We are no longer taking registration for the course this year.
If you are interested in enrolling in the 2020 course, please contact info@ourecovillage.org.
Gaia Education
Training of Trainers
Our Training of Trainers course is content rich, action-based, and lead by our most experienced facilitators.
The ToT in Canada will be facilitated by trainers that have decades of experience in their role as facilitators of positive change.
Gaia Education Training of Trainers (ToT) course is answering an international demand for more well-qualified educators and facilitators who are able to conduct our Face-to-Face and Project-Based Learning programmes taking place in 48 countries. Recently, Gaia Education has joined forces with UNESCO Global Action Programme Priority Area 5- Accelerating Change at Local Level. We are embarking on a path of expansion that calls for qualified trainers who can build capacity for the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals at local level.
Gaia Education certified facilitators and trainers will be equipped with the skills and methodologies to facilitate transformative learning environments and host multi-stakeholder conversations that enable collaborative action. The aim of the Training of Trainers is first and foremost, to help you deepen your experience in how to teach, facilitate and train people by enabling collaboration and participation among a community of learners. In addition, we support and hope to inspire you with what you may want to teach and most importantly, with why this kind of education is so critically important for the future of life on Earth.
Watch a Testimonial From a 2018 TOT Student
The ToT is open to anyone .Please note that the Gaia Education ToT is part of a Learning Journey to become a certified Gaia Education trainer.
The minimum requirement to be fully certified is to complete:
- Face-to-Face EDE
- GEDS e-learning programme in the area you want to teach
- Gaia Education Training of Trainers
An interview during the Gaia Education ToT will ascertain suitability to be certified and included on the Gaia Education Roster of Trainers or specify additional steps required to fulfill this.
What you Receive:
- Full tutorial support to go through the course and achieve all the learning outcomes
- Expanded Teachers’ Manual (digital)
- Gaia Youth Activities Guide (digital)
- Completion of Course Certificate
- Gaia Education’s Design for Sustainability online course at a discount price
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A pathway to joining the Gaia Education Certificated Trainers’ Roster
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Fast-track Face-to-Face course certification
Course Content:
Gaia Education Training of Trainers is built upon three pillars:
The world is marked by a strong and creative tension. It is a tension between what is global and what is local. The global face is powerful, and seeking to be more so. But a tide is rising, steadily reinforcing the local resulting in an increasing ‘Glocalisation’ as the global and local converge. This module will teach edge workers and facilitators how to navigate between the two spheres in language, ethics and implementation. It will support participants to decode relevant UN conventions into meaningful frameworks for transformative action at the local level. Topics include: SDGs vertical integration, UNESCO Global Action Programme Priorities Areas, as well as, how to translate global Climate Agreements into action and behaviour and life style changes.
Facilitating Participatory Learning Journeys
The aim of this module is for facilitators to gain the necessary skills and confidence to teach the four dimensions of sustainability in ways that support participants to empower themselves both inwardly and outwardly. These future facilitators will be expected to have knowledge in the areas they plan to teach and this module will prepare them to teach this material in a way that builds a learning community and draws deeply from the group they are working with. Participants will ride a dynamic balance of meditation practice, experimenting with facilitation and clarifying principles to go through a holistic educational experience. There will also be ample time for facilitation practice where all participants will gain confidence in using participatory learning tools by taking the lead in assigned sessions.
The edge is the meeting point between the known and the unknown, between something being too well known – which makes it boring to us, and too unknown – which makes it confusing. The edge is a zone of high intensity, instability, creativity and innovation. Just as it is possible, through the design of ecological sustainable systems, to increase diversity and life by maximizing the edges between neighboring biological communities, so it is possible to create a larger edge effect in community development thereby maximising its benefit to the society as a whole. This module will position Gaia Trainers as maximisers of edges between different communities with differing modes of operation, power structures, cultures, physical environments, and worldviews. It will equip trainers with the skillful means to adapt to multiple scenarios and situations and ultimately thrive and help others thrive through creativity and playing for collaborative advantage.
Gaia Face to Face facilitators
Jane Rasbash works in sustainable development using an empowerment and engaged spirituality approach. She lives in Findhorn Ecovillage and has taught on EDEs in Findhorn, Sieben Linden, Myanmar and Thailand. Jane supports all stages of the project cycle as needs based consultant for community, sustainable education and rights based projects in Asia and Africa. Jane has taught the work that reconnects for many years and more recently transition town training. She co-founded the Grassroots Leadership Training, an ongoing programme with a big impact on emerging civil society in South East Asia, particularly Myanmar.
Jane is passionate about Traditional Village as Ecovillage and shifting existing communities towards resilience and supports GEN to take this forward. She is a Board Member of Gaia Education.
Giovanni Ciarlo is a sustainability consultant, musician and change agent for peace and social justice. He served on the faculty of the Sustainable Businesses and Communities MA programme at Goddard College, where he completed his MA degree.
He presently works in the management team of Gaia Education and is Coordinator of the online course Gaia Education Design for Sustainability(GEDS). Gio is a past president of the Board of the Global Ecovillage Network(GEN), and co-founder of the Ecoaldea Huehuecoyotl in Tepoztlan, Mexico, an ecovillage based on principles of sustainable living through the arts and ecology.
May East is a sustainability practitioner, educator and designer. Based at the UN Habitat Best Practice Designation, Findhorn Ecovillage, since 1992, May has been leading a whole generation of sustainability educators delivering capacity building activities in 48 countries in both urban and rural contexts, and in different stages of development.
She currently serves as Gaia Education Chief Executive and UNITAR Fellow.
She has a diploma in Climate Change Diplomacy and an MSc in Spatial Planning.
What makes OUR Ecovillage so special?
OUR land offers plenty of space to camp, dorms, private rooms, and interesting suites. There are diverse natural buildings to see and we have spaces for gatherings of different flavors: a large Yurt (great for circles and dancing), a large Community Classroom (for presentations), the Healing Sanctuary (for quiet conversation and meditation), many various natural buildings, the 150 person Zero Mile Eatery, and the Chillage (casual covered outdoor space). There are multiple types of indoor and outdoor showers, composting toilets. For some quiet time you can walk the labyrinth, sit by the pond or take a walk in the woods. You will likely see chickens, ducks, sheep, cows, deer, and much more. You may find a large straw-bale house halfway built and different coloured glass within the unfinished walls.
OUR courses are unique from almost all others as you are stepping into OUR ECOVILLAGE – a 25 acre “Sustainable Living Demonstration Site and Education Centre” and one of the most built out permaculture projects in North America.
For 19 years Our Ecovillage has been working towards “Lawful Permaculture”; having every innovative design and building project that we have created also be fully zoned, permitted & approved by regulatory officials.
Through partnering with all 3 levels of government, business & corporate sponsors, academia, and the grassroots of the wider community and it’s organizations; at OUR we bring together a range of professionals, permaculture teachers, regulatory folks, and technical stakeholders ready to train others in the next stages of how permaculture projects can become fully legal – like OURS!
Can’t Make it to the Full Course?
Check out our weekend Sustainable Development Goals workshop as an introduction to the full TOT Program
More Questions?
Email us at education@ourecovillage.org
Call us during our business hours, Monday to Friday, 9:00am – 5:00pm PST at 1-250-743-3067
