Location: Serra Grande, Bahia, Brazil.
1. The Web of the Peoples’ Pre-journey of Agroecology and 1st Community Strengthening Gathering
2. Launching of Etno Institute and exhibition of “Flecha Selvagem”, mini-doc from Selvagem, cycle of studies about life.
The more I know Ecoversities Alliance and the more I get involved, more I realize this is a way I find resonance with myself, my principles and the directions I find meaningful in life. I was involved in Pollination actions for this past cycle, but ended up myself being pollinized. It is beautiful to see how this Alliance, this movement that creates this Ecoverse, has a force of its own. Independently of the parts that make it turn, it seems to have an atmosphere of its own. An atmosphere that when you get in, starts touching you, like a docile stream that follows down its course dancing around the rocks and bringing life to where it passes. So in this Pollination, for my surprise, I got touched in a deeper level with all the care, sweetness, respect and love I have always felt from the Alliance’s own environment. Feeling all that from inside, from the perspective of talking about it and being it, in contrast with the world that is hearing about it and perceiving it. It’s like when we say that the best way to learn is to “teach”.
August was for me and my sisters at Etno Institute a month filled with the flourishing of our Ecoversity expression, giving me a lot of energy, joy and a feeling of plenitude by seeing so much that we had been planning come to accomplishment. My two Pollination actions were part of this flow. We had just launched our Etno Intercultural Ecoversity in our village, a free university for women, the previous week of my first Pollination. We were fresh from the feeling of friendship and complicity with the women with who we had spent a three-day immersion in Etno.
The Web of the Peoples’ Pre-journey of Agroecology and 1st Community Strengthening Gathering
This first part of my Pollination consisted then of a regional gathering of people, grassroots communities and initiatives centered around “The Web of the Peoples” (Teia dos Povos). It is defined as a dialogue between communities, territories, peoples and political organizations, both rural and urban, building a Black, Indigenous and Popular Alliance in solidarity. The Web of the Peoples has its roots in the MST movement (No-Land workers’Movement, in Brazil), and were present also Joelson Ferreira and Solange Brito, national references in the movement’s strength and fight for land, food, pedagogical and energy sovereignty. They are also the ones who gave the start to “Assentamento Terra Vista”, an MST settlement in the region of Arataca, Bahia, Brazil, where they live and together with other families and inhabitants have a living lab of anti-capitalist and anti-individualism theories. Etno Institute, together with local collectives and community leaderships, were part of the organizing of this event, called “Pre-journey of Agroecology and 1st Community Strengthening Gathering”. We had three days of talk circles around agroecology – on the land and beyond – the important concept of body-territory – our first territory is our body and we take it wherever we go -, group dynamics for getting closer to others and ourselves, local and indigenous cultural manifestations and seed exchanging.
This event was meant to start a nucleus of The Web of the Peoples in our village Serra Grande and to articulate together community movements in the region. Now, us as a territory, are officially part of The Web of the Peoples.
Throughout the whole event us from Etno Institute introduced the Ecoversities Alliance to those who were present and talked about the ideas and possibilities the Alliance brings. We had specific places and moments dedicated to us to talk about it and we presented our Ecoversity, opening new spots for interested women. We also had inviting conversations about the Alliance with people who got curious and collectives who we also consider as developing already as an ecoversity.
Launching of Etno Institute and exhibition of “Flecha Selvagem”, mini-doc from Selvagem - cycle of studies about life.
The second part of my Pollination was the launching of Etno Institute in our village. We have been here for over 4 years now, and felt this was a good internal moment to tell more about our work and intentions for the territory we are now involved with. Etno Institute exists since 1999, working with social projects, especially with the youth, for the promotion of an education based on life and consciousness raising by living together, amongst human and non-human, visible and invisible beings.
In partnership with another ecoversity in town, Circo da Lua, a circus-school, we “occupied” the circus to present what we have been doing for the past 23 years and our current projects. The women from Etno Intercultural Ecoversity were also part of the organizing with us and we presented our ecoversity and the Alliance in the occasion.
Being inside an education guided by indigenous cosmovisions and perceptions, we also had the exhibition of a mini-doc about the subject, which is part of a series of seven, to be continued. This mini-doc is called “Flecha” (Arrow), and was created by a national community called Selvagem – cycle of studies about life, organized around indigenous leader Ailton Krenak’s ideas and activism. We then had a circle of conversation about the video. Diverse people were present and we had a fruitful moment together. It felt good to realize from where we were standing, with the achievements of our work and especially in connection with this new whole moment that announces for us in the horizon: Etno Intercultural Ecoversity growing and contributing to making our village an educating village where education is everywhere, as well as connecting to the indigenous territories around us and the rural area where we are building our headquarters.
To complete the harvests of August, we are now going to the first Brazilian gathering of Ecoversities, where we will share a video (attached) of the pollinations of this past month and bring a circle of conversations about the subjects that rose then: body-territory, ecofeminism and Buen Vivir. I am excited for this moment of celebration and togetherness.
POLLINATING FOR ME WAS…
My pollination experience ended up having a big main conclusion to me: spreading the idea of Ecoversity, is being it. I realize through being part of the PER group with weekly meetings, talking and sharing experiences with people who have been in the Alliance before my recent arrival, and getting to know more and more the net through virtual encounters and personal connections, that the Ecoversity Alliance is an Alliance of Love. Love in its deep meaning of search for better living, inside and outside, for better relating to others from an empathic, caring and respectful way, and listening more to the sounds of the world, the other and our own. In the talks with people and the collective sharing we had in this pollination, we all got to a conclusion that beyond all the struggles, differences and hardships, our main goal has to be looking for ways to be together above all, talking about what is positive to multiply and relating from a love base and intention. And that is what Ecoversity is for me. Since we got to know about the Alliance in 2019 when Manish came to Serra Grand, we have been pollinizing this idea. We feel we are it, we want to spread this space of free, curious and alive organic research for new expressions around education for a more loving world.
Thank you, PER family and the Alliance extended family, for this opportunity of discovering more, not only about love through trying to practice it, but also for nourishing this Alliance, which for me, and us in Etno, is an impeller of life in relationships.
BUDGET SPENT
Money received from Ecoversities: 550USD
Food: 100 USD
Fuel for car: 50 USD
Events infra-structure: 80 USD
Workforce for the organizing of the event itself: 320 USD
