The CoLab works to make it easier for permaculture practitioners and organisations to work together in the areas we are most passionate about.
An Enabling Space
- The CoLab is the environment in which work gets done.
- There are initiatives and projects in the permaculture movement that are waiting for the right conditions to emerge. The CoLab intents to create some of the conditions.
- Things are NOT forced into existence. Top-down, command and control, pouring money at a “problem”, etc. is not our style.
- The CoLab is designed to support projects that increase permaculture coherence and effectiveness.
A Network
- The work we do is based on people and their relationships, which lead to emerging initiatives.
- People and organisations come in and out of the network as it suits them and the rest of the network.
- Seeing the CoLab as a network emphasises that the whole system can take a variety of shapes and constantly evolves (rather than being a fairly static hierarchical system).
A Community
- Under the banner of the CoLab people come together that share an identity. They share, for example, the CoLab’s vision, mission, and values.
- Community contributors share and co-create the enabling space that is the CoLab.
An Enterprise
- The CoLab is intending to offer services (and maybe even products).
- The CoLab intends to secure its own resources (including financial compensation for some of the service it might offer) to be financially sustainable.
- The CoLab attempts to raise resources to the end of supporting projects it identifies as priorities and to facilitate individuals in the network to make a living.
An Experiment
- The way the CoLab works is experimental. By risking to fail we speed up the learning.
- The people in the CoLab are aware that not everything is always going to work on the first attempt (or at all). The key is to keep showing up.
- The people in the CoLab are happy to give it a go; ‘good enough for now, safe enough to try’ is often all that is needed to move ahead. Iteration and ongoing improvement is a daily practice.
Join us on our journey to create something really valuable and useful.