News and Articles
Empowered by the Training of Trainers, Thailand
“When I first joined a Gaia Education EDE hosted by NextGenOA it changed my life. Taking the Training of Trainers in Thailand was the next step for me as I wanted to strengthen my skills in becoming a qualified project leader. The course demonstrates distinctly what is participatory learning; the content is rich and the learning process fluid. What impressed me the most was the talent of the facilitators to get participants to understand and practice Meta-Skill…
Awakening Leadership Training – Ecovillage Design Education, Thailand
‘I learnt that science and local wisdom align with each other. Most young people in my town only believe in science, and unconsciously we ignore the wisdom of our elders. Now I trust more deeply how natural history and local wisdom complement each other.’
This Ecovillage Design Education (EDE) was integrated into a longer course called Awakening Leadership Training that took place 3 September 2017 – 25 January 2018 at various locations in Th…
Building Capacity for the Redesign of our Economic Systems
in 2005 Gaia Education — a global network of sustainability practitioners and educators born out of a collaboration between the Global Ecovillage Network, Gaia Trust, the International Society for Ecology and Culture, Permanent Publications, and others — launched a practical 125 hours curriculum for a residential programme in Ecovillage Design Education (EDE).
The curriculum was structured into the four dimensions of Gaia Education’s whole…
Our Glocalisers Webinar Series Continues
On Wednesday 7 March at 5pm UK, innovative economists Ross Jackson and Jonathan Dawson will hold a webinar moderated by Naresh Giangrande. The subject will be ‘Pathways to Prosperity: Turning Around the Global Economy’.
The conversation will look at reform of the economic system by exploring some of the following topics:
- Open source innovation
- The transition from a centralised to a distributed system
- The ‘breakaway strategy’ from Occupy World Street
- How can we reform the finan…
Mountain to Climb in Solving World’s Problems in a Sustainable Way
A major network of leading companies, think tanks, charities, universities, trade unions and professional bodies has reached an important milestone in measuring the UK’s performance against the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Organisations including WWF-UK, Good Energy, the Open University, Gaia Education, Glasgow Caledonian University and the RSPB are partners of the UK Stakeholders for Sustainable Development (UKSSD), a cross-sector netw…
Gaia Education is now a CPD UK member
Earlier this month, Gaia Education joined CPD UK, an organisation whose members are committed to providing accredited, skills-based training to develop the careers and professionalism of individuals.
What is CPD?
Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is the commitment by professionals to develop new skills or enhance existing ones through online training programmes and face-to-face courses. Many organisations, companies and businesses prioritise CPD to ensure their workforce is up skilled,…
CSR and a World in Crisis
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been around for many years without making any major impact. The general public remains rather skeptical about the phenomenon, observing that in the vast majority of cases, CSR is nothing more than “greenwash” to give the impression of corporate concern about the environment and the social consequences of their corporate policies, when the reality is that maximising shareholder value is the name of the game, and ot…
A Field Report from Darabkola EDE
In December 2017 the first week of the Ecovillage Design Education course in Iran took place in the village of Darabkola. This report is a summary of our experiences and learnings, with reflections for the future growth of EDEs and the path of sustainable living for the citizens of Iran.
Last December 13 participants from diverse parts of the country arrived in Darabkola to light the opening fire with folk music. We…
My ToT Thailand Experience
by Mariana Koutaka
“I have just completed Gaia Education Training of Trainers (ToT) in southern Thailand as a part of the Gaia certified Awakening Leadership Training where I learnt and practiced amazing ways to facilitate sessions and also some of the meta skills that go beyond traditional training methods.
I saw the effectiveness of participatory facilitation, in which trainers and participants are able to co-create the process in a way that enriches the knowledge and the experie…
Participatory Learning – a Bridge to the Future
by Hiroko Katayama
“For many years my community has been experimenting with different approaches to education as we know that modern society is in crisis. Having forgotten or dismissed our traditional values of sharing and connection with the land, our education system has created a culture where children and the adults they become are isolated from, and in competition with each other, consuming unnecessarily, and disrespecting the rest of the natural world.
In January 2018 I d…