Albuquerque, NM

www.earthcare.org You’ll be seeing this address a lot in the fortcoming weeks because I just got permission to use and reference their guide materials as long as I use their URL. If you are not from the New Mexico area, contact them: guide@earthcare.org. You might 1) learn a lot, 2) be able to do a similar project for your community, 3) contact professionals who might help you get your personal projects completed!

Long, long, ago, when I was but a wee thing I made a strong connection with the earth. In high school and college I learned more about environmental issues. On and off since I have work on and retreated from work concerning environmental issues. The great wheel turns and now environmental concerns are forefront again and a hot buzz word. Join the buzz, including appreciating bees, particularly honey bees for all the work they do! Any work you do will be apperciated by your community and the planet.

In high school we did a “walk for development” before walks were a popular fundraising activity. My church minister suggested I be a co-organizer of the project and work with a government sponsored network. I guess I added the word co since I was overwhelmed with project. Our walk was 28 miles long! I forget how many high schools were involved. We had the police helping out for several towns, connected with many churches and youth groups…blah, blah, blah. When I needed to go to a training session in Massachusetts, my mother consented and said if I ended up in jail, don’t call her ( year 1970). The intersting part of our fundraiser was that we were to fund a local project and an international project. We focused on issues regarding: End hunger, poverty, and increase education.

I tell you this story mostly because any work you do big or small can matter and supporting both local and international organizations can help those with less create sustainability too.

Earth Care International’s mission is to educate and empower youth to create a thriving, just and sustainable world.

A 501 (c) 3 education and empowerment organization

THE HEART OF SUSTAINABILITY
Sustainability is commonly defined as the ability to meet today’s global economic, environmental and social needs without compromising the same opportunity for future generations. The very concept of sustainability did not become meaningful until we began to imagine that human activities could create a condition of ecological, social, and cultural unsustainability.

Earth Care International believes the heart of sustainability is caring for the Earth and ensuring that thriving ecosystems - our life support - exist into an infinite future.

Earth Care works with sustainability as a process and a way of seeing the world through which communities can transform the economic and social systems that damage or weaken the integrity of the Earth’s ecosystems. Because modern dominant human societies are threatening the Earth, the work of Earth Care is at its core a social endeavor – to transform people and the systems they function in.

Our programs focus on three main areas/systems whose activities threaten both the Earth and people - economic system, educational system, and socio-cultural systems.

YOUTH
In creating a sustainable world, young people have an essential role to play in the process of change. When authentically engaged, youth serve an essential and vital role in communities as energizers - bringing new ideas and thinking to the table, and the willingness to implement new ideas without being stymed by past failures. This energizing and creative force is essential to building sustainable communities.

However, results of Gallup and Roper poles that show that up to 70% of today’s youth feel disenfranchised and hopeless about their futures. Youth are often seen as problem-makers rather than assets to communities.

The devaluing and forgetting of the essential role of youth is one of the often unrecognized contributing factors to the unsustainability of communities. When disenfranchised, youth energy is transformed into dysfunctional behaviors and results in negative impacts and consequences for the community - taking us further from sustainability and from our ability to care for the Earth. In order for youth contribute to positive change, we must address their disenfranchisement in modern communities.

Earth Care offers young people the opportunity to participate in their community and to become visionary leaders capable of creating an abundant and sustainable world. These leaders make choices that improve their relationship to the earth, one another, and ultimately the world.

Using sustainability education, we work with youth to understand connections between social, economic, and cultural issues to create a world that operates in harmony with natural systems.

This gives you an introduction from the sustainability magazine and guide of what they mean.
The Youth factor is crucial because you can employ idealism, incredible energy, and idealisssm at its prime time! This is good news! Mke a list of projects that your communities’ youth might rally behind and support and then be there for them. Do some research and you may find grants are available to help. Remember to include college students interns too!

Music is always needed. Ebracing the human experience in many forms and expressions is essential to build connections with one another,our earth, and projects. We can begin from where we are, and all doesn’t have to be angry demonstrations. Our energies produce more results when we can work toward unity and harmony (such old fashioned concepts). Let’s celebrate what is and create conditions that help the environments prosper! This can become our dance. Namaste. Mary MacIntyre

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