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This extraordinary hybrid dialogue on a Regenerative Economy of Love and well-being featured interesting speakers from around the world. Participants were introduced to holistic economic practices and systems that offer attractive alternatives to the current paradigm in place.
The event was convened both, onsite at Home for Humanity France, with collaborators, partners and well-wishers from the local region and countries as diverse as Kyrgyzstan, Egypt, Portugal, Peru, Switzerland, Nepal, USA, Germany and many more, as well as online. Together we explored how the upcoming One Home Journey could be fuelled by these alternative economic models, coming from a place of love and promoting regeneration and wellbeing.
To open the dialogue, Franz-Theo Gottwald, Chairman of the
Supervisory Board of the World Future Council, together with his wife Andrea Klepsch, co-founders of the Foundation COCREATIO for Development and International Collaboration, addressed the participants with a special announcement: The symbolic start of the One Home Journey on 22 April 2024, Mother Earth Day, in SEKEM, Egypt, inaugurated with the blessings of the members of the World Future Council and the World Ethic Forum.
“If all these approaches that we share in our mission and vision, wouldn’t be localised, nothing would be changed. So for me, Home for Humanity is a living lab to embody, in the different regions of this globe, together with local communities, what we all share as one common world ethos: caring for this planet which is our life base.”
- Franz-Theo Gottwald
Following the opening, the special guests of the day Helmy and Konstanze Abouleish shared a warm welcome on behalf of SEKEM, Egypt, laureate of the Right Livelihood Award; recipient of the Business for Peace Prize; innovator of the Economy of Love; and founders of Heliopolis University for Sustainable Development, the first of its kind in the Arab world. Looking forward to sharing, learning from each other and ultimately co-creating systemic change, they both expressed, on behalf of their community, the pleasure and honour of serving as the symbolic launch pad for the One Home Journey.
The One Home Journey 2023-2030 is a regenerative, ecological journey to all countries on Earth, fueled by and accelerated by the emergence of a regenerative economy of love, well-being and other new economic models developed by diverse Homes for Humanity. In this spirit, Rama and Alexander emphasized that this is a truly collective journey to amplify and exponentially multiply what can be achieved in this timeframe:
“If all beings on earth know that each one of us, whatever our background, refugees, migrants, school students, as much as the elderly, each one of us has a vital part to play in co-creating the future, based on our experience, our passion, our unique purpose and vision, starting wherever we are, in our inner Home, in our local Homes, in our communities, in our movements and organisations, we can have an exponential effect.” - Rama Mani
“And ‘Home’ as we are talking today in particular about a regenerative Economy of Well-being, ‘Home’ is at the very heart of the very name ‘Economy’: ‘Oikos - ‘Nomia’, the ‘rules of the Home, of the household’. And the One Home Journey takes us, indeed, Home to Home, whereby each Earth Citizen, each Home can contribute to rebuilding an economy of shared abundance, building our common future that is including all of life.” - Alexander Schieffer
Economy of Love at SEKEM, Home for Humanity in Egypt
“When Ibrahim Abouleish founded SEKEM in the Egyptian desert in 1977, he not only wanted to establish biodynamic agriculture, he was also very clear that it needed a holistic approach to development, and that biodynamic agriculture without a new ‘Economy of Love’ would not reach the System Change needed. So from the very beginning, he was also committed to establishing a new management of the supply chain, a new management of the production, trade and consumption of goods and services in this model of SEKEM. And last but not least, he added human potential and consciousness unfolding. We have to focus on the people involved, and everything else, including agriculture, including the economy, are just tools for this journey of us individuals, building healthy, intentional communities to evolve and develop.”
- Helmy Abouleish
“We decided, that growing is not our option. Normally economies have to grow, but we are not just an economy, we include the four dimensions of Society, Culture, Environment and Economy, and we want to serve and provide solutions to the daily problems that we have in this world. So we named 16 SEKEM vision goals that each follow five steps.”
- Konstanze Abouleish
Learn more on how SEKEM’s Economy of Love is already improving livelihoods, covering the true costs of biodynamic agriculture, benefiting the environment and building healthy communities today on 2,000 farms across Egypt here.
Nhakanomics at Integral Kumusha, Home for Humanity in Zimbabwe
“We anchor our concepts of the Integral Kumusha and Nhakanomics in the philosophy of ‘Ubuntu’. The Ubuntu philosophy resonates so well with SEKEM’s Economy of Love, because you cannot talk about Ubuntu, if you cannot talk about love, oneness and brotherliness. We come with a philosophy that says we have so much that we need to make Africa and the people self-sufficient, empowered to create an economy that resonates with themselves. It all starts with the mindset, it all starts with appreciating what we already have, because we are a product of our ancestors and we are future ancestors and we are bringing the future today to create a legacy -nhaka- for future generations. We talk about the ability to transform communities through homesteads from poverty into prosperity. For us, wealth creation is not individualistic, it is co-ownership and ensuring that the success of the community is enhanced.” - Daud Taranhike
“We work mostly with women and youth, exchanging and tapping into the knowledge of the elders around us and using that indigenous wisdom to move forward, merged with new technologies and knowledge we acquire from partners and stakeholders to transform our communities.” - Christina Taranhike
Integral Kumusha has been recognized as a national role model for community-based economics.
Jo-Womenomics and the Ecofeminist Economy, a Home for Humanity Jordan
“I realized that the degradation of nature is very similar to the oppression of women, and the reason is that it is a practice of power. And whoever has power, is going to practice that power. So we need to give a voice to women and to nature, and that’s when Ecofeminism came into the picture. So we started to look at a feminist economy that is built on care, empathy and love. The core question is: How can we live in harmony with nature and within societies?"- Mayyada Abu-Jaber
Jo-Womenomics is a non-profit organisation that has reached 700 women, more than 4,000 community members, 18 communities and is now scaling up in a project across the whole of Jordan. Learn more about this groundbreaking approach here.
Communitalism at Pax Herbals, Home for Humanity in Nigeria
“My work over the past 20 years, I personally describe it as researching and retelling the story of humanity. The story that Africa is poor is a story told by some people who have a certain understanding of what it means to be poor. We need to take charge of that story and tell it in our own words. For me, Communitalism is bringing everyone together that we need to take charge of our story, that at the end of the day, whether we are improving the economy, whether we are working with capitalism, socialism, critical theory, cooperative inquiry, something remains at the heart - the humanity. The human in every culture needs to be revived: How can we all become a community of humanity that values life and is together as the human family?” - Fr. Anselm Adodo
Embedded in the philosophy of Communitalism, Pax Herbals integral enterprise model has placed the local community at the centre, bringing healing power to the people, Nigerian society and Africa. Find out more about their integral approach here.
Finally, this enticing and most inspiring multinational and cross-cultural dialogue was concluded with a statement by Stewart Wallis, founder of the WEALL Wellbeing Economy Alliance, followed by a “collective firework” of “Single Words” in the We-Care spirit of what each of us individually brings to an Economy of Love, Regeneration and Wellbeing, building a prosperous future for all life on our shared planet Earth.
“What strikes me so much, the word ‘Mission Impossible’ has been used many times, and what we are facing can seem impossible, but what I can tell you is that I see a radical change. There is so much willingness around the world now to collaborate, to make it happen. We have gone well past sustainability, we are talking about regenerating this planet and revering and caring for all life and the unity of all life, between humans, animals, plants and the environment. The whole basis of what we are trying to do in the Wellbeing Economy Alliance is not to come up with a whole set of new ideas, but to actually bring all these different players together.” - Stewart Wallis
It is in the spirit of Stewart Wallis’ statement, that also the Home for Humanity movement continues to be a “Home” for these different approaches and players, and a co-creative partner of many organisations, co-committed to drive the agenda of a Regenerative Economy of Love and Wellbeing. Watch this space.