Post Growth Ripples: March 2024
From an inspiring in-person OANM facilitator training to exploring a friendly critique of degrowth — how our work has been rippling out into the world this month.
Here at the Post Growth Institute, we collaboratively develop ideas, programs, events, and alliances that promote the equitable circulation of money, power, and natural resources in our local communities and global economy. Each month we publish an overview of our key activities and impact through the various pillars of our work.
Post-growth Events
In January-March 2024, the Post Growth Institute ran an Offers and Needs Market (OANM) facilitator training program with predominantly rural Native American families from the Southern Oregon Education School District (SOESD) Indian Education program. This training was funded by the Oregon Community Foundation. Additional support and donations were generously provided by Rogue Food Unites, the Medford Food Co-op, Restoration Seeds, Nourish Indigenous Kitchen, and Siskiyou Seeds.
“As an Indian educator, there are two reasons that I am interested in the Offers and Needs Market: Social emotional learning and place-based education,” explained Teresa, SOESD Indian education facilitator. “It is a very Indigenous practice, a reminder of how we traded before colonization, which has been distorted. The OANM is reviving this with a modern way of sharing our variety of gifts and meeting our needs.”
Registration is open for OANM facilitation training — join the virtual global cohort to boost your facilitation skills and learn a tangible community development model to build economies beyond capitalism. Stay current on upcoming OANM events through the newsletter.
Meanwhile, in Shelbourne and Buckland, Massachusetts, in-person OANMs are being organized! Hosted by the Shelburne Municipal Vulnerabililty Preparedness Committee and Lynn Benander (an OANM Certified Facilitator), attendees can RSVP via Evenbrite.
Post-growth Stories
Ted Trainer, a long-time supporter of the PGI, shares his insights and a (friendly) critique of the degrowth movement. Ted is an Australian academic, author, and an advocate of economic degrowth, eco-anarchism, simple living, and ‘conserver’ lifestyles. He is a retired lecturer from the School of Social Work, University of New South Wales. He has written numerous books and articles on sustainability, developed an approach called The Simpler Way, and is creating an alternative lifestyle educational site called Pigface Point, near Sydney.
