direct link to this page >> www.EcoEconomy.NodoEspiral.net
Whether you're already changing the economy in small or larger ways, or just beginning to see the wider picture & have no idea how to contribute, want to launch or perfect your own eco-business or help change the local economy with complementary currencies ... we've created a space to support you to grow as an EcoEconomist. We need ALL conscious citizens to become EcoEconomists now, join us!
Free Conferences as an introduction 
| This course is also offered - at the same time - in spanish, see
We'll be sending news about this course soon to people on our mailing list
 for occasional news &
invitations to free conferences
 This pioneering course provides a radically different view of economics than all mainstream to date, & also to courses on alternative or 'green' economics to date, especially in methodology & range of vision.  Feminist Economics is included in this course - an often ignored very early pre-decessor of much current 'alternative economics', which is however often diluted of it's most radical messages & models.
  In this truly integral course, we will also provide space & encouragement to explore the historical, ethical, sacred & spiritual aspects of economics, also.
The course will be completely bilingual > English - Spanish, so all students will be invited to participate in both if they wish to practice languages.
 We will also explore the question of How can we design our personal transition from living enslaved to an exploitative economy... to be part of the change, creating dignified work which allows us to support our families in an ethical & truly productive way, whilst we enjoy serving the world with our unique talents?  The very limited view of conventional economics is represented by the thin red line half-way up this triangular diagram. The whole-picture view is a lot more interesting & useful in the long-term, and what we will be exploring during the whole course.  It is essential that we have a good understanding of the most basic & vital economies or markets of the Planet: the cycles & networks of exchange of Nature, that current ignorance & economics is destroying, & without which there is no Life on Earth. We very much embedd all EcoEconomics design models on this proto-economics base. .  |
The Support Team
- So far, in simple order of joining, they are -
Stella Strega-Scoz
Stella has been a social activist since 1981, & has been passionately engaged in figuring out how to organize for social & environmental justice for as long as she can remember.An experienced community eco-innovator, she ran award-winning early Transition Initiatives in London in the mid-90’s (See GreenAdventure) which - amongst other things - integrated various complementary currencies in facilitating the development of the local economy, like making an organic produce box scheme (delivered by bicycle in a run-down inner city) affordable to low-income families. She coordinated the setting up of the first TimeBank in London, working for the NewEconomics Foundation in 1997, was an invited speaker at many conferences on Agenda 21 & community regeneration during the late 90s, & was invited to be part of a British Government think-tank on how to regenerate the inner cities in 1998.
Having experienced & witnessed many great community projects succeeding but even more failing or struggling, in 1999 she started to develop better training & support for community activists, together with a permaculture activists & teachers support group she facilitated, by running some of the first permaculture design courses taught by teams of practitioners, & designing and teaching an early 'People-Care' course for activist which incorporated business & team-work tools with collective intelligence & personal development models & methods, in order to make community organizations more effective.
Since 2001 her home has been a permaculture farm in the Canary Islands which is now becoming an eco-village & has been the base for a decade of experimental action-learning program in permaculture. This in turn informed more of the Integral Permaculture curriculum, now a year-long action-learning program that provides ongoing mentoring of the students' real-life home & community designs.
She is a founding member of the Associación Gaia Tasiri which supports various innovative permaculture projects - one being an eco-business that a student developed during an early pilot experiment of this EcoEconomics incubator we are now offering. Stella's main design interests are the development of Bioregional Economies & maximizing Collective Intelligence.
In 2006 she coordinated a Complementary Currencies (CC) Conference, the first of its kind in Spain, which created a first comprehensive resource on CCs in Spanish. From 2007 Stella has been engaged in various local Transition Island initiatives and setting up a program to support the development of small EcoBusiness whilst building up the NodoEspiral of the Permaculture Academy (set up in 2003), & its constantly improving & expanding range of practical support & high-quality mentoring for social activists.
Heloisa Primavera
Heoloisa is a recognized & much appreciated international & multilingual EcoEconomist with a great deal of experience of on-the-ground work with complementary currencies, one of the founders the Red de Trueque Solidario in Argentina, amongst other pioneering initiatives.Starting as a biologist & professor of sociology, an operation in 1996 constrained her physically & this permitted her to observe a series of popular movements (like the silent marches of María Soledad & of the Carrasco case) which demonstrated a will for change. "And as sociologists we always study things when they're already dead, I proposed to do the opposite: I wanted to connect with the people and act".
She got her chance in '97, when she connected with the organizers of the Exchange Club (Club de Trueque - equivalent to LETS scheme in english) of Bernal, then starting to organize exchange markets. There she offered to add to the exchange of products also the exchange of knowledge & training.
Today she is taking a Doctorate in Complexity Thinkin (Multiversidad Edgar Morin), is a professor at the University of BuenosAires, a sought-after international speaker on community currencies & the development of local economies.
In 2011 she was the coordinator of a project by the Canadian & Argentinian Governments to implement the use of the first distributed notebooks in public secondary schools in Argentina, which will soon involve 4 million students. Currently she is consultant in Abundance Economies for the Laboratorio de Innovación of the Programa Conectar Igualdad (www.conectarlab.com.ar)
Another project just started is the re-design of a social currency & community bank with the first green mayor who created in the 90s the first local social currency in a small town in Brazil. In November 2012 Primavera was part of an invited international team of consultants to advise the transition government in Tunisia on the construction of participative democracy & sustainable development.
Rebecca Reiber
Whilst raising a young family Rebecca was a consultant in organizational development, working mainly with NGOs & micro-medium businesses, after a 12 year career in international business (import/export).
She loved organizational development but missed the international aspect so she started working as an independent consultant, which took her to Russia & then Panamá. In Panamá she fell in love with the country, the people & the landscape.
Her work developed from organizational development to community development, something she loved so much that she took a masters in Sustainable Development, Community Development & Training for Social Action. She learned a great deal from this masters & made lasting international relationships.
From her moving to Panamá an idea began to form that now, after 8 years, took form as an EcoVillage project.
We're delighted to have Rebecca on the team, she brings her administrative & business skills & experience as well as her international perspective & fluent bilingualism (english & spanish) to this pioneering course.
John Rogers
He ran a local exchange system in Wales from 1993-2003 and co-directed the Wales Institute for Community Currencies at the University of Newport from 2003-2007.
He now offers training and consulting for local currencies through Value for People: http://valueforpeople.co.uk
He is a Fellow of the Institute for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS) at the University of Cumbria
and a Senior Associate with Community Forge: http://communityforge.net
In 2012, he co-authored "People Money - the Promise of Regional Currencies" with Margrit Kennedy and Bernard Lietaer, published by Triarchy Press. One reviewer described the book as "a sort of bible for alternative currencies".
In 2012, he co-authored "People Money - the Promise of Regional Currencies" with Margrit Kennedy and Bernard Lietaer, published by Triarchy Press. One reviewer described the book as "a sort of bible for alternative currencies".
Stephanie Rearick
Based in Madison, Wisconsin,
Stephanie Rearick is founder and Co-Director of the Dane County TimeBank and Project Coordinator of Time For the World.
In addition to her work in timebanking and promoting ground-up economic and community regeneration,
Rearick is co-owner of Mother Fool's Coffeehouse.
Rearick worked for Greenpeace for six years of young adulthood, helped launch Madison Hours local currency in 1995 and served for several years on the steering committee of independent local political party Progressive Dane.
Rearick also works as a musician.
She will contribute all this practical experience in the subjects of ground-up regenerative economics, timebanking, mutual credit, redesigning work and compensation, how various tools can work in concert.
Jose Zamora
Jose lives in the Canary Islands, Spain, since 1998, and was born in Cuba in 1992.
He has a degree in Informatic Systems Engineering, and is a very eager Integral Permaculture action-learner.
Because of his ease to learn and understand complex systems, he was awarded every year in the University for being one of the best 20 engineering students in the Canaries, and he invested this money in shares of the EcoVillage project where he lives and works, as a founder member and the youngest in the team.
He's been working with NodoEspiral since 2011, and will be providing tech support for this course.
He's specially passionate about fertility & biodiversity regeneration and human empowerment, and he'll also enjoy developing during the course some of his ideas of very "edge" ecobusinesses based on his passions.
He has a degree in Informatic Systems Engineering, and is a very eager Integral Permaculture action-learner.
Because of his ease to learn and understand complex systems, he was awarded every year in the University for being one of the best 20 engineering students in the Canaries, and he invested this money in shares of the EcoVillage project where he lives and works, as a founder member and the youngest in the team.
He's been working with NodoEspiral since 2011, and will be providing tech support for this course.
He's specially passionate about fertility & biodiversity regeneration and human empowerment, and he'll also enjoy developing during the course some of his ideas of very "edge" ecobusinesses based on his passions.