Ideal participant profile
To ensure that participants receive an experience in line with our stated objectives, it is imperative that we are exceptionally clear about the type of participants for whom we are set up to deliver an exceptionally high and tailored educational experience.As stated, our Foundation responds to a pressing need in society. Climate change, and racial and religious intolerance and colonial and capitalist oppression have led to disrespect for and destruction of non-Western cultures and environments. This damage - caused by greed, and a focus on personal wealth at the expense of communal health and survival - has resulted from the systems and processes adopted, supported and perpetuated by past - particularly western - generations. The next generation must be taught to solve the problems that they did not create. Young people want to be involved in their future. Our Foundation specifically provides programming for participants who are interested in building the knowledge, experience or competence to implement change.
Our Foundation structures all learning to be experiential and focused on climate change, respect for cultural and traditional practices, and requiring students to implement change to protect these things.
We are focusing on a specific participants who:
- Understand that Western practices are unsustainable;
- Are coming to terms with the idea that society privileges some over others, and that much work needs to be done to restore balance;
- Are courageous in taking action even when this means acting alone;
- Wants to be actively involved in creating and leading their own learning program.
Our programs are primarily outdoors, in nature, and learn about and use the tools to work in the community to farm, build and participate in activities that are necessary to support our community.
Exercise will be a standard part of every day, as our programs are very active. Our experiential programs are based in research and current affairs that provide evidence that Western ways of living have lost the core skills that enable people to contribute actively to their communities, or even to support themselves as individuals. Increasingly, university programs in the West are having to add classes on basic skills like housework and basic household repairs and maintenance as young adults have less and less knowledge about being useful contributing members in a community. Increasingly, too, students in the West are unable to participate in activities related to living in families and communities, and unable to cook, repair/maintain things, or attend to minor injuries in the home. Westerners are less able to read maps or navigate without assistance from Google. Young people in the West don’t possess sufficient basic social skills to participate in their community, or they suffer extreme anxiety and are more comfortable in a world with no human interaction. During the COVID and many environmental crises, individuals and families found themselves without the knowledge to find food locally, keep themselves warm, or make or fix things needed to keep their homes functional. As people know less about how to take care of themselves, they are also unable to provide services that are important to their communities. They are almost entirely dependant on community-destroying megacorporations like Amazon, Walmart or Costco in order to just feed and clothe themselves. Westerners are primarily focused on getting jobs in service-related organizations that make profits for corporate shareholders by exploiting others, rather than creating value or supporting their communities and ensuring the well-being of society.
The ideal participant is someone who has realized how much needs to change in the Western capitalist way of life and is ready to learn another, better way.