Country: United States

Organization: Design that Matters, Inc.

Idea: To design a multipurpose community center that is offering full immersion, ethically based ecological design workshops. The overall theme will be to bring together various fields including sustainable development, health care, education and ICT as part of a cohesive approach to development to promote whole systems thinking. By immersing students in everyday farming and land management practices a mindset will be cultivated that will promote consciousness teaching them to think like an ecosystem. Through this learning system students will gain real world skills about the about the importance of designing human systems that are ecologically and socially sustainable as they become increasingly aware of the interrelatedness of life.

How do you do it: OVF oneVillage Initiative methodology is the basis for project implementation.

Various networked resources are now being congregated, including an existing Youth ICT education program created by OVF field agents in Ghana and an Integrated Farming System which was developed by Prof. George Chan of the Zero Emissions Research Initiative.

Land will be sited and prepared for construction of the center.

Funding, operational and partnership agreements and documents will be finalized.

Integrated Farming System will be constructed and initial training of staff will begin.

Students will then be selected for training.

Final training and staff selection will enable agricultural and livestock production and eventual revenue generation.

Innovation: Conventional society typically proceeds in a linear fashion while this project proceeds from a whole systems approach leading to multiple and synergistic benefits.

Promotes experimentation in integrated systems design leading potentially to a synergistic matrix of interrelationships that build capacity while they provide economic value and not only preserve but regenerate ecological capacity.

Asserts that you can do well economically and do good in promoting a better world, overcoming conventional wisdom that human design that is ecological and socially conscious costs more and provides less economic benefit.

Breaks down the barriers between learning and work, leading to more productive, stimulating and hands on learning experiences.

Impact: The project is designed to operate as a prototype and will thus demonstrate the practical implications of this experiment on a more systemic level. OVF is now working to set up a network to create systemic change in several countries that we now operate in. This will include the bringing together of various sectors of society including government, NGOs and the private sector to enable coordination towards systematic change at a national level. This will include policy and reform, training and media outreach and will eventually lead to the replication of this methodology on the national level.

Ethical Action: Students/participants will gain an ability to better understand how to design farming, living and organizational systems that mimic ecological processes. Working in this integrated project will on an everyday level lead to an ethic of interrelatedness, fostering an ecological consciousness. Students will be taught to see the seamlessness of this ecological interrelatedness and its extension into human life and society. They will see that just as the fish are interrelated with the algae and other components of the integrated farming system, so are the humans that rely on the system for food. Working in this system will help students on a social level to realize that ethical behavior is imperative in sustaining a healthy and balanced society.

Replication: The project will be designed to be replicated once it reaches a certain level of "critical mass." The preconditions for replication will include project self-sustainability, the selection of a prime and suitable location and the number of trained field agents. Once these "critical mass" conditions are met, replication will occur through the diverting of surplus center resources to the secondary site. Field agents will be trained to do an environmental scan that will lead to an inventory of local assets. While the secondary project will adhere to the integrated design methodology of the first, it will also allow for modification so that local needs, conditions and aspirations are also considered.

Sustainability: As a social enterprise, the educational and ethical component will expand as the business begins to offer training on the various aspects of the integrated farming system. Volunteers who come to train in various capacity building programs including health care, education, ICT and agriculture will provide free labor to sustain the agricultural operations. This will keep labor costs to a minimum. As the educational program develops the center will offer incubation services to young entrepreneurs who graduate from the interdisciplinary program that builds on the existing agriculture business. These businesses as they mature, will dedicate a portion of their revenues to ensure the long term sustainability of the nonprofit part of the project.

Position in the Ethics Mosaic of Solutions:

Factor: Ignorance of consequences

Principle: Developing self-awareness and interconnectedness