On September 13, 2015, Pachamama Alliance staff members held a Community Building Day in Ashland, Oregon. Over 40 people from surrounding communities attended the half-day event hosted by Pachamama Alliance staff members, Roger Knoren and Jason Bayless; Southern Orgeon Pachamama Alliance Community coordinators: Belle Bell, Lorraine Cook, Jem Mara, Paula Perez Costas, and Victoria Pilkington.
Pachamama Alliance has co-created tools and resources needed to grow sustainable and effective Pachamama Alliance Communities, in order to grow a critical mass of committed people who are changing the dream of the modern world—shifting the dominant culture of consumption that drives environmental destruction to one that honors and sustains life.
Community Building Day
One of these resources is what we call the Community Building Day. The Community Building Day is a 4-hour workshop that provides training around the roles of leadership, deep listening, and collaboration. This workshop is co-created with the local Pachamama Alliance Community to reflect their local needs and we integrate personal transformation and ways to organize so we can develop systems and structures that support Communities working toward meaningful change on local and global levels. Communities also design their group structure and identify Core Teams.
Community Core Teams
Using elements from Pachamama Alliance’s Up to Us engagement pathway, the Community Building Day aims at building Core Teams. Core Teams are small groups of individuals who see that their greatest contribution to the world is to keep others engaged in important action to change the course of the modern world while inspiring them to be the kind of human being necessary for global transformation to happen.
After the Community Building Day in Ashland, a new Core Team of 19 individuals was created, and their commitment is to building a sustainable, effective, and growing community of active citizens as a means to bringing forth a sustainable, just, and fulfilling world. Not only does the Southern Oregon Pachamama Alliance Community have a Core Team, but also new members who are eager to stay engaged with the tools offered by the Pachamama Alliance’s Up to Us engagement pathway.
Support for Action through Community
If you or your community would like to bring this workshop to your local area, please contact the Pachamama Alliance Educational Programs at support@pachamama.org.
To learn more about the Community Building Day in Ashland, visit this post to read personal reflections from the members of the Southern Oregon Pachamama Alliance Community.
