Communication and Education, Sunseed News
EPF – CE sunny months
During the last months many things had happened in the EPF department…one of them has been a change of name!! Now we are CE department, Communication & Education.
Other thing was the leaving of Martin Hyams after being collaborating for 9 months with Sunseed in the department. He made a great job at Sunseed, introducing the Appreciative inquire process, Conflict resolution Getting to yes, Alternative economics, working on the funding possibilities for the project; as well as many other things… He is as well a great guitar player and teacher; he love to share his music and we enjoyed listening to it! We all appreciate all this so much and miss him. Martin vuelve!!!
…. And then in July, Cassandra Caroline joined the department, with lots on fresh energy, enthusiasm, ideas and creativity. You’ll see what happen with this amazing CE on board!!
We have been quite busy during these months… doing what?
Seminars at Sunseed for volunteers and staff members –
We have run presentations about Ecovillages – here you can check some interesting websites www.gen.ecovillage.org ; run a role play game and discussion about food sovereignty (some good documentaries about it We Feed the World & Food.inc) and run a workshop about Dragon Dreaming project design www.dragondreaming.org.
Education – On March and May we hosted visits from 2 High Schools: IES Santa Maria del Aguila and IES Las Norias, guiding a tour and running a workshop about wild plants and their properties – making with them natural toothpaste with my dear friend Almu – ex SL Coordinator and currently SL trustee. In April I went to Madrid to Valdepielagos Community to take part in an internal meeting of the Iberic Ecovillages Network RIE www.ecoaldeas.org that Sunseed is member of.
We have been running a Kacheloven – Thermal Mass Stove course on May, with teacher Jef Carrick; Jose was helping as well with the translations and we had a great group of participants – we have enjoyed so much! And they have learn lots, some of them Carmen and Manuela are building already their first stove!!
We spend weeks of contact emails and phone calls with the NGO Jovenes y Desarrollo to make possible to host in July a group of 10 Spanish youth that win a price from Iniciativa Solidaria contest from the NGO Jovenes & Desarrollo. The week experience was great for them and for us, opening minds and hearts.
In July as well, we took part in the Tecnologias al Sol (Sun Technologies) gathering in Orihuela – Alicante; it was a good opportunity to present Sunseed work and to network with other groups and actors from our bioregional area.
Together Patricia, Martin and Kirsty wrote a Grundtvig application to run a workshop and……… it has been approved!!!! so we had celebrated with joy and gratefulness and now, with also Cassandra in the team, we are full working on the preparation of Seeding Change Course – Resources for personal growth and Social transformation. This Gruntdvig grant offers the possibility to participants from European countries join the course for free (except Spanish). For more info click here.
Since April we are monthly taking part in the meetings of the Cooperativa Integral Cabo de Gata, an innovative initiative that moves towards the sustainability, self sufficiency and alternatives to the capitalistic system. To know more about Cooperativas Integrales in Spain click here.
We had visits from several journalists that wanted to know and write about the project; here the link, you can and read one of the articles in the Green Guide of the Olive Press.
And of course, we have been preparing Sunseed 2012 Autumn Courses, Guided Tours and other activities; as well as improving our website, always with the support of Mick from the other side on the net 
We have so many plans for the next season… so… we’ll keep you updated!!!
Patricia Cañas Rios
Communication & Education Coordinator