"Founded in 2003, Post Carbon Institute is leading the transition to a more resilient, equitable, and sustainable world. The Institute has gathered 29 of the world's leading experts on a wide range of interdependent social and scientific issues."
OSDE IN BRIEF\nThe OSDE methodology supports the creation of OPEN SAFE SPACES FOR DIALOGUE AND ENQUIRY about GLOBAL ISSUES and PERSPECTIVES focusing on INTERDEPENDENCE. \nIn these spaces, people are invited to ENGAGE CRITICALLY with their OWN and with DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES, think INDEPENDENTLY and make INFORMED and RESPONSIBLE decisions about how they want to think and what they want to do. \nThe OSDE methodology offers a SET OF PROCEDURES and SUGGESTED GROUND RULES that can be adapted to different age groups and contexts.\nThe key is to create spaces where people GATHER TOGETHER to LISTEN and TRANSFORM THEMSELVES - LEARNING and UNLEARNING together, re-inventing ways of RELATING to one another and IMAGINING OTHER POSSIBLE FUTURES.
In El Alto, Saturnina and Felipa learned to knit and weave. Job after job,
both received low pay, late pay or no pay at all. At one point, Saturnina's boss
was paying her $4 per clothing article which he would then sell in Germany for
$70.
Saturnina and Felipa grew tired of seeing themselves and other rural migrants
exploited. So in 2000 they founded a women's collective called the Integral
Association of Kullakas (IAK). 'Kullakas' means 'sisters' in the Aymara
language. They used this word to symbolize their interdependence with the Aymara
and with the world. Says Saturnina: 'We decided that we needed to help each
other.'
Nine years later, the collective - of which Saturnina is President -
continues to teach handicraft and farming skills. Saturnina's living room is
where women come to be trained. The room displays colourful scarves, hats and
dolls made by hand, often entirely out of the fleece of the alpaca - similar to
the llama - which is warmer and softer than sheep's wool.
Fifty per cent of the price of each product goes to the woman who made it,
while the rest goes to communal living costs or to buy new materials. The
Kullakas are constantly on the lookout for markets so that they can pay women as
quickly as possible.
The OSDE methodology offers a set of procedures and ground rules to structure SAFE spaces for dialogue and enquiry about GLOBAL ISSUES and PERSPECTIVES focusing on INTERDEPENDENCE. For teacher education, secondary schools, higher education and civil society.
"You ask how I manage to stay involved and remain seemingly happy and
adjusted to this awful world where the efforts of caring people pale in
comparison to those who have power?"
"Almost since life began on earth, mycelia have performed important ecological roles: nourishing ecosystems, repairing them, and sometimes even helping create them. The fungi's exquisitely fine filaments absorb nutrients from the soil and then trade them with the roots of plants for some of the energy that the plants produce through photosynthesis. No plant community could exist without mycelia."
one of the things that has emerged as a key driver for change is the value of inspiring examples of ordinary people taking a lead
Building Community, Transition Movement and Social Enterprise
"... an important difference between a gift economy and an exchange economy is that in a gift economy, a bond develops between the gift giver and the recipient, while in an exchange economy, the parties often don't care if they ever see each other again."