News and Articles
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…
Humanity Rising Summit launches an international coalition on action for a sustainable post-pandemic world
An international coalition of over 200 leaders from diverse backgrounds and 100 partner organizations representing over 10 million individuals from around the world will launch the Humanity Rising Global Solutions Summit on May 22, 2020. The Summit is an initiative of Ubiquity University.
The Summit will continue over time starting May 22 so that it can be involved and contributive as world events unfold. It is clear that this virus is not going to suddenly go away. The world has been stopp…
Gaia Education and Plattform Footprint work on SDGs and Ecological Footprint with Austrian Youth supported by Sinnbildungsstiftung
To support Austrian students to become ‘Glocalisers’, Gaia Education, in collaboration with our local partner organisation in Austria, Plattform Footprint, has developed a youth-focused training package, which blends Plattform Footprint’s work on Ecological Footprint in schools with Gaia Education’s cutting edge curricula and participatory methodology for sustainable development.
The project includes the adaptation of the SDG Training for Multipliers for youn…