We are creating living and learning opportunities which contribute to the health and wellbeing for planet and people.

After the Erasmus project which brought Dominic Barter to Provision, we, along with our neighbor Monica Barbovschi, organised an event for him to share some of the ideas from his work around the world.

Over the last 28 years, Dominic and his colleagues in Brazil have been developing successful new ways of arriving at liberatory ends through liberatory means. Guided by the work of Marshall Rosenberg their dialogical social systems have been applied in contexts from gang-controlled favela shanty towns to family businesses, in contexts as diverse as civil wars, school systems, environmental disasters, online communities, churches and government and have inspired and supported programs in over 50 countries.

A number of people from our village, our region and the national Romanian NonViolent Communication community were able to join us for the weekend workshop offered here, and the feedback has been very positive… There have already been a number of requests for Dominic to return as what he shared has been deeply meaningful and helpful for strengthening our systems for supporting one another at these different levels.

In this short video Dominic tells about the impactful work he is doing in resolving conflict through restorative justice.

This year’s version of the “Tabără de Communicare Nonviolentă” (NVC camp) felt, again, as if we had made another quantum leap into the more beautiful world that we know in our hearts is possible.  Along with community organiser and motivator Alexandru Moldovan, Provision has been hosting some version of this camp since around 2018…

4 days, 4 trainers, 16 workshops, 22 participants, daily delicious vegan meals, countless meaningful encounters

The camps have become so well-attended that other organisers beside Alexandru were called in.  In the last two years, Stefana Forgatiu has served in this role, and this year she was also offering several trainings as well. This year we also had the pleasure of inviting Ian Peatey, who has recently stepped into an extra official role within the global organisation (The Center for Nonviolent Communication) not only as certified trainer, but also as Assessor.

This brought our training team to Five, including Lars, who for the past several years has been bringing the agroecological perspective to the camp, giving walking tours of the area and teaching nonviolence in terms of bread labor: work that we do with our own hands to contribute to our wellbeing subsistence needs in terms of food, clothing and shelter.  It has become a tradition that we offer some time toward doing this kind of work/play together and the feedback we receive is that this is an amazing, somewhat magical process that allows deeper integration of the learning.

Once upon a time, long time ago a peasant built a barn and used it for his animals and hay storage. Nobody alive at this moment could remember when it was built. It was old. And it had been neglected for too long. So, it needed to be taken down. And, it was situated in the garden of the Provision school house. With the inspiration of Alexandru Moldovan, who mobilised a group of extremely motivated volunteers from the Cluj NVC community, combined with friends and neighbours of ours, we organised one weekend in October for the demolishment of this peasant monument.

Everything and all elements seemed to work with us and within a day and a half, the barn was down and everything was cleaned up, pure magic!: all the good wood safely stored, all the rest cut for firewood after thousands (!) of nails were removed by pure endurance and pride of an incredible team. Robyn had fantastic help in the kitchen to feed the hungry workers with delicious wholesome food. Saturday evening was celebrated with bonfire at a place where once there used to be a barn…

ALPA – the ‘access to land for agroecology’ organisation that Lars co-founded and is running together with friend and neighbor Attila Szocs is doing well and going through a rebirth. 

ALPA’s mission is to secure agricultural lands with the purpose to direct them towards Agroecological farmers and biodiversity conservation. Because our region is home to some of Europe’s highest biodiversity, a natural treasure of immense importance to both the local and the global level, it can serve as a blue print towards the transition to a climate and people friendly planet.

We are members of the European Access to Land Network and the Agroecology Europe Association and momentarily sponsored by family foundations and private donors.

For more information on our work and how also you can join, see: www.alpa.land

This summer the first 1,5 hectares was donated to us! 

A Dutch film team is making a documentary about ALPA.

The documentary (filmed and produced by Jeppe van Pruissen and Joris van Egmond) will address the problems with agriculuture, lands and nature that we see and address, the solutions we offer and the way we see the future. We are looking forward to be able to show it to you sometime in 2024!

Some of you might remember our dear friend Li An Phoa, with whom we organised the fun and to the point workshop ‘Deal With Your Shit’ in summer 2019. Since then Li An has been working very deliberately on her organisation, Drinkable Rivers. Li An walks along rivers, often from ‘source to sea’ in order to raise awareness of the question:

“why is the water in this river not drinkable?”

Everything seems to be connected to this simple question! She engages citizens, school youth, municipalities, NGOs, factory owners, rangers, and more. She helps to start citizen-led movements in different river families (do you know to which ‘river family’ you belong?) to work towards a future with clean and drinkable rivers. We find it a profoundly beautiful mission! 

This autumn Li An, together with her partner Maarten, walked the river Thames in the UK from source to sea. Many people joined them for one or more days and so did Provision (Lars and Carsten). Together with a group of 8 we witnessed the river entering London, measured water qualities, listened to Li An’s stories about the 3 weeks they were already walking, and imagined the days this ancient river had still been drinkable. How long ago was that? Will it ever return to that state? You can read here their blog about the River Thames Walk.

Li An and Maarten’s book ‘Drinkable Rivers’ is now also available in English! An incredible read of a beautiful and deeply meaningful story; Provision gives a huge recommendation! 

To get a glimpse of Li An’s work, you can look at this trailer of a documentary that was made about her river walk along the river Meuse.

When we moved to Alunisu, the small Transylvanian village where we live since 2009 and where we created Provision, we had been inspired by several people and projects to chose an alternative way of living, embracing the connection with the land, food, tradition, indigenous wisdom and simplicity. 

One of the persons and stories that was part of this inspiration is Helena Norberg-Hodge and her book “Ancient Futures” in which she writes about the Ladakhi Culture in Northern India and how the machine of globalization destroyed local traditions, cultures, family structures, livelihoods, small businesses and small farms. Helena’s awareness raising work grew into a global movement called Local Futures. This September the first global summit of the movement was held in Bristol. Lars was invited as a speaker at the summit and presented the work of Provision and ALPA. 

Lars and Carsten both went and made friends with the most amazing people, besides Helena also Bayo Akomolafe, Iain McGilchrist, John Perkins, Lyla June Johnston, Charles Eisenstein, Daniel Christian Wahl, Rob Hopkins and reconnected with our dear friend Satish Kumar, who visited us at Provision in 2018.

You can read here more about the Lokal Future movement and also find the recordings of this nourishing summit.

We are very happy to be, at last, connected with the Local Futures movement, as we feel that Provision fits very well in this global tapestry of localising projects.

this is a small ‘snapshots’ video of the summit. It gives a nice impression of the general message.

Agroecology is a practice, a science and a movement

Provision has been a case study in AgroEcology for Europe (AE4EU), a European Horizon project that was running over the last 3 years. AE4EU mapped local-, regional-, and national level innovations and initiatives (like Provision) in various European countries, providing an inclusive and precise overview of agroecology. It recognises that agroecology is emerging as a pathway for the development of sustainable agricultural and food systems in Europe, however that the full implementation is still limited. 

The Tcha Sessions

Tcha playing at Provision, August 2023

For information about the workshop and registration, please follow this link to the event page on Tcha’s website.

9 day international intensive training in nonviolent communication

Green Silk Road Summer School

We are in the process of exploring and planning a collaboration with the Green Silk Road team to host a ten day Summer School.

The Summer School will include topics like understanding collapse and system breakdown, lessons learned from ‘on the ground alternatives’, transformation and metamorphosis, setting up mutual aid systems and relating with the more than human world.

The GSR approach to learning aims to involve all of ourselves: head, heart and hands. Just like travelling to the site, the act of living together on site is as much part of the curriculum as the reading and writing.

Tentative dates: 20 – 30 July, 2024

In case you are interested, please let us know, so we can keep you updated.

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