Seres Centre

LENGUA-LANGUAGE: Spanish

CONNECT | CREATE | CHANGE

Seres is building the first Centre for Climate Change Education and Sustainable Development in Central America.
The students will be farmers, workers and campesinos from poor and vulnerable rural communities across the region. They will come to the Centre, connecting and sharing with other students in a place of learning, exchange and education. We will help them to identify their concerns, tell their stories and create strategies for a sustainable future. Empowered, educated and aware these students will return to their communities, implementing their strategies to change their stories from ones of vulnerability to thrivability.
Because we all deserve the opportunity to thrive, in a secure, sustainable future.

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A working example of sustainable living, the Seres Centre will showcase a range of tools, methods and techniques including permaculture and agro-forestry, earthbag housing, bamboo construction, ferrocement, rainwater catchment, grey and black water treatment, appropriate technology and renewable energy. Most importantly, these tools and techniques will all be affordable and accessible – offering solutions to help vulnerable communities in Central America to build resilience to the climatic changes that are affecting them.

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Building a Project such as this takes time and careful planning: ensuring that strong and healthy foundations are laid and that the resources, skills and knowledge are on-hand to carry the Project forward. To aid this, we have broken the Project into 3 distinct phases:

Phase 1: what we call our “Mobile Classrooms”, Phase 1 is essentially our prototyping step. We have taken our work directly into the communities: running projects which are the tests, trials and learning experiences that will form the basis of our Resilient Communities programs in the Seres Centre. We are currently in Phase 1, and you can see our work through the Seres photostream and on our blog. [Read more].

Phase 2: the Construction phase – expected to start early in 2011. This is where we come back in from the field, and focus on the site for the Seres Centre…and things will get busy, quickly! Our focus is on building the core elements required to get the Centre up and running: the community centre/learning hall and dormitories, the micro-hydro system and other infrastructure, and of course permaculture integrated into all of this. We will be working with architects, engineers and designers to help us plan the various elements of the Centre, and with volunteers and workers from the local community side-by-side to help us build it!

We need to raise $150,000USD to build the Seres Centre, and there will be plenty of naming opportunities for key donors. If you are interested in contributing to our capital campaign, please Contact Us for more information.

There will lots to be involved in, whether as a virtual volunteer or on the ground with us so if your are interested, please go to Phase 2 to read more about what opportunities are available.

Phase 3: in Phase 3, the Seres Centre for Climate Change Education and Sustainable Development will be officially opened and will begin receiving students for the Resilient Communities program. The Centre will run three sessions per year. Each session is three months in duration, with a maximum of 30 students. The goal of the Resilient Communities program is to help students to develop a strategy for their community, that will take them from their current state of vulnerability into one of thrivability and sustainability. Please click on the Phase 3 link to learn more about the Seres Centre, our programs, student sponsorship opportunities and how you can be involved.