The first Eco team in Bolivia receives a visit by Bolivian President Jaime Paz Zamora, in 1991. Your good works will bring you fame, which musn't go to your head. Use your publicity to improve your village with clean water, parks, etc.

From THE NAVARATNAS GUIDE, by Daniel Dalai

Children to the Rescue where Politicians have failed.

It’s easy to make a healthy society. Just use resources wisely. Present world societies are in disarray because they use resources incorrectly. The 3rd world is especially tragic in this respect. Human groups, with proper knowledge and leadership, can become admirable, healthy tribes.

It requires thrifty, frugal and economic use of all resources. Waste in any category reduces the effectiveness of the group. Good governance is an art. It’s perfected by great artists, just as painting or music composing results from great artists. We humans instinctively follow good rulers.

The demise of present societies in the poorest countries is the result of appalling failures in leadership. Lives become pointless and stressed under incompetent leaders, even amid affluence.

So at the Earthgardens, it’s Politicians out, Artists in. No more corrupt adults holding all power. Child mind, creative mind, is an important part of healthy leadership.

The Navaratnas, (“jewels”) are the gifted children who will make it happen. Every society, every tribe has alert smart children. Now, they will be put to good use, and shine.

INITIAL STEPS

We do not do cities. Cities are unsustainable, and require more advanced discipline. We start with the countryside.

The Navaratnas begin in the most needy rural areas, starting in impoverished countries free of government control. Most needful areas, where we begin, are in high biodiversity nature, threatened with extinction because of desertification, or impoverished human settlements unhealthy for children, such as those places that practice FGM.

The Navaratnas designate an Earthgarden, or biological region, and proceed to improve it; planting vegetation, purifying water, cleaning the air and earth. While transforming the environment, they make local BEAUTY to inspire the children, planting gardens for food nutrition, and improving the habits and education of the children.

THE TOWN

The Nature Princess, with the prime artist, goes to each town or village and appoints the most gifted children (yes, the prime artist and Princess have an eye for finding them) to be Navaratnas. They also appoint the adult assessors with a keen aesthetic sense to work with them.

Each town is given a name of honor. Usually the original name is kept if it’s pretty) and a clean, beautiful entrance on all roads entering it, with beautiful hand-created signposts (shown in the TV competitions) that build pride among the inhabitants who live there.

The Navaratnas form ECO TEAMS of the town’s children ages 6 to 16. Their job is to turn the town into a healthy place to live and a tourist attraction, both in terms of environmental beauty and friendly people .

When re-inventing an ugly, poverty-stricken town, take advantage of every positive thread the town offers. For example Herat, Afghanistan has a “Womans Park”, even though women lead miserable lives in that society. Build on this name. From Womans’ Park go to “honoring women” and “fun for girls and children”. Start girls skating in the park. Make playlands and water parks for the hot summer months. Build a vast tourist attraction tied to the original name of the park.

This is because adults are not willing to accept a completely new idea, even though it brings them vast improvements. This is a normal disease of adult minds. A disease kids don’t share. So new concepts have to be tied into old, familiar ideas so adults can accept the change. We honor every positive contribution by the populace. Take up any good suggestion by the populace and run with it. Give them credit for it on the nightly team shows on TV, showing eco teams working on it. This not only gives the appearance of continuation and familiarity to new ideas, but stimulates the habit of finding the noble contribution within each person, a basic precept of the Earthgardens. It is one of the responsibilities of the teams to scan the whole population of their area (each team has its “area of responsibility”), and become friendly with the people, seeking the talent, good ideas, and good deeds to build on.

THE ECO TEAMS

Each team has between 4 and 8 youths, mixed gender, and an assessor who documents their activities with video. Videos are presented each evening on local TV. Not only do team activities improve the village, but they allow the kids to see a reflection of themselves from others and to feel the fun and camaraderie of group effort.

Members may change teams at the end of each week. Teams choose their members from among friends, and receive weekly assignments and Job Cards, which when fully actualize bring prizes to the team.

Among the activities teams may choose are environmental enhancement, planting trees, town improvement, fine art production, gardening, building, animal raising.

Each team has its pride, its banner, Stammbaum, and its videos to cultivate self-esteem, and is encouraged to be unique, not uniform. At the monthly and yearly assemblies the teams win prizes for their creativity and originality. Eco teams are the main school in their areas , creating good habits, earthfitness, honesty, reliability and health.

ACTIVITIES

The Navaratnas invite engineers, artists, visionaries and technicians to put their town in order. Solar power, clean energy, fresh water and environmental health are the goals. Green zones are planted around the town. All households are helped to become earthfit, and all agriculture is organic.

The teams bring in teachers of martial arts, archery, swimming, meditation, and natural health. They establish functional recycling of garbage in their area, giving each household compost piles and specially-made carts for transporting rubbish to the collection points.

Boys may join the Guardabosques, elite forces to confront forest-burners.

WATER

Clean water is sacred and revered in the Earthgardens. Initial activity of the teams is to clean up all water in their domain, protect water sources from contamination, and make clean water swimming places in especially warm towns. Daily social immersion in public water replaces air-conditioning.

EARTHFITNESS

EARTHFIT describes the education goal of the Earthgardens domains. We do not worry so much about ADULT earthfitness, as the adults in our communities are already Earthfit, or we wouldn’t let them be there. Also, it’s very easy to train a child to be earthfit, but adults often prove stubborn or impossible to train in anything new.

An EARTHFIT person doesn’t harm the biosphere, and doesn’t leave traces. As in Native American societies before the Europeans arrived, children learn to walk through nature or their village without contaminating or affecting their environment in any way.

Children have an instinctive desire to know the animals and plants around them. Our early education in familiarity with animals is one of the most popular activities with the students age 2 to 10.

Earthfitness implies a kinship with all life on Earth. Harmless animals are a constant part of Earthgardens communities, wildlife is part of the family. Kids play with toads, frogs, salamanders, turtles, snakes, lizards, mice, hamsters, ferrets, opossums, raccoons, coatis, sloths, and all other mammals as they grow up.

The typical present-day biophobia in Latin America that has campesinos killing wild animals and senselessly cutting and burning forests out of fear, deep, subconscious fear of the unknown, will be replaced with Earthfit Eco-Team members making enhanced habitats for animals and plants they love.

There is no institutionalized punishment in the Earthgardens. This is a big one. A major change from present society with its myriad laws and teaming prisons.

We do spontaneous punishment, like the reaction of a dog when you step on its tail. It’s natural, and normal. Instant fierceness is sometimes necessary to discipline and education, but there is no extended punishment (“you’re grounded for a week” or “you have to stay after school”) or even worse, legal systems proscribing years of punishment. The powerful dictates of custom ethics rule in the Earthgardens, and everybody helps each other stay informed. It works, it’s the way of most societies without vast legal systems today. Custom ethics is a strong, natural harmonizer. This was the way of the Native Americans, where the most severe punishment was banishment from the tribe, and was very rarely needed.

Children have a natural instinct for reverence. This instinct is directed to the respect and reverence for nature and the life-support system on Earth, to BEAUTY and to human kindness. We do not direct worship to archaic nature-hating dogmas from the stone-age.

A healthy, beautiful society entails directing attention properly.

Sembradores painting t-shirts in Comarapa, Bolivia. The Sembradores were the first Navaratnas, and changed Bolivian culture in their area. Even the Bolivian President came to visit and award them in 1991.

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