A dozen generations of oikees have gathered around the oikos campfire to bring our organization’s history to life!
Who doesn’t enjoy sitting down around the bonfire with friends and family, taking a moment to look back and share stories, embracing the warmth and cherishing the time together?
Last Thursday, we invited all present and past oikees to a night around the (virtual) campfire as a way to connect with each other through their oikos stories. Participants brought and shared photos and memories, which made us travel back in time. Together, we rekindled the flame of the oikos beliefs and purpose inside each and every person present, no matter which generation or chapter they were from!
From some of the founding members back in 1987 to our changemakers of the present day: we were blessed to host oikees representing 12 different generations of students from the last 35 years, who all shared a common goal and identity with our community. Diving from one story into another, we connected the dots across the generations and created an image of what oikos looked like over the years, how it was shaped and how it impacted the world around us. The space allowed oikees to look back at how they faced and overcame a diverse set of challenges, but also to recall some funny anecdotes that have a special place in their hearts. These are the stories that bring oikos to life and bring us closer together. We left the campfire with a sense of encouragement, having learned something new about oikos and connected with fellow oikees on a deeper level… Virtual sparks were flying high in the sky as we celebrated our community.
Homecoming: diving deeper into the oikos History
What a start to dive deeper into the history of oikos! We hope that this will only be the beginning of our homecoming exploration, our journey to uncover and learn from and with our roots to continue writing history together.
After spending over a year in the making, gathering documents and information of all sorts and from all sources, compiling our learnings and laying the groundwork for the current infrastructure that would support the development of the HOMEcoming project, we discovered the three layers of the project and their purposes.
The first layer, the Chronics, is the most accessible to all, as it is a summary of oikos’ whole History since it started, back in 1987, available on our website Chronics .
Want to dive even deeper? There are the Archives – the backbone of the HOMEcoming. This is where we have stored all of our information on the Cloud. They can be accessed by anyone and are designed to be user friendly and, most importantly, to be updated by our whole community! Our new, collaborative Digital Archives & the Archives Guide are freely accessible.
Another gem of the HOMEcoming project is the Great List of Everything. It is a simple document that gathers all main information regarding everything we know about. It is also what the Chronics is based upon. Browse through our Great List of Everything with a chronology of important events & people
Outside the realm of the tangible and the written: our Campfire Gatherings. Sparking History back to life by bringing together and reconnecting with our community and alumni, these events are one of the main reasons why we’re doing this: we want our community to grow, connect and learn to empower everyone of us to become the change agents that are resting inside of us.
Follow us on social media or our newsletter to stay up to date with further campfires & other developments.
Celebrating the nature of oikos, we invite you to contribute proactively to this endeavor: Do you have some old pictures you could share? Any historic documents that would fill the gaps in our archives? Do you remember some information that is missing in the list of everything?
Every little contribution counts – and there is always space for more! 🙂 You could for example become our new homecoming volunteer, moving the homecoming project from conception into activation.
We’re greatly inspired, and want to share a big THANK YOU for the hard work of the current homecoming team!
A heritage taking shape in real time.
