In her article, Emily reflects on her direct experiences day-by-day, how her time in the wilderness inspired her and her subsequent journey home.  It is here that Emily realises and understands the difference that wilderness makes.

Read Emily’s story here

Since graduating from our environmental leadership programme, Emily certainly hasn’t take it easy.  In December 2010 she was a recipient of the Green Hero Award from Greener Leith.
Emily has also excitedly written to tell us about a swim in the sea on New Year’s day, undertaken with the aim of inspriring family and friends to commit to Green Resolutions.

Many congratulations to Emily on all her recent achievements. We will continue to bring you news of Emily and our other programme graduates so check back regularly. You can also follow us on Twitter for regular and timely updates on all of the Foundation’s work, as well as issues concerning and threatening wilderness and wild places.

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Into the Wild: Does Wilderness Work?

Benefits for Participants:

This learning experience is a forum that aims to build the relationship between leadership and participation, which can be used in every day challenges. Your attendance will result in increased productivity, deeper relationships, better levels of commitment and more effective participitation within your community or organisation.

Facilitative ‘Leadership is based around seven key leadership practices, wich are:

1. Share an Inspiring Vision
2. Focus on Results, Process and Relaionships
3. Seek Maximum Appropriate Involvement
4. Facilitate Agreement
5. Design Pathways to Action
6. Coach for Performance
7. Celebrate Accomplishment

In this workshop you will learn to:

• Create a vision of success and enrols others in its pursuit.
• Lead planning and problem solving disscussions.
• Understand who should make decisions and how to involve them in your organisation.
• Get the best out of others.
• Design meetings, project plans and change strategies with concrete milestones and clear accountability that people understand and support.
• Consider the dimensions of success: results, process and relationships.

Who Should Attend:

• CEO’s, Directors and Managers of Organisations
• Team Leaders and Supervisors
• Develpoment officers & project leaders
• Neighbourhood and community workers and leaders.

Dates: 9:30 am – 5:00pm, 20th -22nd Oct 2009.

Venue: Groundwork, 63-75 Duncairn Gardens, Belfast BT15 2GB

Cost: £395/595 Euros, includes all materials and lunch

For more infomation please contact:

IISC Ireland,

PO Box 969,

Belfast BT5 9AN

Email: lo’meara@interactioninstitute.org or  sjohnston@interactioninstitute.org

Telephone: 0044 (0) 2890 803296

Website: www.interactioninstitute.org

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Facilitative Leadership – Tapping the Power of Participation

IISC is pleased and excited to offer Pathway to Change™, a course that provides methods and tools to design and facilitate a collaborative change process. The three-day workshop, which will run from September 22-24 in Boston, is deeply rooted in David Chrislip’s collaborative premise –

“If you bring the appropriate people together in constructive ways with good information, they will create authentic visions and strategies to address the shared concerns of their organization or community.”
The Pathway to Change™ workshop highlights the dual role of change agent as process designer and facilitator of a collaborative change process. Participation in the workshop is from the point of view of the change agent as a member of a planning team.

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Present a clear rationale to a group of stakeholders about why a particular change is necessary.
• Convene and facilitate a diverse group or team to agree on key elements of a collaborative change process from which the change effort will be launched.
• Complete a stakeholder analysis that identifies key stakeholders (supporters and potential blockers) and that describes how and when key stakeholders will be involved.
• Work with others to map out a proposal for a pathway to change, and facilitate stakeholder meetings to obtain input and build ownership of the process.
• Apply facilitation techniques to guide the group’s work throughout the different spaces of the change process.
• Guide groups to balance success across three dimensions: results, process, and relationship.

For more information or to register, please visit our website or contact Chris Toppin at 617-234-2750 or

ctoppin@interactioninstitute.org

Pathway to Change info

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International Institute for Social Change – course

Andrew Muir was one of the five laureates to win a prestigious Rolex award last year (2008) for his work on the Umzi Whetu project in South Africa.

We are pleased to inform you a special documentary on the Laureates of the Rolex Awards for Enterprise 2008 will be shown on National Geographic Channels International giving you an opportunity to see the work of Andrew and the other laureates.

The dates for the documentaries are:

June 26 @ 6pm

June 27^th @ 1am

June 27^th @8am

There will be repeat dates later in the year, as well as a press release that will be issued jointly by National Geographic and the Rolex Awards this month.

National Geographic Channels will also create a web page dedicated to the Rolex Awards for Enterprise to promote the broadcasts.

In addition to the single 47-minute documentary, which will be shown several times, a series of 60-second promotional “vignettes” will be shown at the same time. There are five vignettes, one on each of the Laureates, which will be shown on National Geographic in English around the world.

The documentary itself will be translated by National Geographic into 25 languages, including French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin and Russian.

This special programme was produced specifically for National Geographic by the Rolex Awards and The Proudfoot Company. The actual running time is 47 minutes without commercial breaks.

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Documentary on the Laureates of the Rolex Awards for Enterprise 2008

The Gaia Foundation would like to invite you to a special event in collaboration with Navdanya, India.

Community Resilience: A new form of Community Governance to deal with Climate Change

An evening with Prof. Jacqueline McGlade and Dr Vandana Shiva

On Monday 15 June 2009

6.30pm drinks & light buffet at Hampstead Town Hall

(213 Haverstock Hill, NW3 4QP – nearest tube Belsize Park)

7.30pm Talk & discussion

The Gaia Foundation are very pleased to invite you to a special event with Prof. Jacqueline McGlade and Dr. Vandana Shiva who will share their work and vision for Europe and the Himalayas, respectively, in building community resilience and capacity to influence governance in these turbulent times.

The multiple crisis we are facing now from climate change, to species extinction, to financial meltdown, to community fragmentation, are interconnected and need to be responded to in an integrated way. Community resilience will require global citizens to be able to “ground truth” political and scientific policy and practice and to hold governments and corporations to account.

Jacqueline has been working with a team to develop an interactive Global Citizens Environmental Observatory, to be trialled first with indigenous peoples and in Europe. This will enable citizens to feed their environmental observations into policies and to monitor the implementation in their locality.

Vandana has been working in the Himalayas, which is one of the areas most affected by climate change because of the melting glaciers, which provide water for a vast area around them. She has been working with local communities to enhance their capacity to mitigate and adapt to the changes, and also to develop strategies to observe, identify and respond to disasters triggered by climate change.

They will both reflect on the vital, underestimated role of communities and biodiversity in mitigating and adapting to climate change – and the implications for governance at the local, national, regional, and global level.

Booking Essential.  Tickets £10.

You can reserve your place online at: www.gaiafoundation.org/learning/online.php

Or send a cheque for £10, made payable to The Gaia Foundation.

For further details please contact Sarah at: sarahn@gaianet.org or 020 7428 0055.

Dr Vandana Shiva – world-renowned environmental activist, author and Director of Navdanya, India.  She has received many awards including the Right Livelihood Award in 1993.  Her many books include “Staying Alive”, “Eco Feminism” and “Protect or Plunder”.

Prof. Jacqueline McGlade – Executive Director of the European Environment Agency.  She is author of numerous research papers, and has presented many radio and television programmes including her own BBC series “The Ocean Planet” and more recently “Our Arctic Challenge”.

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An evening with Prof. Jacqueline McGlade and Dr Vandana Shiva

‘Living Landscapes’

A talk by Steve Plumb

Monday 8^th June at 8.p.m at St. Andrew’s Room

One of the pleasures of living in Little Baddow is the enjoyment of the scenery, the views, the woods and the walks. However, even here, there is always the threat of development and urbanisation. Steve Plumb has been invited to talk to us about our natural environment and how it can be protected and, where necessary, improved.

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Living Landscapes talk by Steve Plumb

The next event in the Conservation Challenges for the 21^st Century lecture series – “Climate change and wildlife conservation: crisis or opportunity?” will be held at ZSL on Wednesday 20 May 2009.

Roughly 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions are caused by the loss of tropical forests in developing countries. Largely owing to deforestation, Brazil and Indonesia are third and fourth in the rankings of global emitters of greenhouse gases, behind the US and China. Recognition that these activities are contributing to climate change has led to proposals to include deforestation more comprehensively in the post-2012 UN climate agreement. There is also evidence to suggest that forests could be catastrophically impacted by climate change, resulting in dangerous positive feedback loops.

What is the relationship between climate change, biodiversity conservation and human livelihoods in tropical forest ecosystems, and what can be done to ensure that linkages are taken into consideration in global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? What mechanisms should be incorporated in the post-2012 agreement?

This evening of presentations and debate involving both governmental and non-governmental participants will highlight how conservation and environment NGOs are contributing to tackling climate change and how activities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in forest ecosystems can carry additional benefits for biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation.

The meeting will be chaired by Elliot Morley MP, and coordinated by ZSL, WWF, GLOBE International, Fauna & Flora International and Wildlife Conservation Society, in collaboration with a large network of NGOs.

Everyone is welcome to this event and entrance to the talks is free and will be on a first-come, first-served basis. The talks will be from 6.30 to 8.00pm and the meeting rooms will be open from 5.30pm on the evening – please arrive early to ensure you get a good seat and please note that latecomers may not be admitted until a suitable break in the schedule.

Further information can be found at www.zsl.org/science/scientific-meetings/.

A map of the location of the meeting rooms can be found at www.zsl.org/science/scientific-meetings/meeting-room-maps,109,AR.html.

Thank you for your interest in ZSL’s scientific events; please feel free to get in touch with me if you have any queries or would like further information.

With thanks for your support,

Joy

p.s. a quick reminder about June’s symposium – BIODIVERSITY MONITORING AND CONSERVATION: BRIDGING THE GAPS BETWEEN GLOBAL COMMITMENT AND LOCAL ACTION – all day on Thursday 18 and Friday 19 June. Tickets still available and should be booked and paid for in advance; please see www.zsl.org/zsl-london-zoo/whats-on/biodiversity-monitoring-and-conservation-symposium,312,EV.html for full details. Also, we will release details of the 2009 Stamford Raffles Lecture shortly and I will contact you with full information (including booking form and prices) early next week.

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Climate change and wildlife conservation: crisis or opportunity?

The Living Mountain, Rhinog Mountains, Gwynedd, N. Wales

28th-30th Aug 2009 (option to stay on until 31st no extra cost)

Cost £100, Camping, self catering

The Living Mountain will be a weekend exploring our inner worlds in relation to the wild and beautiful outer environment of the Rhinog Mountains in North Wales. We will camp at Graig Ddu Isaf (Lower Black Rock) a small holding set in the woodland at the foot of the mountains Fach and Fawr. The camp will be basic with washing and cooking facilities (an open fire weather permitting), and basic camp toilet. There will be opportunities to wash and bath in a local stream running by camp-site.

Weather in the mountains even at this time of year can be very changeable, so participants are advised to come prepared for mountain weather (an equipment list will be provided upon booking) i.e. warm water proof changes of clothing suitable for mountain walking and camping (some equipment such as tents can be borrowed, ask when booking).

The weekend will follow and adapt to the process of the individuals and group as it evolves. But the focus will be on exploring our relationship to the environment and the embodied feelings this evokes within us. We will explore the mountains at the pace and ability of the group, no one is expected to be an experienced hillwalker or climber (we will only move onto steeper terrain at the comfort and ability of the group members). There will be opportunity over the weekend to experience some solo time in the mountains.

Graig Ddu Isaf is remote (nearest main town Dolgellau) but accessible by car and public transport (nearest stations are Bala, Harlech and Blaenau Ffestiniog pick up can be arranged)

Facilitated By Martin Jordan and Hayley Marshall UKCP reg Psychotherapists and experienced hill walkers

For more information and booking email Hayley Marshall at hayleymarshall4@hotmail.com

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The Living Mountain – a weekend in North Wales

If you are scared, what do you do? How do you be?

How do you support others when you are feeling vulnerable?

How do you manage yourself in a crisis?

And how do you lead yourself out of it?

Can you find meaning or a catalyst for change in the midst of crisis and craziness?

How can you remain connected to a deep personal sense of meaning and purpose?

An experiential programme of personal development

Objectives

• In times of crisis, find peace from which wisdom can emerge
• Find internal resources to support ourselves and others when we are feeling vulnerable
• Develop and maintain a sense of personal meaning
• Compose a way forward founded on personal wisdom and purpose

What Will You Take Away?

• A developed sense of personal purpose and vision
• An action plan
• The possibility of making enhanced and potent decisions
• A tool bag of personal resources

Structure and costs

• One-one coaching session by phone and survey pre workshop
• 2 day workshop
• One-one post workshop coaching session
• £395 per person inclusive of residential costs Saturday morning to Sunday tea time. Cost based on sharing twin rooms, single rooms possible with supplement
• Option of follow up coaching and/or a follow-up day by arrangement
• Maximum of 12 participants

Venue: The luxurious Spread Eagle Hotel and spa Midhurst, West Sussex, UK, set in fabulous countryside. www.hshotels.co.uk

Dates: 27^th and 28^th June 2009

Facilitators: Paulina Sims and Tim Casserley

For more details and to book:

Contact Tim on +44 (0)771 858 1135 tim@edgeequilibrium.com or

Paulina on +44 (0)787 650 7864 pauline@wildheartconsulting.co.uk

Paulina is a graduate psychotherapist with business experience and a passion for working with creativity and coaching in nature www.wildheartconsulting.co.uk

Tim is an author and organisation consultant focusing on sustaining and accelerating the wisdom of leadership talent www.edgeequilibrium.com

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Personal Meaning and Action in Crisis Programme

Start Time: 13:00
Date: Saturday 4th April 2009
End Time: 15:00

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Earth Walk