update page

location

background

collaborations

objectives

timelines

governing
body

participants' profiles

project
plan

wish list

European
Colleagues
need to express
their point of view

The Phoenix is a mythological bird that self-destructs in a fire only to arise from its ashes...

It is beyond the scope of this pilot ot envision eco-parks located in other ecosystems in India (e.g. a coastal ecosystem like Goa etc.) or in Europe - though our eco-philosphy might underline their mode of creation and even evolve from experiences gleaned from the pilot. Our vision is encapsuled under 3 headers:

What our vision is not
What our vision is
Our beliefs that create the processes that drive our vision

What our vision is not

• We eschew duality - bridging the gap between nature (pristine / primeval) - and culture - the impacting of lifestyles on an ecosystem / landscape.
• We will avoid blind modeling of "successful" eco-parks. To invest energy & funds on something alien to the ecosystem is an exercise in futility - expensive to create & maintain - ecologically & economically unsustainable.
• With a global consensus on the finite (and diminishing resources) of the planet -- alien, conditioned, aesthetic diktats will be subordinated to indigenous biodiversity, environmental justice, climate change, habitat protection, and sustainable ecological & economic development born from environmental & social needs.

What our vision is

In a nutshell - to create a safe infrastructure for Indo-European youth to participate in a residential experience at our eco-park (in the parlance of youth) that will be too cool to be a school. Our eco-park aspires to afford a nurturing learning experience that is :

• multi- disciplinary, holistic, integrating a Gaia world-view
• proactively landscaping ecological niches to enhance ecological values
• conducive to responding to (global) ecological challenges - providing capacity building through transfer of lerning from experiential learning through ecological living
• use sustainable design, construction, and management practices to reduce resource inputs and waste outputs - accenting renewables while recycling waste
• gently disengage from pre-conditioned values of aesthetics and allow ecological values to take center stage
• supportive of transcending the temporal and delving into the spiritual - where ALL is ONE

Our beliefs that create the processes that drive our vision

While our vision is limited by our beliefs, paradoxically, our beliefs make our vision holistic & open-ended... because our vision is dynamic, evolving, driven by creative collaborations, leveraging edge technology to effect a paradigm shift in multi-cultural pedagogy rooted in deep ecology. What does this mean?

Our vision is dynamic...
We focus on processes that facilitate the actualization of the uniqueness of every resident visitor to the eco-park - transforming & being transformed ...

evolving...
We believe that a child is not a vessel to be filled - rather a seed that needs to be nurtured.. Experiential learning through ecological living in a farm / forest habitat enhances the capacity to adapt / evolve / transcend ...

creative collaborations...
... go beyond cooperation. Forging multi-cultural neural synapses exponentially heightens the levels of innovation to adapt to a planet under seige...

leveraging edge technology ...
Harnessing web tools (like eJournal) to catalyze the documentation, evaluation and dissemination of experiential project based learning facilitates transfer of learning in the here & now - making education - not merely a preparation for life - but life itself...

a paradigm shift in multi-cultural pedagogy...
Multicultural diversity in a pedagogy enriches the "learning ecosytem" going beyond awareness & tolerance by accepting "reality" as it is and tapping into collective wisdom to secure the biosphere...

rooted in deep ecology...
Man did not weave the web of life - he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself . Like the wisdom of Chief Seattle, deep ecology is not anthropocentric. Our vision stems from our belief that unless youth learn to secure the biosphere, neither peace nor human rights are possible. Degraded environments precipitate poverty, foster ruthless appropriation of the planet's dwindling resources that make both the oppressors & the oppressed less than human...