With Starkmacher and InsightShare

Youth | Storytelling | Media | Community

Vukuzenzele is a year-long multiplier project with a strong focus on community resilience and social justice. The aim is to use training and empowerment methods to impart important skills that enable the participants to actively work for themselves and their communities. Participatory Video and project management knowledge are essential elements of the skills development process.

With InsightShare

Media | Storytelling | Community | Activism

The Participatory Video methodology is focused on supporting a community driven response to effect the social change they aspire to. Facilitators rapidly teach how to use video equipment through collaborative games and exercises, followed by production skills. This enables participation by anyone regardless of their literacy level, physical ability or age. It brings people together to explore issues, voice concerns or simply to be creative and tell stories. We are working with InsightShare to grow this community of practice in South Africa.

With Earth Harmony Innovators

Permaculture | Nature Connection | Community

A ten day immersive experience in which we re-establish our awe for the natural world so that our gardening or farming becomes inspired by a love of nature and a deep appreciation for how natural processes work.

With Starkmacher e.V

Youth Development | Sustainability | Community | Global Exchange

YoUbuntu was a year long programme designed by Starkmacher e.V that brought together 18 youths from Berlin and Cape Town in monthly meetings. This was followed by two 2- week exchanges (one in South Africa, and one in Berlin). Participants learnt about sustainability, future-oriented approaches and explored innovative examples of green entrepreneurship. The programme aimed to promote a global community awareness and to train multipliers of sustainable ways of living. Participants were encouraged to build a support network amongst themselves that would endure long after the programme, and to use this network to further develop their own ideas to implement local initiatives.

With Starkmacher e.V

Sustainability | Environmental Education | Global Exchange

In 2016 – 2018, Calvin Dias represented the South African team of the StartUpcycling project hosted by Starkmacher e.V. This project brought together an international collective of different specialists in the fields of environmental education, recycling, upcycling, art and design, to create an e-learning platform that would assist youth in establishing the knowledge base required to manage local waste materials and expose youth to enterprise potentials in the upcycling and waste management sector.

With Djembe Conexoes

Global Exchange | Community | Knowledge Sharing

Djembe Conexoes offers cultural immersions to Brazillians wanting to experience South Africa from a deeper place than a tourist holiday would allow. It focuses on meaningful relationships, exploration of sustainable practices, historical and social context and the transformation that these experiences can trigger. Amava assists with programme design and co-facilitation of the immersions.

Bridge Building | Community | Knowledge Sharing

This is a group that formed in response to the very segregated living spaces of Cape Town. The question that spurred us into action, was that of Vuyani Qamata, a Gugulethu resident, who was regularly crossing the railway line to attend interesting talks, gatherings and workshops in the seaside village of Muizenberg: “Why do all these interesting things always happen on this side of the railway line?” The question was met by a long silence, and then a bustle of conversation that grew into a working group with this question at its core.