Project Type: Networks

Groundswell International

Groundswell International was founded in 2009 by representatives all over the world, who came together to create a partnership that draws on decades of collaboration and experience of developing effective approaches for strengthening community-led social change in Africa, the Americas and Asia.

As stated in Groundswell’s book ‘Fertile Ground: Scaling AE [Agroecology] from the Ground Up’, “There are about 2.5 billion people in the world, on 500 million farms, involved with smallholder family agriculture and food production. Their creative capacity to farm productively and sustainable with nature, instead of against it, is perhaps the most powerful force that can be unleashed to overcome the interlinking challenges of hunger, poverty, climate change, and environmental degradation.”

Groundswell joined forces around the mission of strengthening communities to build healthy farming and food systems from the ground up, while contributing to the growing global agroecology and food sovereignty movement.

It strengthens the capacity and effectiveness of local partner organisations, which in turn empower communities, farmers, and indigenous organisations to lead social change. It does this via various means, including:

  • Collaborative design processes for programmes
  • Facilitation of reciprocal learning between partners and allies
  • Support for technical and methodological training

In 2021 Groundswell provided $1,541,000 to partner organisations, contributing to a total of over $13,727,000 distributed to partner programs since 2009.

Its work not only regenerates land impacted by climate change, but also creates economic benefits for those involved, improves health and nutrition, and reduces incentives for migration with a focus on gender equity.

Photo: Groundswell International

Bioregional Weaving Lab Waterford

Bioregional Weaving Lab Waterford takes a place-based approach to connecting fragmented initiatives into a collective impact approach for systemic change.

In doing this, it seeks to support long term transformation and regeneration. It aims to build a resilient food system that supports thriving landscapes, seascapes and communities. They do this by:

  • Using networks and desktop research to reach out to stakeholders across the local food system. These range from farmers and teachers to decision makers in the Waterford region of Ireland. They meet them in their place, building trust, and also host multistakeholder workshops.
  • Identifying the natural boundaries of the local bioregion by looking at maps of soil, watersheds and biotypes, walking the land and talking with the people.
  • Sensing the need for systems change and applying tools and methodology for designing a strategy to push for holistic (natural, social, financial and inspirational) regeneration in rural and urban settings within the bioregion.

The bioregional weaving lab in Ireland started in 2019 and is hosted at the Grow It Yourself (GIY) office at GROW HQ cafe and regenerative garden in Waterford. GIY is a social enterprise that was established in 2008 to increase food empathy through school, community, business and media programmes. They have supported around 1 million participants to grow at least part of their own food.

The Irish bioregional weaving lab is part of an emerging European collective coordinated by Commonland, Ashoka and The Presencing Institute.

Photo: Bioregional Weaving Lab Waterford

NILE Journeys

NILE Journeys was established in 2016 as a platform for Nile communities. Its work unfolds through community hubs across Nile Basin countries. There are currently eight hubs, and they are expanding.

Communities across the Nile Basin suffer inequalities and limitations in their natural, human, or technological well-being, which renders them vulnerable to climate change and its effects. The word NILE refers not only to the Nile’s energetic field of the majestic river but also serves as an acronym for what the platform aims to do “Nurturing Impulses for Living Ecosystems”.

The NILE Journeys vision is to nurture life-affirming actions in the Nile bio-region through participatory and experiential learning spaces rooted in indigenous knowledge and regenerative practices.

NILE Journeys has so far:

  • Engaged more than 97,000 people
  • Provided direct support to eight Community Hubs
  • Established three dialogue spaces
  • Established three agroecology demonstration sites
  • Set up a library
  • Co-established a restaurant in a rural co-working space
  • Co-established a moringa oil press unit
  • Sponsored the education of 83 children
  • Sustainably regenerated 168 hectares
  • Trained 35 community leaders on dialogue facilitation

The NILE journeys’ goal for 2026 is to become a model of trans-local collaboration in the Nile basin with regenerative practices that can be replicated in other fields and other parts of the basin.

Photo: NILE Journeys

Instituto Janeraka

The Janeraka Institute was born in the Amazon region, Altamira, from the Awaete ancestry in the resistance of a population with less than 50 years of contact with the global society.

Since then, the Awaete population has faced numerous psychosocial and ecological challenges, such as the consequences of genocide and ethnocide since the first contact, which has been increasing with the construction of hydroelectric power-plants, mining activities, culminating in one of the worst deforestations in the world, threatening the existence of the water peoples, land and forest, in the region and around the planet.

Janeraka is an Awaete word meaning “neither mine nor yours, our house, and the house belongs to the one who takes care of it”. All of the Janeraka Institute’s activities are centred on strengthening the traditional Awaete culture and exchanging knowledge and practices with other forest peoples.

The Janeraka Institute has co-created several projects, including:

  • The Awaete Agenda is a knowledge exchange program that seeks to reflect on the relationship flows between indigenous, non-indigenous, and other forest peoples, focusing on indigenous rights and ethics in relationships.
  • The Janereka Podcast Channel, to strengthen the practice of orality, awarded by Art Artivism.
  • The Kujy Ete Women’s Collective participated in an international exhibition of indigenous art (staged by an indigenous curator) called Ka’a Body: Cosmovision of the Rainforest and created two award-winning documentaries.
  • The Janereka Ryru is an Awaete multimedia collection platform designed to decolonize the Awaete heritage for use by the Awaete people themselves.

Organización Waorani de Pastaza (OWAP)

The Waorani Organization of Pastaza (OWAP) unites 30 Indigenous communities of the Waorani territory of Pastaza in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Under the leadership of internationally recognised Waorani activist Nemonte Nenquimo, in 2018 OWAP stepped into action following the Ecuadorian government’s announcement to auction a new oil concession covering more than 200,000 hectares of Waorani territory. OWAP’s global campaign and legal battle resulted in a historic legal victory against the Ecuadorian government, protecting ancestral territory and setting an important legal precedent in the region.

Today, OWAP and its majority female leadership work to advance the rights of the Waorani people, strengthen community resiliency, and protect more than 230,000 hectares of Amazon rainforest threatened by deforestation and resource extraction.

The organization works directly with Waorani communities to:

  • Revitalise ancestral cultures and empower young leaders through a novel intercultural education program.
  • Advance and uphold Indigenous rights to protect forests through litigation and grassroots organizing.
  • Build a sustainable, non-extractive future in the Amazon by strengthening local governance systems, promoting food sovereignty, and supporting women-led economic alternatives to resource extraction.
Photo: Organización Waorani de Pastaza (OWAP)

Associação Rede de Sementes do Xingu

Associação Rede de Sementes do Xingu (The Xingu Seeds Network Association) emerged in 2007 and became a non-profit association in 2014. It is based in the region of the Xingu River basin, in Mato Grosso, Brazil.

The network is made up of:

  • More than 600 seed collectors.
  • Together, these collectors make up 26 groups of collectors. Of these 12 live in three different indigenous territories, seven are from family farming settlements, two are urban and five are mixed groups (with collectors from settlements and cities).

The association was launched because the communities of the Xingu Indigenous Territory (TIX) had begun to experience the consequences of the fast and high rate of deforestation, especially in the rivers that supply the Territory. TIX chiefs began the Y Ikatu Xingu campaign to gain territorial planning, protect their water supplies and start reforestation through sowing native seeds and using agricultural machinery to increase scale.

Its implementation generated a concrete demand for seeds for regional plantations, which led to the structuring of the Rede de Sementes do Xingu (Xingu Seeds Network), a network of community production of forest seeds that constituted a landmark for the union of different social actors in the region in favour of a common objective.

It promotes actions that lead to solutions based on the precepts of Good Living.

It has become increasingly autonomous and today:

  • Sells seeds
  • Records and updates data from collectors in official bodies
  • Actively participates in national and international projects to support its activities.
Photo: Associação Rede de Sementes do Xingu

Eco House Global

Eco House Global is an Action for Sustainability non-profit organization whose main objective is to promote sustainable development through education, politics, communication, consultancy, ecological restoration and volunteering.

The organization consists of 12 internal Departments, each of which plan, develop and execute a variety of socio-environmental Programs.Eco Global House aims to make the world a better place through small actions that, when multiplied, make a huge difference.

Eco House Global’s work ranges from international, national, and local, and achievements/work so far include:

  • Running over 40 ongoing programs
  • Having one of the country’s largest NGO volunteer networks
  • Having over 20 full time employees
  • Being recognised by the United Nations as Youth Leaders in Development for the International Community
  • Being named an organisation of “Environmental Interest” by the Argentine National Congress.
  • Organising debates and public hearings
  • Teaching journalists, politicians, and other governmental officials about the climate crisis.
  • Having 12 departments, including departments that help with reforestation, consulting, education in local schools, and more.
Photo: Eco House Global

Size of Wales

The size of Wales (2 million hectares) is often used to measure the rate of global deforestation. The charity was set up to turn the negative use of Wales’ size on its head, and encourage people across the nation to help protect an area of tropical forest the size of Wales, as part of the national response to climate change.

The charity recognises how consumption habits, food and farming systems are causing a climate and nature crisis and is supporting community action both in Wales and overseas to tackle the underlying structural problems.

Currently, Size of Wales funds nine impactful projects in South America, Africa and South East Asia that support Indigenous and local communities to protect tropical forests, grow over 20 million trees using agro forestry techniques and promote regenerative farming, such as coffee cooperatives and permaculture groups.

Over the last three years, it has developed a campaign to make Wales a Deforestation Free Nation which calls on Government, public sector bodies, businesses and community groups to take action to eliminate imported deforestation from their supply chains. The charity is now a pivotal force for change in Wales and is influencing policy makers and the public to bring about action.

Size of Wales has also engaged with over 18,000 children in Wales to inspire climate action, run the award winning MockCOPs programme and supported the Youth Climate Ambassadors, a youth led climate activist group. They amplify the voice of Indigenous Peoples and youth, who are often excluded from climate discussions.

Photo: Size of Wales

FEASTA: The Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability

FEASTA is a foundation based at the Cloughjordan Ecovillage in Ireland. It has active members in 11 countries, and its work often has an international focus.

FEASTA recognises the enormous power of narrative and of the arts in bringing about change. The name ‘Feasta’, meaning ‘henceforth’ in Irish, is closely associated with an 18th-century poem that expresses profound grief over the deforestation, biodiversity loss and mistreatment of the vulnerable that marked the colonialist period, but also ends with an affirmation that when the situation improves again there will be “dances in long circles and bonfires and violin music”.

FEASTA’s mission is to identify the characteristics (economic, cultural and environmental) of a truly sustainable society, articulate how the necessary transition can be effected, and promote the implementation of the measures required for this purpose.

It has focused in particular on the need to look beyond GDP as a measure of progress, social protection measures such as universal basic income and services, commons-based, progressive taxation, the proposal that the atmosphere should be managed as a commons, and the need to ensure that everyone’s voice – including those of the Global South – is heard in decision-making.

Over the past 24 years FEASTA has:

  • Co-organised ten major conferences
  • Co-organised around sixty workshops, lectures and seminars
  • Established a website containing submissions, books, videos and an extensive collection of commentaries and discussion papers, many of which have been re-published.

Many of its ideas have gained significant attention since 1998.

Photo: FEASTA: The Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability

The Ethos Fellowship at Permaculture Education Institute

The Permaculture Education Institute, established in 2018 and based in Australia, teaches permaculture teachers on 6 continents.

It is dedicated to supporting the myceliation of permaculture educators globally as a form of climate activism, regeneration and building of robust and resilient communities.

The Ethos Fellowship is a free program connecting young ecological-[pr]activists from around the world (including from refugee camps) with leading ecological scholar-activists such as Fritjof Capra, Nora Bateson, Jeremy Lent, Helena Norberg-Hodge & others. It is a ‘eco-university without walls’ with youth from Zanzibar to Pune, Ukraine to Australia.

For the Permaculture Education Institute, the very heart of regeneration is a shift in thinking to an ecological paradigm. This requires the opening of discussions and contexts that make way for a different type of conversation to happen, different forms of education to be experienced, a global community of practice to be created, new kinds of leaders who can help to breathe life into new ways of living regeneratively.

The Ethos Fellowship is an opportunity for youth aged 15-25 to be part of this change-making, to ask deep questions, to invite elders that inspire them, to collaborate on projects, unpack concepts, decolonise their minds, and form lifelong friendships and partnerships with their cohort and mentors. The cross-cultural exchange and mutual learning is transformative.

Photo: The Ethos Fellowship at Permaculture Education Institute