Turning waste into wellbeing, wildlife, food and forests: Bringing permaculture to schools with Elliot Riley

If you're over 40, the world you grew up believing in no longer exists.  The younger generation approaches the polycrisis with open eyes, striving to find and nurture resilience, to listen to the whispers of synchronicity and let it lead them - and us - to a world that works for all life. Today, we're talking to Elliot Riley. Elliot is an educator, permaculture designer and practitioner working to bring wellbeing, reforestation and perennial food production into schools. Elliot graduated during the pandemic. When he left school, he was planning to join the paratroops, but after what he describes as a 'Thunderbolt moment', he shifted tack and, despite not having the grades, was able to get a place to study history at the New College of Humanities.  One pandemic and a degree later, he realised that mainstream education struggles to equip us for the challenges of a changing world. After two years upstream, studying Trauma-Informed Education and permaculture in the Dominican Republic, Elliot returned to his hometown, where he now works at The Saint Leonard’s Academy, leading a wellbeing programme called Future Growth, which supports students whilst transforming the community’s waste into a regenerative food forest. Through an initiative called OFFSET, Elliot’s working to spread the mission further.Elliot's Patreon Page for OFFSET https://www.patreon.com/offsetfoodforests/about/Elliot's instagram account for OFFSET food forest: https://www.instagram.com/offset_food_forests/The One World Orchestra's first single https://open.spotify.com/album/62UZvSNV1gtBXdqLQLdfrw?si=WIdwzar_RvivoA-P3dBiAThe Human Hive https://www.thehumanhive.org/our-storyVaughan Wilkins and links to his PhD thesis on the Zoochosis of humanity https://www.vaughanwilkins.com/thesis  Accidental Gods Membership https://accidentalgods.life/enrol/

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Another World is still Possible. The old system was never fit for purpose and now it has gone - it is never coming back. We have the power of gods to destroy our home. But we also have the chance to become something we cannot yet imagine, and by doing so, create a future we would be proud to leave to the generations yet unborn. What happens if we commit to a world based on the values we care about: compassion, courage, integrity? What happens if we let go of the race for meaningless money and commit instead to the things that matter: clean air, clean water, clean soil - and clean, clear, courageous connections between all parts of ourselves (so we have to do the inner work of healing individually and collectively), between ourselves and each other (so we have to do the outer work of relearning how to build generative communities) and between ourselves and the Web of Life (so we have to reclaim our birthright as conscious nodes in the web of life)? We can do this - and every week on Accidental Gods we speak with the people who are living this world into being. We have all the answers, we just lack the visions to weave them into a future that works. We can make this happen. We will. Join us. Accidental Gods is a podcast and membership program devoted to exploring the ways we can create a future that we would be proud to leave to the generations yet to come. If we're going to emerge into a just, equitable - and above all regenerative - future, we need to get to know the people who are already living, working, thinking and believing at the leading edge of inter-becoming transformation. Accidental Gods exists to bring these voices to the world so that we can work together to lay the foundations of a world we'd be proud to leave to the generations that come after us. We have the choice now - we can choose to transform…or we can face the chaos of a failing system. Our Choice. Our Chance. Our Future. Find the membership and the podcast pages here: https://accidentalgods.life Find Manda's Thrutopian novel, Any Human Power here: https://mandascott.co.uk Find Manda on BlueSky @mandascott.bsky.social On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/mandascottauthor/ On FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/MandaScottAuthor