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Who We Are
Our Common Purpose
The Earthville Vision
The Earthville Mission
What We Do
Fields of Interest
Primary Objectives
Guiding Lights
Legal
JOIN EARTHVILLE
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THE EARTHVILLE NETWORK
Building community to heal our world, face to face and place to place
Who Are We?
The Earthville Network is an evolving global community of caring people and organizations working creatively to improve our lives, our communities and our world through innovative altruistic action, holistically supportive environments and courageous inner development. Earthville is comprised of leaders, learners and laborers representing many nations, cultures, beliefs and professions. This diverse global family includes individuals, educational institutions, nonprofit organizations/NGOs and socially and environmentally responsible businesses. Earthville welcomes association with all people and groups who share our respect for diversity and our commitment to the ideals and goals expressed in our Mission Statement.
Earthville was founded in 1997 in Dharamsala, India, by Mark Moore, Scarth Locke, and Dara Ackerman, with a lot of help from friends around the world. The Earthville Network was incorporated in the USA in 2000, and has since grown to include projects and partners spanning many fields across the globe.
Our Common Purpose
Our common purpose is to improve our world wby building healthy, compassionate community locally and globally and advancing the arts and sciences of sustainable living and conscious commerce.
The Earthville Vision
We envision a harmonious and sustainable global village comprised of a diverse constellation of interconnected communities (urban, rural and virtual) built upon caring relationships, win-win economies, kindness toward all living beings, and responsible stewardship of the planet we share.
The Mission of The Earthville Network
The Earthville Network unites caring people from all backgrounds to create and support global infrastructure for positive change, healing our world person by person, community by community and seed by seed. We specialize in environments and experiences that catalyze learning, personal growth, peace and collaborative service. We build bridges between people, cultures, ideas, activities and organizations. We cultivate new paradigms and practices and preserve traditional wisdom. We bring all these elements together to alchemize powerful and promising innovations in the fields of learning and service and make the fruits of this fusion available to everyone.
What Do We Do?
We work to perfect a revolutionary recipe for renewal of human society, working to cultivate compassionate and creative communities through integrating multiple complementary approaches:
- Innovative infrastructure that supports and sustains healthy local and global communities and the individuals who serve them with community spaces, jobs, schools, homes, responsible businesses, networking and other vital resources;
- Empowering experiences that educate and train participants to be wise and skillful leaders and models of change in our lives, in our communities and in the world;
- Nurturing environments that welcome all and catalyze community, bringing people together across all divides in learning, in love and in service;
- Principled products and services for the conscious global citizen and progressive organizations.
Through its projects and partners worldwide, Earthville engages its "Citizens" in a variety of inspiring work and learning experiences which foster personal and global consciousness while they train and empower participants for effective and appropriate local action. For more info on what we do, click here.
Fields of Interest
The activities of the Earthville Network are not limited to specific fields or disciplines. Rather, Earthville approaches personal, societal and global "problems" as challenges to be understood holistically; we look at the whole person, the whole problem and the whole system to find the whole solution.
To help you quickly get an idea of the variety of our activities, we offer here a partial list of our main areas of interest:
- community development (including urban renewal and rural community building)
- experiential education and empowerment
- sustainable living and conscious consumerism
- responsible business and compassionate commerce
- peacemaking, reconciliation and prevention of violence
- ecology/environment
- sustainable agriculture and food and water issues
- holistic health and healing
- wisdom, spirituality and interfaith issues
- creativity and the arts
- cultural and international issues, including globalization and indigenous peoples
- sustainable development
- innovative organizational development and creative synergies
- appropriate technology and renewable energy
- communication and information: media, computers and the Internet
- personal, family, gender and sexuality issues
The Five Primary Objectives of the Earthville Network
1. To realize innovative visions for renewal
at the personal, community and global levels by reinventing our schools and other public institutions and by educating and empowering ourselves and others to: develop better understanding of ourselves, each other and our world; recognize patterns, challenge assumptions and ask better questions; dream courageously of better worlds and better ways; and work joyously with others to manifest these dreams in our lives and our communities.
2. To optimize our synergy and manifest our creative potential
by bringing people together in nurturing environments and experiences which facilitate meaningful interaction, sharing and cocreation; seeking new perspectives and making new connections; recognizing patterns, understanding systems and asking better questions; challenging fundamental assumptions about the way things ought to be done; embracing the support and enthusiasm of others and realizing opportunities for synergy; networking our activities, resources and visions creatively so that everyone wins; and exploring innovative ways to do more and better with less.
3. To cultivate caring community in chaos
by creating nurturing, challenging and appealing environments for living, learning and working that will serve as a sustainable infrastructure supporting productive and responsible society - with priority given to our respective local communities and to other communities which may have been historically troubled or may be currently experiencing crises.
4. To put compassion into action
by facilitating opportunities for people of different backgrounds and beliefs to work together in service to relieve the suffering of others, strengthening human bonds and spreading joy through acts of loving kindness
5. To promote peace and unity in diversity
by bringing together people who are culturally, geographically and emotionally distant in dialogue and shared experiences which break down boundaries and foster mutual respect - while celebrating diversity and working to preserve cultural and individual differences and to leverage those differences for the benefit of all.
Guiding Lights: Governing Principles of the Earthville Network
The Earthville Network is founded on the principle that the "ends" and the "means" are inseparable. In other words, we believe that how we do what we do is just as important as what we do and why we do it.
We believe that the ultimate success of our efforts depends on the integrity of those efforts and on the emotional atmosphere (the "vibe") of the environments in which we work, learn and live.
We believe that "commUnity" requires inclusion and mutual respect and that we must earnestly embrace and engage the rich diversity of beliefs, cultures and lifestyles in order to understand each other and live, learn and work together with joy and in peace.
Earthville is organized in accordance with grassroots, egalitarian (non-hierarchical and equal-opportunity) principles.
With conviction in these principles, above all, Earthville seeks to maintain environments, policies and practices that:
- cherish and nurture equally all people, all forms of life and the global environment which supports us
- follow Gandhian principles of Ahimsa (non-harming), updated for our toxic times (in addition to avoiding toxic and otherwise harmful materials and minimizing garbage and other waste, the Earthville Network is an all-vegan organization; we do not consume, cause to be consumed, or make any expenditures on animal products or those tested on animals, and we avoid doing business with those who profit from the suffering of animals.)
- foster trust and responsibility, mutual respect and appreciation
- generally favour cooperation over competition and promote creative collaboration
- reflect sensitivity to every person's unique needs for balance and challenges in life (by keeping people interested and engaged without burdening them unreasonably, for example)
- encourage people to expect the best from themselves and from others, within the bounds of realism and compassion
- use all our resources (people, money, facilities, time, etc.) as efficiently and productively as possible, which may mean sharing with others if we have more than we need!
- recognize the moral imperative to make informed and compassionate purchasing decisions (and avoid "false discounts" by spending more, if necessary, to avoid harm to labourers, animals and the environment)
- favor the people and the mission over the organization!
- within reason, generally value personal and professional development over temporal efficiency
- allow and encourage each of us to work and learn in the ways which most inspire us!
- promote joy, peace and love in the places where we work, learn and live!
Legalities
The Earthville Network is a global nonprofit organization with coordinating offices in India and the USA. The Earthville Network is incorporated in California, USA as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Contributions are tax-deductible in the USA to the extent allowed by law.
Earthville's affiliates ("Partners") around the world are separate and completely autonomous organizations, some of which may be registered as charities in their respective locations. An organization's partnership with Earthville does not necessarily represent an endorsement by Earthville of the views and activities of the partner organization.
If you are insterested in joining, supporting or partnering with Earthville, or if you have questions not answered on our website, feel free to contact us here.
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