Trainings for Transformation

Since 2014, The Gaia Foundation  and our allies, Siama, have held a series of unique and UN-commended Trainings for Transformation.

This three-year course critically assesses the impact of industrial growth society and explores Earth Jurisprudence as a life-sustaining alternative: cultivating the confidence, skill and tenacity to shift from human-centred to Earth-centred consciousness. Over the past decade, we have accompanied three cohorts of African leaders on this journey of decolonisation, as they revive indigenous lifeways that are rooted in reciprocity with our living world. Facilitators and graduates together form the African Earth Jurisprudence Collective.

“The three-year training course raises the voices of a new generation of African advocates for Earth Jurisprudence.” UN Secretary General

Course content

The Trainings blend wilderness immersion with the rediscovery of diverse African cosmologies, exploration of ecological philosophies and experience of embodied practices. The range and depth of this collective and individual learning sparks personal transformation.

Upon completion of the course, graduates become Earth Jurisprudence Practitioners. They return to their roots – their home villages, families, elders, and wild kin – where their personal growth inspires community-wide transformation, followed by the landscape level change so needed at this time of polycrisis.

The course is co-facilitated with Siama, and joined by a variety of tutors from different fields. Graduates go on to mentor trainees, inspired by indigenous approaches to intergenerational learning.

“The training for Earth Jurisprudence Practitioners responds to the growing realisation in Africa that the continent has a rich cultural heritage of ecologically rooted traditions that it needs to draw on to forge a viable future before it is too late” Liz Hosken, Gaia Co-Director

Story of Origin

In the mid 1990s Gaia was part of a gathering in Ireland, where an elder was asked to talk about the challenges of our time. In a booming voice with piercing eyes he said, “the industrial process is now in its terminal phase. This is the inevitable consequence of civilizations that destroy their life support system. The difference this time is that the dominant civilization has colonized the farthest reaches of the Earth.”

The elder was Thomas Berry, cultural historian and geologian. His book, The Great Work, was published in 1999 and called for a radical transformation of dominant law and governance systems. To explore how we could instead recognise Earth as the primary source of law, Gaia facilitated a series of dialogues with Thomas Berry and visionaries from the Amazon, Europe and Africa. We began embodying this philosophy of Earth Jurisprudence in our own lives, and searching for Indigenous communities who might want to revive the cosmologies that had been grounded in Earth-centred governance for millennia.

Sparks of interest began swirling for training in Earth Jurisprudence, and so based on Gaia’s experience and affectionate alliances, we developed such a course together with Roger Chennells, a South African human rights lawyer. We were centred by profound retreats held by Siama at the home of Colin and Niall Campbell in Botswana, and others fed in including Joanna Macy, Jules Cashford, Silvia Gómez, Stephan Harding and Mellese Damtie.

The vision for the training was, and still is, to weave together a range of experiences, materials and practices for participants to explore and embody. The beautiful fynbos landscape of Towerland in South Africa became the home for regular retreats thanks to custodians, Allan Kaplan and Sue Davidoff of Proteus Initiative.