-Leader – Batticaloa, Chairman Bismi Institute, Consultant Peace and Harmony Unit Jamiul afreen Grand Jumma Mosque, and Member Co-existence Unit Jammiyathulama Kattankudy.

Physical Field Meetings Turned to Online One-on-One Coaching Sessions

For years and years, we used to visit our focus groups to support them to grow in psychological and spiritual levels in order to initiate community, regional, and national level transformative actions. Sitting in a circle keeping an artistic expression as a centerpiece in the middle passing a talking piece, we build bonds in personal as well as group levels. Visiting participant’s homes, religious places, and special places they want to take us having diverse reasons to cultivate deeper love and care on a personal as well as community level. We BECAME ONE OF THEM. Experiencing the life of the other enriched our lives keeping LOVE as the center of our relationships.

Peacebuilding is about the quality of the relationship you maintain with oneself, others, and one’s environment /nature. As a team who strongly practiced physical interactions in order to build authentic and truthful relationships, we were in a shock and denial phase when COVID hit Sri Lanka.

During the pandemic time, the cpbr team has also adapted to a new working system and culture of home-based office. Building a remote working system that fosters transparency and accountability, and implementing it was swift due to the small size of the team.

CORONA & US online workshop series

Conversation with ONESELF:

How am I doing in this pandemic period?

Conversation with the OTHER

Let’s wear CORONA’s shoes now… Imagine you are the virus… What do you have to say to HUMANS?

How your faith is interpreting this situation, what are the skills it promoting to face pandemics and transform the crisis to experience something positive

In these spaces, diverse dialogues have bloomed to initiate a transformative journey

COVID and SELF-SUFFICIENT ECONOMY

“If the whole world comes to a level of lock down. Are we going to starve and die? What would we do if that is the situation?

What are our key needs?

What is the difference between needs, wants and desires? Shall we make the lists and budgets?

Can we grow our food?

Can we make our soap?

Can we save our clothes focusing only on what we need, not what we desire?

Can we make our own sanitary needs?

Our own milk, eggs and other proteins.

Our own fish. small lake or pond for lake fish.

We call it a self-sufficient economy.

FAITH and PANDEMICS

What does your faith say about pandemics? How do you interpret this pandemic according to your faith?

How did your spiritual leader face this kind of situation?

What is the knowledge, skills, and tools you can find in your faith?

Do we have the resources to face the situation and transform it to bring humanity?

Can we face this situation?

Developing our minds through knowledge, creativity, and innovation

Utilizing all resources, we have to address our basic needs

Following faith-based and traditional practices, rituals, food habits along with modern medical support and guidelines.

Strengthening our spiritual and moral capacities to face hard situations wisely and lightly.

Can we take COVID as a messenger of nature or God (for Abraham traditions) to REFLECT on what went wrong in HUMAN CIVILISATION?

Can we take this as an opportunity to redesign our life in order to contribute to ecological and human wellbeing?

Can we take this as an opportunity to surrender to nature keeping aside collective and individual human egos?

Can we take this as a moment to reverse the wheel or start a new cycle keeping INTERDEPENDENCE and DIVERSITY at the core of the cycle?

With women, community leaders, youth and religious leaders, and their family members we were able to complete 64 number of facilitated workshops in order to open a new path to be conflict transformation practitioners in real-life situations.

“We were looking at CORONA as an enemy. We never saw it as a messenger of nature or God. Because we never take a moment to reflect how our religions interpret pandemics. We never reflected how our Spiritual leader reacted to such situations. We are also trapped into the interpretations given by popular culture dominated by the media. The Quran says pandemics are on earth to say that we humans behave wrongly. It is a message to STOP and REFLECT. Listen to God. Fix or transform what is wrong in our behavior. This is an eye-opening moment for us to redesign our lives to innovate new lifestyles which contribute for human and ecological well-being”

Al Alim. Zahair Moulavi
Islam Ulama & Teacher
APINĀM Core Member – Sammanthurai

“We felt stagnated and lost. The pandemic has brought us to a difficult situation in which the country’s context as well as what is happening around us is also becoming so difficult.  This workshop of Covid and Us brought a novel way of looking at COVID 19 pandemic and the context which brings much hope in hearts.”

Barathy
SANYOG Peer Group Member Mullaitivu

“After COVID emerged our lifestyles changed a lot and we were panicking about the financial instability we are going to face. We had a lot of time to only blame the government, system and officials thinking that they are the reason for the emergence of this disease. But after this workshop i feel ashamed of myself since i and my family are also a reason for COVID and we have also got a good opportunity to use our free time fruitfully”

Chandra Ratnayake
WOMAN Core Member – Nochchiyagama

ONLINE SYMPOSIUM Series

As human civilization, we have reached an era of complexity; we made everything complicated; we collapsed our natural way of existing. In this collapsing process, we have made huge destruction to Nature … Finally, we lost our happiness and life.

What is the result we all have and face in psychological, spiritual, communal, and human crises? All species of Sapiens are in crisis!

In order to understand this crisis and the bio. psycho, social and spiritual interpretation behind this crisis.

cpbr together with its wings initiated Online Symposiums Series as pinnacle moments of the initiative;

 

APINĀM initiated a discourse with its peer 150 religious leaders’ community from diverse faith groups on the theme of “Heal the Soul, Soil, Mind & Body“
WOMAN initiated a discourse with its peer 130 women from diverse faith, ethnic, social, and cultural backgrounds on the theme of
“RISING WOMAN“
SANGYOG initiated a journey named YATRA with its 120 peers from diverse faith, ethnic, social and cultural background on the theme of “Life & Happiness“

 It’s a very good analysis of the needful movement of micro to holistic understanding of man, social and environmental to find healing in the world. If there should be a holistic healing, it should begin with religion. Therefore, religions should Centre their religious values on the original teachings of their founders. Love heals man, society and environment. Let’s be messengers of love!!!!

Rev. Fr. Pius Kennedy Fernando
APINAM Community Member

Love is my foundation & Knowledge is my capital – Prophet Mohammed
It is a moment to rconnect with this saying …

Akram Junaid Moulavi
APINAM Community Member

Thank You Yatra Team for such a wonderful session. Let me Say this is one of the most terrific training I have attended. To keep the motivation on the notes which you have shared is on my desk so daily I have a glance of the same and hope it helps me to keep the momentum.

Faahim Ismail
SANYOG Youth Community Member

It has been a month since one of our closest relatives died due to Covid. At this moment I am in bed since I have been infected by covid and have been struggling a lot. I was in the session continuously for the last four hours. It is healing and it brought much healing to me. Thank you so much. I believe that only medicines cannot bring healing for us in this context.

Fathima Massiya
WOMAN Community Member

We are trapped and stagnated. I am not a person who resides inside home. I walk on the roads to support people, people who suffer from diseases and prisons to serve them. Now I am inside, I cannot see any humans. We are in a context in which we do not know where we are and where we go… in this lost situation this symposium brought an eye-opening session on happiness … hope and light that we can find happiness whatever the context if we seek ……….

Sister Alexia
WOMAN Community Member

While we were focusing our experimental and explorative online-based activities whenever we got opportunities to meet in the pandemic context, we never missed meeting each other to do our workshops and activities. The image gallery contains the moments of love and humanity we experienced.

In the most complicated era of the world

we believed in mother nature,

We surrendered to her

We listen to her

Therefore we could move the pebbles of transformative, healing, and connecting pathway while bringing creative approaches in the online spaces

We are: 

Religious Leaders who Believe that Religions for Humanity 

Youth who believes in a future nourished by happiness and humanity 

Women who believe in healed and connected future 

Young Women who envision a harmonized community

Our family members, friends, communities are walking along with cpbr team and facilitators pool    

We are a Web of Humans journeying together to; 

Heal Oneself…….. 

Heal the Other ………

Heal the Nature………..

Be connected with us in the journey of healing:

Sangyog: Facebook, Youtube

APINĀM: Facebook, Youtube

WOMAN: Facebook, Youtube

Picture credits: All images from this article is from the Center for Peacebuilding and Reconciliation, Sri Lanka

About the Author

Dishani Jayaweera. Center for Peacebuilding and Reconciliation, Sri Lanka

Dishani believes peacebuilding is a mission based on interdependence and understanding of the power dynamics of relationships. Learning, Un-learning, Evolving, and Growing is the formula of her life. Reflecting, Re-Interpreting, Re-designing, Re-Creating, Re-producing and Re-cycling is the way to heal the world and build a new future that works for all. Dishani and her life partner, Prof. Jayantha Seneviratne, founded the Center for Peacebuilding and Reconciliation in 2002. Today she serves as Program Designer / Strategist and Trainer /Facilitator of the Center for Peace Building and Reconciliation, (CPBR), Sri Lanka. They collaboratively explore the role faith leaders, women, and youth can play in social change processes, healing, and connecting communities.

Through her work with CPBR, Dishani saw that with an organization with almost 300 male religious leaders and with the dominance normally afforded to men in a patriarchal society, it was necessary to create a safer space for women to come together to interpret the world as they see and experience it. In 2013, Dishani co-founded “WOMAN” to create spaces and places to harness the spiritual and material capacity and will of woman from a multitude of faiths and backgrounds to foster peace in a spirit of interconnectedness and earth-connectedness.

Dishani received the Peacemaker in Action award by Tanenbaum (USA) in 2012 and became the 2nd runner-up of the Annual ‘Coexist Prize’ by Coexist Foundation (UK) in the same year. Together with the co-founder of CPBR, Professor Jayantha Senevirathne, she also received the Niwano Peace Award for 2015 for the outstanding contribution CPBR has made to peacebuilding work in Sri Lanka. But for Dishani, her biggest award is the trust and friendships she has built with diverse communities around Sri Lanka and beyond.

Center for Peacebuilding and Reconciliation. Sri Lanka

Centre for Peacebuilding and Reconciliation is a home-grown organization located in Sri Lanka and based in the city Colombo which was founded in 2002 by Dishani Jayaweera Peacebuilder and conflict transformation Practitioner who has over 20 years of experience locally and internationally and Professor Jayantha Seneviratne who introduced peace and conflict resolution as a subject to the tertiary education system in Sri Lanka. For nearly 19 years cpbr has been engaging in interfaith coexistence, peacebuilding, reconciliation, healing, and connecting related activities such as learning & learning designed processes, capacity & knowledge building workshops and trainings, interfaith & intra-faith dialogues, exhibitions, and creative spaces for dialogues, interfaith & intra-faith community, regional & national activities, forums, symposiums, and skill development programs). While rooting on the values of Power-sharing and interdependency CPBR has been promoting conflict transformation through diverse approaches in order to build co-existence and contribute towards justice and equality while focusing on five target groups- Interfaith religious leaders, community leaders, women, young women, and youth.