Ecosystem Restoration Communities offers a profound solution to land degradation, ecosystem destruction and the disconnect between humankind and nature. We do this by building naturally constructed communities on land that is highly degraded, and welcoming people to stay at the camp and learn how to restore land back to fertility. The communities also focus on teaching people skills in how to be radically sustainable, such as how to grow their own food, how to live zero waste, and how to … Read more
Experience week in Los Portales, Spain
- Date: 2 – 9 February 2020
- Language:
- Spanish
- Location: Los Portales, Castilblanco de los Arroyos, 41230, Spain, Spain
A guided immersion in the life of the community Los Portales, founded in 1984 During this week, you will become part of a dynamic, diverse, multi-generational and multicultural group. You will get to know the essential values of the community, participate in our daily activities, experience a feeling of connectedness with each other, with nature and with life itself, and explore being at the service of the changes that the planet needs. Located in the heart of nature, LOS PORTALES … Read more
Forgiveness practices Different approaches for respectful letting go, reconciliation and integration
The ability to achieve forgiveness and let go of past hurts is one of the most critical challenges many of us face on the road to attaining personal peace and inner balance. Forgiveness can be defined as the decision to let go of resentment, anger, and thoughts of revenge as a result of a real, or perceived offense, hurt, or wrongdoing against you. Forgiving someone does not mean denying a person's responsibility for hurting you, nor does it mean minimizing, or justifying the act. It does … Read more
Feedback skills Giving or receiving feedback is the Art of keeping our mind and our heart open to always be a student.
Increase our ability to give and receive feedback as a team will help us grow. Developing this capacity will help us face major conflicts or prevent them escalating. However, we need to be careful with the context in which people are not used to give and receive feedback. It is important to note the target goal, and my intention: am I releasing something and feeling better, or will this feedback serve to the common good? REFERENCES: https://www.cnvc.org/ … Read more
Project Management Making things happen on time, on budget and with ease
Planning and managing projects are core to your work as a social entrepreneur. Within any project, you will have to manage your resources people, time, money, materials, tools and combine them to get things done. And you need to do all this in a way that ensure you do not run out of money, lose your team, or become despondent. Ultimately, you are doing what you are doing because you love it! So, if you are not loving it, it is a good sign that something is wrong. Setting up a project … Read more
Collective Wisdom How the whole becomes more than the sum of the parts
We need to reinstate meaningful conversations at every level of society. We need to learn how to creatively express our individual diversity and potential, without attachment to being right, contributing our piece to the jigsaw puzzle of life. We start listening for new connections and winwinwin outcomes instead of holding onto knowledge we already have. References: ● Briskin, Alan, Sheryl Erickson, John Ott, and Tom Callanan. The Power of Collective Wisdom: And the Trap of Collective … Read more
Attunement Bringing a group together consciously at the beginning and end of meetings, aligned to the highest purpose.
Taking a minute or two at the beginning of the meeting, either in silence with a few words of guidance offered by the facilitator, to pause and notice that we are in a new space; to consciously connect with the others with whom we are meeting; and to clearly connect with the overarching purpose of the meeting, can radically transform the experience of the meeting. A similar process can be undertaken at the end of the meeting, to bring it to conscious … Read more
Negotiation Skills Win Win Win for Everyone
This is a metaskill and used in nearly every human situation where people have to share resources. Some people treat human relations as a war and so negotiation is a war. For others, where ensuring the best possible outcome for everyone is at the heart of the negotiation process, a very different approach is used. You need to listen attentively to what the other person wants. In some negotiation approaches, teachers or trainers suggest you learn as much about the other person before you … Read more
Appreciative Inquiry Solving problems by building on success
the Appreciative Inquiry process involves people telling stories about positive experiences they have had at work or in groups and distilling the common values and processes that underpin these (Discover); daring to be bold and developing a ‘Provocative Proposition’ that embodies the highest potential of the group (Dream); then designing pathways towards its achievement (Design) and, finally, ... doing it (Deliver)! It is a high energy, generative process that builds on positive prior … Read more
The Practice of Forum Building transparency and authenticity in community
In the practice of Forum, we come together in ongoing groups to share deeply and authentically what is alive in us. With skillful facilitation, an atmosphere of safety is created, which enables us to step out of our comfort zone and into deeper levels of vulnerability and creativity. We also start to see ourselves as an integral part of the whole and not an isolated fragment. As witnesses, we build the capacity to hold more of the richness and diversity of human experience without being … Read more
