Ecoversity Groundwork

From Ecoversities Source

Rising to meet the challenges posed by climate change, ecological decline, and environmental injustice requires more than new technologies and policies. Changes to economies, political systems, and infrastructure must come in tandem with changes to values, attitudes, and practices. At Groundwork, we work to shift the foundations of the ways we understand ourselves and our place in the world, in order to work towards more just and sustainable shared futures for a time beyond our own.

Building sustainable culture takes time.

At Groundwork, we believe that a long view and a slow approach is necessary to create deep, lasting change. We see our work as just the beginning of a process: planting seeds of a sustainable culture that takes time to grow.

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, Paonia, Colorado, United States US

Featured in main website? [Yes In main website]
Creation date 2018/06/01
End
Pedagogies Agile Learning, Green Pedagogy, Holistic Education, UnschoolingAgile Learning, Green Pedagogy, Holistic Education, Unschooling
Topics Agriculture, Architecture, Community, Economy, Education, Facilitation, Farming, Food, Love, Natural-Building, Peace, Permaculture, Politics, Residency, Social Movements, Social SciencesAgriculture, Architecture, Community, Economy, Education, Facilitation, Farming, Food, Love, Natural-Building, Peace, Permaculture, Politics, Residency, Social Movements, Social Sciences
Economic model Voluntary payment
Participants
Ages Adults, Teens, Childsadults, teens, childs
Type Formal
Volunteers Yes
Virtual None
Gatherings
Active in regions North AmericaNorth America
https://api.mapbox.com/styles/v1/mapbox/satellite-v9/static/-107.58439,38.88356,9/1280x400@2x?access_token=pk.eyJ1IjoiaWFjb21lbGxhIiwiYSI6ImNpdWJ3OHJoYTAwOHgyb3BneWd1NG16bjgifQ.8uFt1oMO57yDT9Xzb_ScAw

38° 53' 0.82" N, 107° 35' 3.80" W voluntary

formal adults, teens, childs"adults, teens, childs" is not in the list (adults, teens, childs, infants) of allowed values for the "Ecoversity:info-ages" property. yes none https://www.layinggroundwork.org Yes

Mission Groundwork offers educational programs and publications that seek to shift the foundations of how we understand ourselves and our place in the world. We envision a just and sustainable future, founded upon respectful and reciprocal relationships between the land and all its inhabitants.

Vision Rising to meet the challenges posed by climate change, ecological decline, and environmental injustice requires more than new technologies and policies. At Groundwork, we believe it also requires profound shifts in the ways we relate to one another and to the world around us. Groundwork offers educational programs and publications that seek to shift the foundations of the ways we understand ourselves and our place in the world, in order to work towards more just and sustainable shared futures.

A culture, like our planet, is a living ecosystem, constantly shifting and changing based on the values, attitudes, and practices cultivated within a particular community. Groundwork creates spaces to critically reflect upon, challenge, experiment with, and create anew those building blocks of culture. Our offerings create opportunities for the emergence of new kinds of relationships and ways of being within the human and more-than-human world.

We believe that reimagined relationships and practices—in essence, emergent cultures—are the foundations of systemic change.

Our Approaches Understanding Origins “How many individuals, cultures, and histories are behind every seed sown? … Planting seeds with this depth of knowledge heals the past; healing the past heals the future. … Like all of us who have had our seeds burnt, our stories lost and pushed underground, our places of origins devastated, our organ of indigenous memory turned into a vestigial memory itself, we ourselves must become the origins of a people who would keep the seeds alive.” -Martín Prechtel, The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic

All of our work seeks to illuminate more clearly the deeper origins of issues our world faces. We believe that in order to imagine and bring into being new relationships and ways of being, we must first understand how it is that our contemporary world came to be. Our programming has at its foundation historical and theoretical inquiry into the ways in which contemporary understandings of the self, other, nature, culture, growth, and development inhibit us from cultivating respectful relationships with the living world. Having understood the origins of extractive and exploitative ways of relating to other beings, both human and more-than-human, we can practice identifying, disentangling ourselves from, and replacing those habits and practices.

Practices of Belonging ​​“Being naturalized to place means to live as if this is the land that feeds you, as if these are the streams from which you drink, that build your body and fill your spirit. To become naturalized is to know that your ancestors lie in this ground. Here you will give your gifts and meet your responsibilities. To become naturalized is to live as if your children’s future matters, to take care of the land as if our lives and the lives of all our relatives depend on it. Because they do.” ― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

We see belonging as a foundational practice for any sustainable culture—coming home to place means building more accountable relationships with the communities (human and more-than-human) to which we belong. Belonging is at once deeply practical and deeply spiritual. It means eating what we grow and gather, living slowly, and cultivating a sense of peace in ourselves. Belonging means being an active agent in the ecologies, histories, economies, and policies that affect our local and global home.

Embracing and Encouraging Complexity Embracing complexity allows us to have more substantive and realistic conversations about the issues facing our world today. We challenge the idea any single person or framework of ideas can present us with a universal solution. We encourage people to allow enough space to embrace and explore multiple ideas that seem contradictory.

Experimentation It’s not possible to return to an imaginary, idealized past when humans lived in harmony with the rest of the living world. At this point, a livable future will be something entirely new—stepping forward while learning from the past. We create space for experimentation, trusting that each iteration will help us learn.