Our Story . . . So Far

• Founded in June 2022, we met each other as participants in a small Climate Dialogue Group (CDG) at Fielding Graduate University, in Santa Barbara, California. We were inspired by each other’s work and what it could mean to each of us–not just in money, possibly, but in strengthening our resolve and sharpening our focus and our impact.
• With the blessing and support of the original CDG group–that we’re still very much part of–we “spun off”, with our own structure, and putting together our own series of 12 dialogues, from some 10 countries (as of Fall, 2024).
• Using dialogue to go deeper–taking the time to listen, and finding the trust to ask the difficult questions, we are discovering our commonalities–and our differences. Even as we come to know and care that much more about each other, we are learning from each other’s work “on the ground” in our own countries, sharing the knowledge from our villages and cities, families, farmers and scientists, with these abroad or on zoom, colleagues and activists
• We are all climate activists and, necessarily. also human rights advocates and problem solvers, movers and teachers, Relative to the voices we seek to amplify, we are also notably privileged. Not rich–anything but–yet with access to information and technologies, contacts and opportunities, now typically doing the work needed in languages that many we care about do not speak.
• It is for them, especially, that we do this work, traveling often to both stay connected to the land on which our families and neighbors still live while also showing up wherever called to speak up for them. In these dual roles, we have the fulfillment of introducing to all these new friends and colleagues, from distant places, the lives and lands that we know. Hearing, through us, not only the voices of our people, their stories and their needs, but discovering also who they really are–delighting in their joy, heartened by their courage, and strengthened by their resourcefulness and their leadership
• As we are thus growing together, we can glimpse now–through this work that EVN makes possible, new ways we can the better help each other, all peoples, and all of life, to survive–and the more successfully, help all of our children, once again, to thrive.