Transforming Business

This learning event is for individuals, organisations and communities wanting to create their own outrageously successful sustainability projects, or regenerative enterprises.

In El Manzano, BioBio, Chile

With Liora Adler & Andy Langford

How Much: Sliding Scale US$302-538.00 includes all food, accomodation and resources. Discount Deals.

• What skills will I learn?

• Why should I attend?

• What kind of people should attend?

• Why in El Manzano BioBio Chile?

Apply Now: Please complete the  application form for the summer programme in March 2011 here.

For more information about how to get to El Manzano and what you need to bring Logistics Pack.

To talk to a real person contact Javiera Carrión by email or phone +56-43-1972262. Javiera will help you with the application process.

''Through Gaia University I have become an effective manager who has the ability to transform organizations into ethically driven companies that work for social and natural justice I know I am in a network of world changing peers whose efforts are also making big differences in their communities.'' Ben Jones (Gaia Associate)

Summer Series Chile 

This workshop is part of  the Summer Series. This workshop can be taken as a package deal with the other intensive practical workshops open to the public;

• Designing a New Learning Paradigm · March 4–12 · Transformative Action Learning

• Facilitating Complex Situations · Mar 25–27 · Turning Problems into Solutions

Please note: if you book more than one of the Summer Series workshops, we will offer you a package deal price reduction. Please ask us for more information. 

An Action Learning Event

Learn how to create projects for the 21st Century that are ecologically, socially and economically viable and invest in the full living community in your region. Learn how to create local enterprise that have a transformative effect in your own life, in your organisation, and on the wider world. Join us for this unique design event to explore lifelong pathways for;

• Personal growth – develop your c apacity as a highly competent leader in your organisation or community, the creative force in your own life.

• Community building – strengthen the communities of which you are a part and provide opportunities for others to reach their potential.

• Service to the Earth – projects that give more than they take, rebuilding and enhancing damaged environments.

Bring Your Own Project

You are invited to bring your own dreams and ideas for regenerative projects that can be realised within a one year period. Take this one off opportunity to redesign your project and get the advice and support you need to make your dream real.

During the workshop facilitators and participants will work together using a range of best practice tools and techniques to explore each project in detail. Each team will develop a range of possible strategies and do the preliminary work required to get the project up and running. The design teams will present their projects to the whole workshop, receive critique and feedback. The whole process will be reviewed to identify personal and collective learning.

''With the support of Gaia University I have organised my own learning for ecosocial regeneration. This has enabled me to learn, in action, while developing a world changing project looking to leverage our global interconnectedness to accelerate local transformation.'' Javiera Carrion (Gaia Associate)

Facilitators

The Gaia University facilitation team consists of a transdisciplinary collective of individuals from the business, non-profit and education sectors who have come together to create a forum to find solutions to the economic, environmental and social challenges of the day in Latin America. Through an international network of grassroots organizations, participatory design, and inclusive democracy we are working with local communities all over the planet to develop sustainable solutions. Below are the biographies of instructors and facilitators for the 2011 Chile workshop.

Liora Adler

Liora Adler is a visionary social activist, consensus facilitator, psychologist, holistic nutritionist, event organizer, photographer and dancer.

Liora has been a global leader in the ecovillage movement and was an executive board member of the Global Ecovillage Network from 1999 - 2003. She currently serves on its International Advisory Board and as a representative to the United Nations. She is also an advisory board member of the and vice-president of The Global Village Institute for Appropriate Technology.

Liora has helped to create ecovillage and permaculture networks in Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, South Africa, China and Cuba. As co-founder and co-president of Gaia University, Liora has been intimately involved with its design and development from the outset. She oversees operations, teaches programs for associates developing new regional organizing circles, and has been known to lead salsa classes when the mood strikes. 

''My life has changed! A new circle began when I became a Gaia U associate. I’ve turned the page and now I’m developing my ecological intelligence as an integrative ecosocial designer. Never before have I had these feelings of connection or this level of consciousness about my acts and thoughts. Gaia U is part of my life and my growth. It is not just a University, is the solution for the problem.'' Monica Engel (Gaia Associate)

Andy Langford

Andrew is an unusualist, a possibilist and a lover of small-scale living associated with large-scale thinking. Andrew was an early adopter of permaculture design thinking when it first spread through Europe in the 1980’s.

He soon became the first permaculture design teacher in Britain, and had a successful business designing at garden and farm scale for private clients, and designing urban retrofits for local governments. In 1993, Andrew designed and implemented the Diploma in Applied Permaculture system, an action learning worknet for the development of professional permaculture designers that has become a basis for capacity building operations in several northern European countries.

Andrew is a strong advocate for participatory learning and decision-making and is skilled in a variety of facilitation methods, including Future Search and Open Space Technology. He is the author of Designing Productive Meetings and Events, a field manual for UN Agenda 21 facilitators, and a recognized teacher of Re-evaluation Counseling, which promotes the discharge of internal distress and resolution of rigid, patterned thinking as primary routes towards the emergence of healthy, intelligent human cultures.

How Much

The Sliding Scale is income dependant. Those with a higher ability to pay contribute more, and are effectively subsidising lower income earners. So if you earn  up to US$10,000 per year you pay the E3 price, US$20,000 the E2, and US$30,000+ you pay the full E1 price.

Unwaged people may apply for a limited number of part scholarships and/or professional trade.

Please refer to the following table to define your payment. If you are confused please contact us.

Full Price  – E1 538.00 · E2 425.00 · E3 302.00

Early Bird – E1 484.00 · E2 382.50 · E3 275.0 

''My experience at GU was as much a shift in my perception as it was an education. This profound movement towards a higher level of thinking and understanding has resonated deeply within my core. The concepts and philosophies introduced to me by through Gaia U have joined me on my personal and professional journeys towards planetary sustainability and ecosocial regeneration.'' Benjamin Ray Griffin (Associado de GU)

Discounts & Deals

Pay in full before January 14th 2011 and pay the early bird price. E3 people bring a friend and pay only US$275.00. E1 people bring a friend and pay only the E2 price of US$425.00 each. Please note: if you book more than one of the Gaia University Chile summer program workshops, we will offer you a package deal price reduction. Please ask us for more information.

Learning Outcomes

This learning experience will provide opportunities for participants to develop a broad range of values, knowledge, and skills for creating their own regenerative projects in their own communities. Participants will leave with a wealth of inspiration and materials that enable them to start working for change in their own projects and organisations.

Throughout the five days we will explore the core sustainability literacy areas of;

• Grounded economic awareness – the ability to drive sustainability improvements in the workplace · the business case for sustainability · life cycle costing · basic business knowledge · transforming business · more adequate local economic models · financial viability.

• Working with Systems – the ability to recognize inter-connections within and between systems · manage complex sustainability problems.

• Strategic and futures thinking – the ability to create positive visions for the future · strategic thinking and planning.

• Effective communication skills – the ability to expose discourses that undermine sustainability and resist them · how to influence change inside and outside the organisation · new media literacy · marketing strategies.

• Finding like-minded people for cooperative efforts – organisational skills · problem solving · adaptability · consensus building · inspiring and motivating others · design leadership · team building· effective collaboration · establishing and managing priorities · project management.

What kind of people should come?

This event is suitable for a wide range of students and professionals in the government, non-government and private sectors wanting to improve their practice in sustainability and move their own organisations forward.

The workshop will provide opportunities to learn how to leverage local resources, diversity and talent and create business opportunities that give back to the local community, the bioregion, country, and the world. This is an event not to be missed.

The many faces of a world changer / Spanish.

We recommend the following people attend;

• Local Government staff in Chile or Latin America.
• NGO staff in Chileworking for inclusive business and entrepreneurial innovation.
• Business people commercial engineer exploring ways of doing green business, transforming business.
• University staff.
• Young professionals seeking a career as a sustainability professional.
• Central government staff seeking to understand sustainability And How to apply it.
• Presidents of Junta Vecinos.
• Gaia University graduates wanting to extend their competency.
• Permaculture Design Certificate holders seeking career pathways in regenerative design.
• Permaculture Diploma students. 
• Permaculture designers seeking to understand regenerative design.
• Ecovillage network members seeking to revitalise their efforts.
• Transition Town planners looking for innovative solutions for their own projects.

What is the format and educational style?

This is a participatory design workshop, offered as an experiential learning event working on real world problems, to form real projects, in a collaborative working environment.

The workshop is participant centred. We will be utilizing the knowledge and skills of participants working in design teams in the development of real projects.

The facilitation team will utilise a combination of methodologies including the Future Search Conference, Open Space Technology, Dragon Dreaming, Chaordic Design process, Holistic Management, and Strategic Action Planning to lead participants on a journey of experience, real world learning.

Key theory content from international and Chilean professionals will be delivered throughout the process. Themes include; project planning and management, financial planning, investment, organic production, engineering, bioconstruction, cooperative legal structures, inclusive buisnessm, community planning, appropriate technology, waste management, bioconstruction, alternative economy and more.

''Gaia University threw me off the cliff of self-directed learning and action in a way that a traditional college never could have. As a result, I've experienced rapid and profound personal and professional growth.'' Connor Stedman (Gaia Associate) 

Why Take this Workshop?

This workshop is designed to support individuals, organisations and communities to create their own successful sustainability projects from their collective dreams and visions. It means making our own dreams and the dreams of others come true.

All of our human activity at this present time is occurring within a multigenerational project of global change, which makes up the larger context of our lives. This transitional shift from an industrial growth society to a life sustaining society, has been called the called ‘The Great Turning’, and is the central most important project of our times.

But are we doing enough? Are we really part of the solution?

Conventional Approach is Insufficient

Our greatest challenge then is to make things happen that have never happened before, to create projects that build prosperous local ecosystems and communities, and are economically viable.

The conventional approach to projects is a linear, top-down, logical “left brain” activity. This command and control response completely misses the true nature of a project, and is insufficient for the kind of world change we need.

Dependency on leadership means we often wait for government, industry and our own communities to make change for us. The failed Copenhagen Climate Summit is a classic example. Despite the urgent need for solutions to the climate challenge, nothing happened. Our elected leaders were paralysed in an old paradigm of competing national interests, and top down thinking. 

Furthermore, evidence from around the world suggests that 90% of small projects usually fail in the first three years. The project gets “stuck” and fails to progress beyond the stage of dreaming, often in the mind of one strong leader. The people involved often become stressed, burned out, spend a lot of money and promise never to get involved in anything like this again.

We Need a New Approach

It doesn’t have to be this way! We can mobilise people to take responsibility for their own future, and support the creation of world changing projects that make it past the three year period.

In order to move beyond the “dreaming” stage a project needs to be shared with others. The project needs to be undertaken by a “dream team”, who come together to achieve a joint or collective dreaming. A project, which remains locked in the imagination of one individual person, is a project in name only. To be successful the project needs to engage the wider, external world of the individual person’s environment.

We need community, as it has been said ‘when the people lead, the leaders will follow’…‘we are the people we have been waiting for’, a new generation of leaders collaborating to bring our dreams of a new eco-socially regenerative world into reality in coming decades. There are many alternative pathways to the creation of unimaginably successful projects.

Transformative Projects

Successful projects have a positive effect upon everyone involved, they have a transformative effect upon our lives, on our communities and on the wider world. A well co-designed project has the capacity to be a series of catalytic learning events and should focus on; 

• Personal Growth – we are all more than we think we are, focus on your own healing and empowerment. Our “self image” often restricts what we believe are possible. This internal prejudice is the most powerful force holding us back from creating successful projects.

• Community Building – community building is sustainability, strengthen the communities of which you are a part. We need to build community as if our lives depended upon it, as in times of rapid socio-cultural, economic and environmental change, those people who live and work in supportive communities are those people who will most easily cope.

• Service to the Earth – everything is connected, enhance the wellbeing and flourishing of all life. Powerful projects are all based upon the principle of giving more than they take, of rebuilding damaged environments wherever possible, but also in ensuring in some small way that the environment is enhanced for all of life, as a result of its existence.

Feasible & Replicable Economic Models

A critical aspect of sustainability is to ground it on feasible and replicable economic models. This means arranging our finances so that these new eco-social models of living can spread rapidly, and can transform degraded landscapes into prosperous and resilient human communities. It requires collaboration, putting together people with common values and needs so that they can help each other to realize their dreams and create their own right livelihood.

A key ingredient in making sustainability economically feasible is to take advantage of wasteful behaviours that are a common element of contemporary society, and to develop better designed systems that save people money. There are a range of ways we can do this;

1. Convert ‘waste’ materials into useful resources
2. Restore degraded landscapes and marginal communities.
3. Use innovative ways to lock in the value of sustainable products and services based on guaranteed future asset value including accrued gains such as the power produced by a solar panel or the lumber produced by a property.
4. Reduce the carbon footprint towards neutral.
5. Local production for the needs of local people.
6. Create self-organizing systems that foster collaboration and improve the quality of our lives.

Regenerative Design

Creating a successful project is a design endeavour that asks us to find innovative ways to weave ecological and ethical values into more adequate local economies. Rather than merely tacking on social and ecological goals to our businesses, we can restore ecology and human communities as the modus operandi of economy. Regeneration means transforming the way we do business, as small financially viable local enterprises acting to drive sustainability innovation for the whole planet.

Regenerative strategies ask us to remove our time, attention and money from investments in global corporations that destroy local culture and ecology for profit, and re-invest capital in local enterprises that put people and planet on their bottom line ledger. This effectively means the conscious whole system re-design of human financial systems to create a zero waste economy that cares for the earth, the people and distributes surplus of material, currency and knowledge in a fair and equitable manner.

Why in El Manzano

El Manzano is a regional centre of Gaia University in development. As a farm, school and community this living university is a working demonstration of sustainable living, of beginning the transition step by step towards sustainability.

In El Manzano the intrepid visitor will find a broad array of tools and techniques for sustainable living that encompass the spiritual, ecological, socio-cultural, and economic dimensions of sustainability. From native restoration to sustainable forestry, broad acre cultivation and orchards, to intensive gardens and hand made homes, here is a place of genuine wealth, abundance and resilience.

As part of a regional, national and international learning community El Manzano provides transformative action learning pathways that enable people to develop the values, knowledge and skills needed to create sustainable human settlements, organisations and businesses.   

The El Manzano initiative exists as a think and do tank, incubating and supporting regenerative enterprises through a regional network of mentors and advisors. We are here to foster participatory design for green businesses that can address the needs of the local community in a sustainable way. The El Manzano project is a living example of regenerative patterns that can provide inspiration, support and guidance to other initiatives in Latin America and around the world. By collaborating we can network with other existing movements and add new voices and wisdom to the collective movement towards resilient human communities.

Sign up for the workshop and add your voice to the conversation. Help us to create a catalytic learning experience that empowers a network of people in Chile and Latin America to engage in outrageously successful project design.