"I love that you've brought this to attention. An extensive database of uncommon but resistant and hardy plants/foods could be developed and organized by climate. Ease of growth and processing should also be taken in to account. I will try to…"
A crash course in changing the world.
The Sustainability Institute - my ACT1, LEARN1 and IMAGINE1, all-in-1!
Having already contacted Eve Annecke, the co-founder of the Sustainability Institute, I realised that I should probably write an article on this topic, seeing as it relates to every blog I've written so far - I want to do something like the Lynedoch EcoVillage, and I'd also love to study Sustainability - how lucky am I that this organisation is but half-an-hour away! Here's my article...Enjoy. This is something that really fascinates me, and hopefully will fascinate some of you too - this is the way forward for us, at least how I see it.
THE SUSTAINABILITY INSTITUTE
The Sustainability Institute is found on a plot located a short distance from the renowned Spier Wine Estate. It is led by Eve Annecke, one of the Lynedoch Development’s co-founders, who has a Masters in Management Learning from Lancaster University in the United Kingdom and has spent many years working in Organisational Learning. She founded the Sustainability Institute with the Programme Coordinator and Academic Director, Professor Mark Swilling, who is a rated researcher with the National Research Foundation.
The idea behind the Sustainability Institute is partly to introduce young students who are doing university degrees to look at ways of sustaining our existence. They take a course at the Institute where they can do
a Masters degree in Sustainable Development, Planning and Management or just a module of this degree. It also focuses on creating a South Africa which is sustainable and free of unnecessary poverty.
The Institute has several different projects, some of which it has initiated, some of which it has sustained and some of which it has revived. A list of their undertakings follows:
· Preschool accommodating 35 children that focuses on Sustainability
· Government Primary School for about 500 children (mainly from farming families) which teaches syllabus work while also focusing on ecology and non-violence
· Ecological renovation of an old steel-framed hall that is now used by a variety of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs): Lynedoch Primary School, AGAMA renewable energy, USIKO (wilderness therapy with young teenage men at risk), Groundwater Africa, the Sustainability Institute and Dimpo di Kopane (performing arts) – this building has received awards for architecture and international best practice in sustainable building
· A sustainable, solar powered guest house that is a restored historical building
· Mixed income, environmentally-friendly housing development for 38 houses
· On-site waste treatment through a biolytic filter and integrated wetland system
· Re-use of water, solar water heating, sustainable buildings and indigenous planting.
· Land reformation through the set up of a partnership between Spier Estate and the Sustainability Institute for a 10ha organic farm managed by Eric Swarts, a local farmer
The Sustainability Institute is a fantastic initiative in our area, and an example that we will hopefully see followed – how are we going to study sustainability and “going green” if there’s no-one to teach it?
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Comment by Peter Beare on March 7, 2010 at 4:42pm
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Thanks, Travis. It is certainly the method I intend to use, when I create the possibility for myself to.
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Comment by Reid Falconer on March 7, 2010 at 5:15pm
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Hi peter
I also wrote articles on the Lynedoch EcoVillage (http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/lynedoch-ecovillage-follo...)(http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/lynedoch-ecovillage0)
and I want to take it further and possibly get evoke to help out with the project. Do you want to get involved to and do a collaboration??
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Sounds like a plan, Reid. I'll give her a shout - what do you want to do with this? If it's to get the plans to do our own someday, I'm with you all the way. Also, she's got a lot of experience in facing challenges typical to this type of project, so that will be very useful.
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Comment by Bruce Haynes on March 7, 2010 at 5:46pm
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Yeah! Viva SOUTH AFRICA! thanks Peter its this kind of knowledge that keeps me addicted to this network - as a way of telling the stories of possibility:) Im excited by the opportunities that are opening up for you Peter, keep us posted!
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Thanks, Bruce - and yeah, viva SOUTH AFRICA! have a chat to my friend Bongumusa - he wrote a good article on Zulu culture. As I study Xhosa as my second language, I'm going to take a look at their culture, see if there isn't something ideal right underneath my nose! Who knows, perhaps they have a sustainability of their own that we could adapt for the world at large? take a look at my ACT1 article - thats the one where I spoke to Eve Annecke, the Director at the Institute.
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