Collective Trauma & Climate Change
Inviting Global Healing
Pocket project @ UN Climate Change Conference
6.-18. NOVEMBER 2022
Trauma is at the root of our inaction in the face of Climate Change. Trauma symptoms of numbness, apathy, hyper-activation and polarisation dramatically slow down our ability to respond adequately. Trauma is the sand in the system and the reason it is so hard to implement our good intentions and climate agreements.
As we expanded our global healing movement, through meditations, updates from COP27, interviews with Thomas Hübl and others, and news from communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis – helping restore our collective sensitivity and compassion and increase our flow of possibility and potential.
FIND THE RECORDINGS OF THE EVENT IN THE SPEAKER’S SECTION
Program Overview:
Meaningful conversations
We explored the importance of trauma-informed approaches for more effective Climate Change action. Allowing ourself to be inspired by inspirational conversations.
UPDATES FROM COP27
Exciting live introductions and short updates about what was happening on the ground at COP27.
Communities on the frontlines
We mindfully attended to Climate Change with embodied awareness, thereby shifting from being bystanders to responding from our hearts, minds and bodies.
Movie screening
In partnership with the Roots of Resilience Project, we were screening Once You Know, a 144-minute life-changing documentary featuring Emmanuel Cappellin in his journey across the abyss of a world at the edge of climate-induced collapse.
Collective Trauma summit
We were pleased to present the climate-focused speaker talks being made available as part of the Pocket Project‘s partnership with the Collective Trauma Summit.
UPCOMING EVENTS
A Journey into Jewish Identity
(English)
Facilitator : Idit Rose, Hilorie BaerA 4-Session Journey into Jewish Identity – Exploring through the Dance of the Universal and the SpecificFor anyone who identifies as JewishThis series will begin with four sessions which we will build progressively, each one deepening the exploration of Jewishness by engaging with the dynamic interplay between the universal and the specific. Along the way, we’ll also touch on the role of personal and collective triggers as doorways into this inquiry. This is an open group, and new participants are welcome to join at any point. At the same time, we warmly encourage you to join us for the full 4-session journey, as each meeting builds upon the last.All dates are on Sunday 25th May| 22nd June | 13th July
Embodied Connection to our Jewish Resilience
(English)
Facilitator : Karen Gold Sherman, Igal HarmelinFostering a Felt Sense of Safety in our Jewish Belonging - For anyone who identifies as JewishThis monthly gathering offers a warm and supportive space for those with Jewish ancestry to explore resilience, belonging, and the integration of individual, ancestral, and collective experiences. Together, we reflect on personal and historical trauma, the challenges of the present, and the strength within our Jewish identity. By cultivating safety and connection, we support our individual and collective capacity to process, integrate, and deepen our sense of Jewish belonging.
Coming Home to Being Jewish
Facilitator : Robin Alfred, Teddy FrankCreating a warm and safe space for the presencing and integration of the individual, ancestral and collective trauma and resilience of being Jewish.We will meet monthly with people who identify as having Jewish ancestry, to explore aspects of our Jewish experience including: the presencing of our individual, ancestral and collective trauma; the challenges of the current situation in the Middle East; aspects of both Jewish persecution and perpetration; internalised anti-semitism and whatever themes and experiences group participants bring to the call.Our intention is to create a warm, welcoming and safe space in which such topics and experiences can be felt, held within a field of group coherence and resonance, and in this way to support our individual and collective capacity to reflect, digest and integrate what arises.
Meaningful Conversations
Thomas Hübl
Listening to the Wind of Change
Tue, Nov 8 7-8.30pm
Thomas Hübl is a renowned teacher, author, and international facilitator whose lifelong work integrates the core insights of the great wisdom traditions and mysticism with the discoveries of science. Since the early 2000s, he has been facilitating large-scale events and courses that focus on the healing and integration of trauma, with a special focus on the shared history of Israelis and Germans. Over the last decade, he has facilitated dialogue with thousands of people around healing the collective traumas of racism, oppression, colonialism, genocides in the U.S., Israel, Germany, Spain, and Argentina. He is the author of the book Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds, available here. His non-profit organization, the Pocket Project, works to support the healing of collective trauma throughout the world.
Charles Eisenstein
Trusting What the Heart Knows
Thu, Nov 10 7-8.30pm
Charles Eisenstein is an essayist and the author of several books, including The More Beautiful World our Hearts Know is Possible
John D. Liu
Ecosystem Restoration
Tue, Nov 13 7-8.30pm
John D. Liu, Filmmaker, Ecologist, Founder of Ecosystem Restoration Camps, a grassroots movement to regenerate degraded lands worldwide. John made the documentaries Green Gold, a Prix Italia award winner, and Hope in a Changing Climate, named the best ecosystem film at the International Wildlife Film Festival.
Nora Bateson
Where does deep change grow from?
Thu, Nov 17 7-8.30pm
Nora Bateson is an award-winning filmmaker, research designer, writer, educator, international lecturer, as well as President of the International Bateson Institute based in Sweden. Her work asks the question “How we can improve our perception of the complexity we live within, so we may improve our interaction with the world?”.
She wrote, directed and produced the documentary, An Ecology of Mind, a portrait of Gregory Bateson.
Nora’s work brings the fields of biology, cognition, art, anthropology, psychology, and information technology together into a study of the patterns in ecology of living systems.
Her book, Small Arcs of Larger Circles, released by Triarchy Press, UK, 2016 is a revolutionary personal approach to the study of systems and complexity.
Brother Phap Dung
UN COP27 - Closing
Fri, Nov 18 7-8.30pm
Brother Phap Dung (pronounced “Yung”) is a senior Teacher in Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village community. Born in Vietnam in 1969, he escaped with his family aged ten and became a refugee in America. He has helped bring a spiritual dimension to ecological activism and the climate movement, representing his community at the Paris COP21. Brother Phap Dung is passionate about bringing mindfulness practice and well-being into educational settings, offering young people an alternative and sustainable way to engage themselves with the social, racial, and environmental challenges of our times.
Brother Spirit
UN COP27 - Closing
Fri, Nov 18 7-8.30pm
Brother Spirit also known as Brother Pháp Linh, is a Zen Buddhist monk ordained by Thich Nhat Hanh. A musician and mathematician, he is pioneering new approaches in the meeting of science and contemplation. He is becoming a leading voice in a new generation of young monastics, helping to bring awareness and healing to the collective trauma of climate grief and anxiety.
Matthew Green
Fri, Nov 6 7-8.30pm & Thu, Nov 17 7-8.30pm
Matthew Green is a journalist working to show how an understanding of collective trauma can help solve the climate crisis. After working for years as an international correspondent for the Financial Times and Reuters, covering conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, he returned to Britain to write Aftershock, a book about military veterans and their families finding new ways to heal from the psychological scars of war. Since then he has focused on reporting on climate change, and is now global investigations editor at nonprofit climate news service DeSmog. He was a host of the Collective Trauma Summit 2022 and writes the Resonant World newsletter on healing collective trauma. He lives in south-west London with his wife Genevieve and their daughter Matilda.
Emmanuel Cappellin
Once You Know
Emmanuel is a documentary filmmaker and producer at Pulp Films. After growing up between France and the US, and studying Environmental Studies at McGill University, and film at Berkeley Digital Film Institute, Emmanuel chose non-fiction to creatively explore the relationship between humans and planet Earth. He now shoots for television (ARTE, France3) and cinema, regularly collaborating with Yann Arthus-Bertrand for world-releases such as Climate Voices, HUMAN, or WOMAN , and has most recently directed ONCE YOU KNOW, which is his first feature documentary.
communities on the frontlines
Sarah Queblatin
Witnessing Philippines
Mon, Nov 7 7-8.30pm
Sarah Queblatin is an inclusive design strategist passionate in transforming the narrative of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) into Design for Resilience and Regeneration. With a background in mental health and psycho-social support, ecopsychology, and expressive arts , she applies a trauma-informed understanding of regenerative resilience in her work with climate and conflict vulnerable communities. Sarah is a core team member of Permaculture for Refugees and is contributing to ways to decolonize permaculture through Principle 0. She has worked with the Global Ecovillage Network as UN and Advocacy coordinator and as representative to the UN Climate conferences. She started Green Releaf Initiative in the Philippines, one of the most climate vulnerable nations in the world, working with regenerative solutions for food sovereignty, regenerative livelihood, and ecosystem restoration. She combines this work with a passion project called Kalikhasan: Living Story Landscapes, working with local culture bearers and creatives in designing places of remembrance, resilience, and regeneration in communities facing loss and damages from climate emergencies. Sarah is also shaping a dialogue journey on decolonizing and transforming narratives of ecosystem restoration between the global north and south called Restore-Restory, where learnings can offer shared wisdom, collective healing, and emerging ways of regeneration from countries already facing harsh climate emergencies around the world.
Linda Kabaira
Witnessing Zimbabwe
Wed, Nov 9 7-8.30pm
Linda is a passionate regenerative food grower, agroecology practitioner and trainer with two decades of implementing sustainable and regenerative food systems initiatives in communities at both field and programming aka-managerial level. She currently serves as the country coordinator for Zimbabwe Institute of Permaculture- SCOPE Zimbabwe. www.scopezimbabwe.com. She Initiated the founding of the Ecovillage@Chitubu, a growing off-grid sustainability Centre 23km West of Harare, Zimbabwe. She is also in her final stage of a PhD research in agroecology water and resilience focusing on exploring alternative agrifood systems in Africa. She volunteered and served on Global Ecovillage Network board for 5 years until February 2021.
Daria Yemets
Witnessing Ukraine
Fri, Nov 11 6-7.30pm
Daria Yemets is a psychologist and researcher, born in Kharkiv, Ukraine. She works in the field of collective trauma and aims to address the transgenerational trauma transmission and to maintain historical truth in Ukraine. Currently, is working in alliance with the Pocket Project, developing Ukraine Support Project. Since the Russian invasion in 2022 she has been coordinating Ukrainian therapists and health care specialists with international educational web in order to maintain a sufficient level of professionalism in the face of war, nuclear thread and ecological catastrophes.
Volodymyr Gandziura
Witnessing Ukraine
Fri, Nov 11 6-7.30pm
Volodymyr Gandziura was born in Kyiv in the family of a writer. He graduated from the Faculty of Biology of Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv, where he has been working since 1979. He is a Doctor of Biological Sciences (Ecology), Professor of the Department of Ecology and Zoology of Shevchenko University, and Director of the Center for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine.
Katherine Poco-Enders Witnessing California, USA
Mon, Nov 14 7-8.30pm
Katherine Poco-Enders lives in the Pacific Northwest on Duwamish land. She is a descendent of Comanche Native American war-chiefs, warriors, and medicine men on the one hand, and also an artistic Irish strand. She has facilitated groups and workshops for the Women’s March and music festivals. As she walks with her ancestors, she has also held witnessing grounding meditative space for families and survivors of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People and for her community processing the traumatic legacy of Indian boarding schools.
Margarita O. Zethelius
Witnessing Colombia
Wed, Nov 16 7-8.30pm
Margarita O. Zethelius is an activist for life. She works to create places, programs and life change experiences that bring together care for Mother Earth and the wellbeing of humanity. Margarita is a Biologist with MSc in Conservation and Rural Development, she is founder and co director of the Falun Natural Reserve in the Andean region and the UBUNTU Center for experimentation and training in Sustainability in the Rosario Islands of Colombia. For the last 25 years she has been involved ecotourism, environmental education, nature preservation, ecovillages and educational strategies developed by local communities in the face of Climate Change and highly violent environments. Currently she represents the Council of Sustainable Settlements of Latin America CASA in the Global Ecovillage Network GEN.
Updates from COP27
Sonita Mbah
General Updates from Cop27
Sonita Mbah is combining her role at The Pocket Project with her Masters in World Heritage Studies. She is a passionate food grower, Permaculture designer and facilitator. For over 10 years, she was the Administrator of Better World Cameroon and co-initiator of Bafut Ecovillage, an off-grid learning center North West of Cameroon. As Executive Secretary of the Global Ecovillage Network Africa, she brings regenerative community and social enterprise development to several African communities. In 2017, Sonita received the Gender Just Climate Solutions Award by the Women and Gender Constituency for empowering women on the earthen cook stove technology. Driven by her passion for healing colonial trauma, Sonita took the Principles of Collective Trauma Healing course with Thomas Hübl.
Claire Kaufman
Mon Nov 7 7-8.30pm
Claire Kaufman is a Masters in Public Affairs student at Princeton University focused on international climate policy. Her prior roles include sustainability policy advisor for the former Mayor of Tucson, Arizona, and nonprofit environmental program management focused on green business and biodiversity. She’s passionate about equitable climate mitigation, renewable energy, international environmental justice, and sustainable cities. Originally from Los Angeles, Claire enjoys yoga, writing, and anything outside.
Gina Cortés Valderrama
Wed Nov 9 7-8.30pm
Gina Cortés Valderrama, is the Co-Focal Point for the Women & Gender Constituency and from Colombia. Gina is currently working on gender, human rights, and climate change policy issues at the organization – Women Engage for a Common Future. She is part of various youth networks such as the Heinrich-Böll Stiftung, Global Solutions Initiative and the Colombian collective Aluna Minga.
Caroline Mair-Toby
Thu Nov 10 7-8.30pm
Caroline Mair-Toby has over ten years’ experience in public international environmental law. She is a former lawyer at the Foundation of International Environmental Law and Development (FIELD), advising small islands and developing countries on UN climate change negotiations. She was a lawyer and liaison officer with the Legal Response Initiative, and a former Special Advising Consultant on a climate change project at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law. She has published widely on the environment, climate change, human rights, business and human rights, and conservation. She is currently the founding Director of the Institute for Small Islands.
Elise Buckle
Tue, Nov 15 7-8.30pm
Elise Buckle has been working in the field of climate and sustainability for over 20 years. She is Co-Founder of SHE Changes Climate, Co-President of Climate & Sustainability and Board Member of the Climate Action Accelerator.
She is a globally recognized expert in climate policy, partnership building, systemic change, and public participation facilitation.
She has a strong track record of building successful global alliances to deliver positive impacts for climate, people and nature, including the Planetary Emergency Partnership, the Nature-Based Solutions Coalition hosted by the UN, the Leaders Pledge for Nature and the G7/G20 Summit alliances for sustainable finance.
She is able to bring together and align a wide range of stakeholders including business CEOs, UN, governments, unions, NGOs and local authorities.
She led and facilitated several successful local participatory Citizens Forums.
Elise is professor at the Glion Institute and the Graduate Institute in Environmental Policy and Executive Leadership for Sustainability.
Mohammed Anwar Shaheen
Wed, Nov 16 7-8.30pm
Mohammed Anwar has a long experience in the field of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). He coordinated many international projects that focus on improving the quality of education for sustainable development in higher education and pre-university education institutions. He is currently working as Director of Rural Development Centre at Heliopolis University with a focus on community development, community-based learning, and social transformation in rural areas surrounding the Sekem community in Sharkia, Egypt.
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