Our Asian Sustainability Leadership Education Training project is a response to the current and broad demand for more sustainable practices and on-the-ground examples in Asia to conserving food bio-diversity and forests. We are excited to support individuals from around Asia who have demonstrated community leadership, and who come as representatives of larger organisations, networks, or centres. Following this in-depth learning experience in the practices of sustainable living, participants are expected to bring what they’ve learned back to their respective countries, putting it into direct practice, sharing it with others, and creating local initiatives which are supported through follow-up activities.

Local vegetables, fruits, and medicinal varieties are being lost every day. We are working to create a food system that provides healthy options, conserves bio-diversity, and returns empowerment to farmers. Seed saving works to preserve indigenous seed varieties that are rapidly becoming extinct. The way in which we work to conserve our forests is by teaching sustainable building techniques, stopping the depleting of our forests. Since so much of Asia was forested, traditionally wood has been used as the primary building material. Now the forests are depleted and the only other option people see is concrete block, which is exploitative of natural resources, energy demanding (through it’s extraction, processing and long-term energy consumption needs to sustain liveable temperatures in the building), and climatically inappropriate. We teach sustainable building techniques which are affordable, environmentally sound, comfortable, climatically appropriate, energy efficient, durable, and aesthetically pleasing using local easily attainable earthen materials such as cob and adobe.

Our program will consist of an 8-week training with leaders from developing countries at our site and follow-up support for local initiatives stemmed from the training. By training leaders in Asia in nature conservation skills, we are supporting local initiatives around the region in turn creating a larger movement. Each representative comes from a larger network in their home country in which they return to apply their knowledge. We believe the only way to create significant lasting social change is by empowering our local communities. We use this theory in our work with this project.

By teaching regional groups the skills they need to conserve and lead sustainable projects on their own, and providing them with follow-up support, we provide the resources necessary for them to launch successful local projects themselves. Follow-up activities with each participant are crucial in creating a long-lasting network, support system, and movement.