Sustainability is becoming an inexorably significant attribute of numerous organizations in light of the critical environment and climatic challenges presently being confronted. What is more, COVID-19 has featured the requirement for reinforcing supply chains across the globe. Organizations, governments, shared society, customers, cultivators, and funders have been tested to assume this liability. In rural businesses, there is a wide assortment of viewpoints on what sustainability implies. Also, regular consideration is given to a solitary trait, such as soil health, fossil fuel byproducts and high concentration of plastics, without perceiving that sustainability is a large number of unpredictable and interrelated elements intertwined together. There could be no single silver answer to accomplish ecological sustainability. Instead, it is all about careful consideration of alternatives based on short- and long-term outcomes. To attain sustainability, the feasibility and effect of alternative arrangements should be thought of, one among the best solutions being the usage of coir as an alternative.

India is the home of coir, where coir weaving began creating in 1859 in Alleppey, from where it spread its branches. The coconut fibre removed from the husk of coconuts is one of the hardest filaments and is considerably more worthwhile in various applications like soil erosion control, support and stabilization of soil, and more preferred alternatives. Coconut husks are developed in 93 nations on the planet, and India is the biggest coconut delivering country on the planet. Although coconut cultivation is highly concentrated in 18 states in the nation, coconut and their by-products appreciate consumers’ interest all through the country. Coir has been customarily utilized as rope and floor covers for mattresses. Aside from these, presently, coir is finding new applications as eco-accommodating substitutes like coir geotextiles, garden articles, coir wood furniture and coir toy products, and creating advancements for manufacturing coir fibre composites to substitute wood and other synthetics.

Coir is adequately eco-friendly; thus, its application would not cause any harm to the environment. Coir is not a byproduct of coconut but is a waste product reused for its recipient qualities to create the fibre and turned or woven into usable products. It is one of the countless results of the coconut palm known to India. One such innovation is the coir pith, a by-product that is a wellspring of abundance from squander.

The capability of nonconventional products is presently grounded; however, they are yet to acquire their due acknowledgement. This thus has to lead to the formation of more significant business openings especially in rural areas. The absence of awareness about the upsides of coir and its by-products, hesitance of artisans to utilize them, nonaccessibility of a critical mass of these items in the market are a portion of the hurdles on their approach to getting potential consumers. This industry can provide better employment opportunities to several people around the globe as well. While the world is looking for answers for the rising pollution levels and the devastation made by deforestation, coir and byproducts are the right solution for developing a sustainable world.

We are delighted to announce the opening of a new chapter in Kano, Nigeria!

It marks a historic moment, as the first oikos opens up in Nigeria, but is also a milestone 50th chapter in our world-wide network.

We wish the best of luck to the students from oikos Kano and are looking forward to working together and supporting the new chapter in creating an impact on their local campus.

Our community is electing new oikos International Board members!

If you’re looking to enhance and develop your skills and practice leadership in a truly global context while learning the ins and outs of international non-profit governance, you should consider applying to be the next oikos VP!

The new board will be elected at the Legislative Meeting on October 17!

Find out more and apply here.

The LEAP Mid-Term Meeting for the 2021 cohort of the Advanced Track took place from 25 to 31 of July. This year, the Meeting was a hybrid event which some participants had the chance to attend in person, in regards to more loose travel restrictions between Switzerland and the countries they come from. Others, whose home countries’ pandemic situation wouldn’t allow to meet up in person, had the opportunity to learn as a participant of the online meeting.

The Mid-Term Meeting is a vital part of the LEAP Advanced experience, where participants take a dive into an intensive leadership development experience. The in-person aspect of the Meeting is key as it provides a unique opportunity for LEAPers to meet and interact with each other. These interactions allow for a deeper connection and understanding among participants in a special atmosphere in which they not only gain knowledge and insights, but also get to practice together the skills which help shape their leadership development.

With its great importance for the nine-month LEAP journey, it was only natural that the same opportunity was provided to participants unable to travel to the onsite meeting. This year the online participants had the unique chance to play the flow game, a board game depicting your personal development journey. They would bring one burning question, shape it with the help of the game facilitators to make it very concrete and clear. After rolling the dice, they would pick up a question, a picture or an invitation with others in the group acting as advisors, which allowed us to not only get to know each other better but also learn from each other’s experiences. 

This playful way of self-discovery was enhanced by two Biodanza sessions to help ground the participants and connect them to their bodies and inner self, a common connection session where fun and getting to know each other better was at the center, two oiCoffee sessions were randomly assigned participants connected and called each other for a coffee chat, a bollywood movie night and daily reflection questions that connected the online and the onsite events.

This year 32 LEAP participants met up in Leysin, Switzerland. Over the course of a week, the onsite participants got to experience the challenging, yet highly rewarding program, with many lovely memories and learnings to take away from it. The program offered a space for participants to explore, exchange and rethink different aspects of leadership and their visions for life. The sessions focused on finding one’s own ikigai, using the seven essential leadership capacities within the framework of the Theory U and the 4-Fold practice, for learning to host yourself, host others, being hosted and forming a community of practice.

Guided by our amazing team of coaches, the participants went through an intense agenda of activities, which provided a fruitful platform for learning about interpersonal relationships as well as diving deep and exploring their inner selves, their emotions, purpose and the impact they want to have in the world. For the most part, the weather served us well which further enriched the experience of going through this fulfilling journey surrounded by sunshine, nature and tranquility. 

As the best way to reconstruct the in-person experience during the Mid-Term Meeting, we look no further than participants themselves. Over the week we provided them the opportunity to recollect, reflect and put on paper their own perspective of the program. With a small group of memory keepers by our side, we want to share with you their experience, their emotions, learnings and takeaways from their Leysin adventures – we want to tell their story.

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The decision to host the onsite meeting amidst the pandemic was made together with all participants of the LEAP Advanced Track. To ensure everyone feels safe and minimize the risk of infections we created a common COVID concept with all onsite participants leading up to the event. It established our policy on wearing masks, testing, etc and acknowledged that we all have different concerns and needs to be met in order to feel safe. Everyone showed a great consideration and respect for each other’s boundaries and the rules in place. It was this, along with regular testing, which made the LEAP onsite Meeting the only group event at the time in Leysin without a single COVID case among participants.

For us, this is a great achievement and something to be proud of for both the planning team and the participants. It’s something to take from and build further upon for future oikos events, to make sure they are as safe as possible in regards to the health of our participants.

LEAP onsite Mid-Term Meeting is financially supported by Movetia. Movetia promotes exchange, mobility and cooperation within the fields of education, training and youth work – in Switzerland, Europe and worldwide. wwww.movetia.ch

We are getting ready to kick-off the fundraising campaign Support a Youth Leadership Journey, for the first time ever through the Global Giving Accelerator. The aim of the campaign is to raise funds for the costs arising from the new structural changes we as an oikos community are going through. We recently began our shift towards a co-presidency model of governance. It means, our community will have two co-presidents instead of a single president attending to it, is a significant change in how our organization is run. With this in mind we want to set the oikos Youth Leaders Scholarship.

At oikos, we learn by walking the talk and practicing what we preach. This also counts for how we approach leadership in our student-led network: together! The oikos Youth Leaders Scholarship enables us to switch to a shared leadership model: an amazing learning experience for two talented, ambitious, powerful young leaders who, with a high probability, will change the world in the upcoming years as they step into the oikos International co-presidency.

Not long ago, with the election of the first ever co-president we began our organizational transition, which is going to take place over the coming months and be finalized by the end of the year. And in order to make the transition go smoothly, we decided to make it a part of a new campaign with a focus on individual donations, which our Fundraising Working Group has been planning for months now. Global Giving mission is to support nonprofits with tools and training in order for smaller organizations to scale up their individual donations with thousands of visitors coming daily to their websites to donate. For oikos, being part of the accelerator is an amazing opportunity to gain new donors and spread awareness for our organization and cause.

The campaign will run from September 13th to 30th with a Bonus day that give us the opportunity to gain special prizes for donations given on September 22nd. Monthly donations committed during that time will be matched by Global Giving.

For more details about Global Giving accelerator, check it out here..