Sustainable Lifestyles

 

Purpose

This project wishes to contribute to building Resilience & Oil-independence in local communities to better cope with current and future climatic, economic and environmental shocks that could threaten community well-being.

Furthermore this project wishes to strengthen Co-existence & Quality of Life by exposing young adults from different communities to each other and together explore and learn vital skills for local sustainable living.

 

Project Objectives

The project will highlight humanity’s greatest challenge today as a unifying opportunity. Intercultural and interreligious dialogue on our common future can be facilitated be setting issues in perspective with the overarching need for societal transformation to adapt to living within the resources available. This project will create unique a number of concrete learning experiences where the learning and associated dialogue can take place and be documented.

These learning experiences will practically skill young people for sustainable lifestyle. The dynamics of the intercultural learning experience will provide a powerful story of cooperation and coexisitance documented on film for a wider audience. The project will work to reach out to al public in the Euro-Med region with the message that it is time to work together for our common future.

 

Method

The main project method is the holding of a series of intensive intercultural ”Learning Experiences” in a number of hosting local communities of different cultural, linguistic, ethnic, religious and national origin. Each ”Learning Experience” is basically a 2-week gathering of 12 participants, yong adults from different cultures. There should be an overt effort to ensure a 50/50 participation be young men & young women, 18 years or older.

The ”Learning Experience” is in part based on living, working, studying and discussing as a group during the intensive 14 days. ”Learning-by-doing” using all the senses rather than hearing lectures is key. The host community is to facilitate the learning of 3 practical skills. These can be both traditional skills taught out through intergenerational learning or these may be new innovation. Whatever the skill, it should be useful for a more equiping youth for a more sustainable way of living. Discussions on sustainable lifestyle will naturally come, prompted by interviews.

The learning of skills, group discussions and individual interviews will be documented on film by a local film-maker following the instructions of the film production coordinators. All participants can receive a film record of their experience to share with their home community.

The skills

The skills should represent 3 different type of practical skills useful in a low-energy, low carbon society. The categories below give some examples of the type of skills each host community needs to identify. It is important that the 3 skills come from different categories to offer a broader experience for the participants.

-Ecologic or historic building techniques

-Food cultivation, wild food collection, food preservation & preparation

-Handicrafts, artistic and cultural expression

-Local energy production, water conservation, transportation methods

 

The Film

The project will include the production and distribution of a 40-minute documentary on sustainable lifestyle based on the raw filmed material of the ”learning experiences”. The diverse skills and diverse participants will give a rich content to be edited into a clear, supported message of intercultural learning for sustainable future.

In order to enable the final documentary to use the raw material produced in the learnin experiences, the film production coordinators will need to prepare a plan for the documentary and formulate filming instructions for the local film-makers.

All raw film material will be clipped and edited towards the end of the production process, In the postproduction phase, the credits, soundtrack and subtitles will be added in partner languages. A distribution plan will be developed in coordination with project partners and focus primarily on national distribution in the partner countries.

 

Project Duration

The project is to be completed in a 24-month period.

Preparation Phase month 1-6

Learning Phase month 6-18

Production Phase month 18-24

 

Partnership

In order to implement the project some ten environmental, cultural or youth organisations able to hold a ”learning experience” in their local community.

1-3 film and media organisations will be needed to produce and distribute the documentary.

 

Budget for each learning experience

Each Learning Experience Session

coordination 500 EUR

12 travel grants 4800 EUR

hosting costs 1680 EUR

teaching fees 300 EUR

filming contract 1000 EUR

Sum 8 280 EUR

 

Overall Budget

10 Learning Experiences

10 x 8680 EUR = 82 800 EUR

Film production and distribution 20 000 EUR

Coordination and administration 5000 EUR

Total Budget 107 800 EUR

 

Contact

Robert Hall

c/o Suderbyn Permaculture Ecovillage

Västerhejde Toftavägen 211

SE-621 99 Visby SWEDEN

suderbyn@ekobogotland.se

www.ekobogotland.se/SuderbynEcovillage