Green Releaf

09/08/2024

On indigenous peoples day, we are sharing a long overdue post about a project we did during the Covid-19 pandemic called YUTA - a Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK)and Permaculture project with Filip + Inna and its partner indigenous artisans.

The purpose of “Yuta” which meams soil in Visayan is to transform the lives of the artisans and their families in developing their own regenerative and self-sufficient food ecosystems drawing from their existing traditional ecological knowledge and indigenous wisdom.

It has been a special journey working for food sovereignty with food forest demonstrations with the T’boli artisans of Lake Seloton and Lamlahak as the pandemic limited their access to food while food production has decreased over time due to changes in economic activities in their communities. We were heartbroken to work in the backdrop of large scale monocultures that have taken over the Lake Sebu ancestral domains. We hope our work together offered hope for a regenerative pathway.

We share some images to help us tell the story of how the food forest gardens evolved from 2020-2024. Most are from our Facebook messenger thread with the artisans and gardeners which is filled with photos of harvest they shared over time. The biodiversity is so rich.

We thank the artisans led by Evelyn Castaño and Nancy Sungka, our field coordinator Rheezamae Eucare, our permaculture facilitators led by Reymonje Apinlhon, Nimfa Cabañas, Terence Osorio (also project manager), and permaculture weaving with TEK by Sarah Queblatin. We thank the support of ‘s donors through the office of Congresswoman Lucy Torres Gomez and Pilipinas-Smart Foundation. We thank the local government of Lake Sebu and the support of the National Commission of Indigenous Peoples for their support. We are grateful for the invitation and trust of Len Cabili and her team at Filip+Inna that made this possible.

06/06/2024

It’s been a few months since we declared our closure as a non-profit entity. We have been working in the background to formalize our partnerships and turn over with universities and organizations to help us continue our work and we look forward to updating you all about it once these are all final.

Learn more about the reasons behind it and our transition steps via bit.ly/GRtransition

For now, join us in celebrating our learnings and our impact for the last 7 years of designing for resilience and regeneration in response to disasters and displacement in climate and conflict vulnerable ecosystems in the Philippines. We thank you for all your support and collaboration!

21/02/2024

Its been one year since we journeyed with stakeholders of Cebu City for our Pamumuno Lab, a deep scaling learning journey across ecosystem regeneration leaders working for food sovereignty, regenerative livelihoods, and climate resilience after Supertyhoon Rai (local name Odette). Pamumuno means Leadership in Filipino with the word “Puno” meaning “Tree” as its root word.

Last weekend we engaged our partners - the Cebu City government offices on agriculture, disaster risk reduction, and special projects on reforestation to address floods; the Communities for Alternative Food Ecosystems working with a network of smallholder organic farms on the island through the Cebu Farmers market; the Visayas Native Trees NATAD - a network of native trees and bamboo initiatives and cooperatives, and the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. (RAFI). On the same day was the first of a series of curriculum design writeshops with University of the Philippines Cebu, and Visayas State University and a DRR specialist for the curriculum design of our restoration site models with the stakeholders to address floods, landslides, and unsustainable farming practices. Learn more about this event in the earlier post https://lnkd.in/g866Cx6T.

We are grateful to those who joined us in this deep dive (some were unable to due to schedule constraints) from after a year on this learning journey, deepening our understanding of our role as regenerative leaders in the face of our vulnerability in the polycrisis taking place in the world. Our next gatherings would go deeper to the role of the self through a leadership retreat that would support a strategy planning to institutionalize all our next steps for the rest of the learning journey cycle.

Our thanks to our partners the , .ph the Direct Aid Programme of and the and for supporting our journey.

09/02/2024

How might we design our solutions for regeneration together with community?

Over the years, Green Releaf has engaged with communities in the frontlines of climate change and conflict. We also assisted in securing food during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We believe that survivors at the edges like the grassroots leaders we worked with are the best teachers to guide us in developing our learning site on regenerative ecosystems for resilience and regeneration in Cebu City.

Thus we have invited some of our partner leaders from different parts of the country after typhoons, floods, conflict, and the COVID-19 pandemic. They will join us for our next Kapwa Circle - Kapwa Sa Komunidad to share their stories on Saturday, February 10, 2010, 2-5 pm at the Multimedia room of the University of the Philippines Cebu.

We hope you can join us and share your experience too and help us design what it means to design our solutions for food sovereignty and climate resilience together.

Join us in this next kapwa circle in restoring and re-storying place and belonging with cultural memory and imagination as part of our deep dive strategy retreat series for ecosystem restoration and regeneration leaders.

The event series are a part of the Theory U stages of presencing and co-strategizing of our Pamumuno Lab in scaling ecosystem regeneration in Cebu in collaboration with .ph and the Direct Aid Programme of the Australian Aid, part with the support of the for the Ubuntu to Kapwa Project on developing a deep design approach to conscious food systems across the Philippines, Colombia, and Cameroon.

RSVP via bit.ly/RSVPpamati.
Register on or before Friday February 9, 6 pm

For More information: contact Kat via +63 926 385 2670 or email [email protected]

25/01/2024

“In Philippine culture, there is an underlying belief in the psychic unity of humanity. All human beings – even animals, plants and minerals -- share this innermost sacred core: ubod ng kalooban. This is implied by the concept of “kapwa,” the deepest meaning of which is shared divinity …with this interdependence implied by a shared matrix of being seeks affirmation in a celebration of togetherness: pakikipagkapwa.” - Felipe de Leon, Jr.

How might we design our solutions from a deeper place with our shared sense of belonging and purpose with nature, community, and our selves?

Join us in restoring and re-storying place and belonging with cultural memory and imagination through our Kapwa Story Circles, a series of strategy retreat sessions for ecosystem resilience and regeneration leaders.

Our first session out of four kapwa circles will open the series with sacred earth wisdom bearers who will share guidance on how we might connect deeper to our ancestral and biocultural heritage to guide our restoration and regeneration aims.

Event details: February 3, 1-6 pm, in person at the Joya Gallery at the University of the Philippines and online via zoom.

This is a gathering made possible by the “From Ubuntu to Kapwa” project on developing a deep design approach to conscious food systems in collaboration with the Restorying Landscapes in a Changing Climate project locally led by our partner . Cebuano stakeholders who are part of Green Releaf’s Pamumuno Lab for scaling ecosystem regeneration as part of its deep dive learning journey are invited to join in person.

RSVP via link in bio or go to bit.ly/RSVPpamati

Registrations close on February 1
For more information: contact Kat via +63 926 385 2670 or [email protected]

30/12/2023

📣UPDATED post

Dear Friends,

As the year comes to a close, we wish to share that we are embarking on a new story.

After 6 years, we have decided to transform our organizational entity by March of 2024, extendable if needed. However, this doesn’t mean our work will not continue. We are only changing our pathways of implementing the scaling of our work so we can do it better as we transition from:

🍃from Non Government Organization (NGO) into an ecosystem of meaningful collaborations

🍃from heavy organizational management into direct trainings so we can be more effective and can implement better

🍃 from grief into grace as we manage our burn-out and climate grief by focusing on our self care and well-being

Read more about these pathways to our new story via the QR code above or via bit.ly/GRtransition.

We thank everyone who has journeyed with us to date - from donors, community partners, and collaborators for getting this far with us and we look forward to re-imagining tomorrow together with you.

In Kapwa and community 🌳
Your friends at Green Releaf

Green Releaf is a community – led transition Initiative for resilience and regeneration

12/12/2023

📣Hey there! We’re still here and we just needed to pause for a much needed rest and reflection. We are inspired to share developments about our organization to all of you before the year ends. 🙏🏾

For now, after soft launching Releaf.community last year in December and because , we wish to share this invitation today, as many climate vulnerable countries like the Philippines hang in the balance as the world’s leaders finalize inequitable agreements to keep the climate to 1.5 degrees on the last day of in Dubai.

If you are a Cebu City based initiative who responded with relief and recovery efforts in the aftermath of Supertyphoon Odette (Rai) after December 16, 2021, we invite you to remember our learnings and dive into a mapping of food and water systems in preparedness and response to future disasters. See below:

🌿Food and Water Systems Mapping for Disaster Resilience and Regeneration Workshop 🌍

📅 December 18, 2023**
🕒 Time: 1PM - 5 PM**
📍 Venue: Wellnessland Urban Center

🌊 **Workshop Highlights:**

- Dive into mapping food and water systems in disaster-prone areas.
- Engage in discussions with Cebu City stakeholders on emergency food strategies.
- Explore collaboration opportunities between formal and informal aid for disaster preparedness.
- Reflect on the aftermath of Typhoon Odette for learnings and valuable insights.

📝 **RSVP:**
Kindly confirm your attendance by filling out
https://bit.ly/rsvpccfood by December 14, 2023, at 5 PM. If you can’t make it, we encourage sending a representative to ensure your organization’s perspective is included.

📞 **Contact:**
For questions or clarifications, feel free to reach out to Kat Candelaria at +639263852670 or [email protected].

Learn more via www.releaf.community. We look forward to see you.

We thank the Cebu City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office and Wellnessland Urban Center for helping host this event.

09/08/2023

We are grateful for our wisdom circle (our board members) for continuing to guide us in our work. Here’s a snapshot of our latest meeting with 2 members who couldn’t make it but continue to support us.

We promised to share about them and we have not forgotten! We will be posting about them sometime as we pick up on our social media stories this month 🍃

08/08/2023

As the climate emergency becomes more intense, we have been preparing more for long term disaster mitigation and adaptation compared to how we started with response and recovery stages during our beginnings. We have been working behind the scenes for more than a year now to make this happen through our Pamumuno Lab. This is an evolution of our prototype in Kalinga where we developed a learning site for permaculture after Typhoon Haima and developed a participatory transition plan for 5 years with the local government and indigenous peoples. Sadly because of the covid-19 pandemic we couldn’t fulfill this plan but grateful we were able to prototype it enough to scale it in this current design.

Here’s a sneak peak at something that has been brewing for months here in Cebu City as we develop a scaling lab for ecosystem restoration to address climate hazards in the city’s watershed and catchment system covering protected areas and urban zones that will address coastal degradation, landslides, and floods.

Here are glimpses of our consultation meetings with civil society groups and the local government working for ecosystem restoration with farms, forests, mangroves and other nature based solutions to address the city’s climate vulnerability. Full story to follow.

Our thanks to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the City Planning and Development office, Office of Councilor Pesquerra, Communities for Alternative Food Ecosystems, Visayas Native Trees Enthusiasts, FMRD associates, REEFS, Children of Asia, Haribon Foundation, and Ramon Aboitiz Foundation for your collaboration 🙌🏽

08/08/2023

As the climate emergency becomes more intense, we have been preparing more for long term disaster mitigation and adaptation compared to how we started with response and recovery stages during our beginnings. We have been working behind the scenes for more than a year now to make this happen through our Pamumuno Lab. This is an evolution of our prototype in Kalinga where we developed a learning site for permaculture after Typhoon Haima and developed a participatory transition plan for 5 years with the local government and indigenous peoples. Sadly because of the covid-19 pandemic we couldn’t fulfill this plan but grateful we were able to prototype it enough to scale it in this current design.

Here’s a sneak peak at something that has been brewing for months here in Cebu City, as we develop a scaling lab for ecosystem restoration to address climate hazards in the city’s watershed and catchment system covering protected areas and urban zones that will address coastal degradation, landslides, and floods. This is one of the ways we are supporting our home base after it was affected by Supertyphoon Rai/ Odette in 2021.

We are grateful for a series of consultation and design meetings we had with civil society groups and the local government working for ecosystem restoration with farms, forests, mangroves and other nature based solutions to address the city’s climate vulnerability. Full story to follow.

Our thanks to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the City Planning and Development office, Office of Councilor Pesquerra, Communities for Alternative Food Ecosystems, Visayas Native Trees Enthusiasts, FMRD associates, REEFS, Children of Asia, Haribon Foundation, and Ramon Aboitiz Foundation for your collaboration 🙌🏽

01/08/2023

Join our Team 🙌🏽

We are looking for a Cebu City based Program Coordinator.

Send us a letter of interest with your CV by email to learn more about the role, on or before August 7.

Thank you 🍃