Update On Ubuntu 2014
Ubuntu Learning Village is a community learning space located in Serima,rural Zimbabwe. Ubuntu is located on 80 hactres of land, and we have been putting sctructures, growing food, raising animals and curating programming since 2012. The learning village hosts members of the surrounding community for skills sharing geared towards promoting locally based sustainable living and culturally relevant community well-being. Some of the skills shared include building composts toilets, organic agriculture, bee-keeping, dance, music, conflict resolution among others. A host of critical challenges face many Zimbabwean communities. Some of which include the failure of the education system ( 83% failure rates in last two years at all secondary school levels in 2013 and 2012) to equip young people with knowledge or skills that are necessary for their sustainability and growth. The crisis of global capitalism, with its elusive promises of success has affected many people young and old. Many people are leaving rural areas to seek economic success in the cities where they are met with isolation, lack of fulfilling employment, disease and mental health struggles. The education system in Zimbabwe has also encouraged the rejection of local ways of learning, knowing and being to the point were folks are actively moving away from local diets, medicine, models of community togetherness, cooperative modes of economic production, even indigenous spirituality, dance, song, instruments etc. Ubuntu Learning Village intends to be a space where people can learn from and with each other, ways that they can sustain themselves using their inherent and acquired knowledges and local resources. We bring together multiple generations in the manner in which a village operates, albeit with explicit intention. Not only are we interested in materially productive skills, we also focus on the holistic. We have conversations and learnings around justice issues on gender, sexuality, children's entitlements, (dis) ability, indigenous knowledges among others. We are driven by a dream to make possible a new world. To co-create it. We hope Ubuntu will be a space of refuge and incubation that will spread across the world. We are inspired by the work of Kufunda and other spaces around the world that are doing this work and we hope to visit some of these places. Some of our main youth organizers on the ground were trained at Kufunda learning village. We are hoping to visit places in India, Mexico, Greece to learn more about what others are doing and share what we are doing.
Ubuntu Learning Village is a community learning space located in Serima,rural Zimbabwe. Ubuntu is located on 80 hactres of land, and we have been putting sctructures, growing food, raising animals and curating programming since 2012. The learning village hosts members of the surrounding community for skills sharing geared towards promoting locally based sustainable living and culturally relevant community well-being. Some of the skills shared include building composts toilets, organic agriculture, bee-keeping, dance, music, conflict resolution among others. A host of critical challenges face many Zimbabwean communities. Some of which include the failure of the education system ( 83% failure rates in last two years at all secondary school levels in 2013 and 2012) to equip young people with knowledge or skills that are necessary for their sustainability and growth. The crisis of global capitalism, with its elusive promises of success has affected many people young and old. Many people are leaving rural areas to seek economic success in the cities where they are met with isolation, lack of fulfilling employment, disease and mental health struggles. The education system in Zimbabwe has also encouraged the rejection of local ways of learning, knowing and being to the point were folks are actively moving away from local diets, medicine, models of community togetherness, cooperative modes of economic production, even indigenous spirituality, dance, song, instruments etc. Ubuntu Learning Village intends to be a space where people can learn from and with each other, ways that they can sustain themselves using their inherent and acquired knowledges and local resources. We bring together multiple generations in the manner in which a village operates, albeit with explicit intention. Not only are we interested in materially productive skills, we also focus on the holistic. We have conversations and learnings around justice issues on gender, sexuality, children's entitlements, (dis) ability, indigenous knowledges among others. We are driven by a dream to make possible a new world. To co-create it. We hope Ubuntu will be a space of refuge and incubation that will spread across the world. We are inspired by the work of Kufunda and other spaces around the world that are doing this work and we hope to visit some of these places. Some of our main youth organizers on the ground were trained at Kufunda learning village. We are hoping to visit places in India, Mexico, Greece to learn more about what others are doing and share what we are doing.
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