MA in Sustainable Business and Communities ProgramI love teaching and learning from others, especially about planetary and self awareness, and how people can come together to make evolutionary change in society. I believe that education should be democratic, cross-disciplinary, student centered, ecologically literate, and built on action research. I have been engaged in community development, Ecovillage design, social justice advocacy, and environmental sustainability, both in Mexico and the United States, for most of my life. My purpose is to contribute to global change towards sustainability through education. I feel that I am in a unique position to bring a global perspective, hands-on experience, academic theory, and personal passion for change towards a sustainable society. I have been actively involved with creating sustainable communities since the 1970s. My first experiences took me to explore intentional communities started by counter culture, social justice, and environmental activists groups concerned with creating lifestyles in synch with our emerging values. During that time I also worked for community liaison and legal services organizations concerned with issues of health and education as they apply to the Hispanic migrant population of the United States. This led to a period in the early 80s when I moved to Mexico. In 1982 I co-created the Ecoaldea Huehuecoyotl Ecovillage in central Mexico to explore and implement sustainable living practices in a small community setting, integrating the arts and ecology as basic values in the development and every day life of the community. I still have a house there and spend three months a year running courses on leadership, group dynamics, and traditional healing. There, with a group of artists and ecological activists, I co-facilitated the formation of a model demonstration center that would explore sustainable practices in one of the poorest and most neglected regions of the country. The Ecovillage today continues to inspire hundreds of people, young and old. I began consulting work as group facilitator and process specialist in the 1990s while living in Mexico and organizing community groups in using consensus decision-making techniques. Today, with a group of passionate activist and friends I continue to explore sustainability initiatives such as transition towns, micro-credit, natural building, forest conservation, traditional healing, right livelihood, local currencies, renewable energies, organic markets and Ecovillage design. I have also engaged with issues of local self-governance, social entrepreneurship, group dynamics, and conflict resolution. In the mid 90s I joined a group of global practitioners in sustainable systems to create the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) with regional networks in Europe, Africa, the Americas and Asia/Oceania. I am currently the Board president of that international organization, working on developing web-based networking capacity for people around the world interested in community-level sustainability. I also represent GEN Special Consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), a branch of the UN’s Civil Society Network. Besides my interests in sustainability, I am an educator, process consultant, musician, composer, and change agent for a more just and responsible world. Educational Background: MA in Socially Responsible Business & Sustainable Communities, Goddard College; BA in Education, University of Connecticut.
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Giovanni Ciarlo, MA