Dear Rachel, Tony, Em, Maria, and Kat,
I’d like to invite you to co-develop what I’m calling “Regenerative Works Coop”: a cooperative structure emerging out of the local regenerative and syntropic agriculture workshops, and the work done through the Strovolos Living Lab.
What I have in mind is a simple, fair structure that can take on and delegate practical and consultative regenerative projects around Cyprus: gardens, landscapes, community-based work, and collaborations that sit somewhere between design, implementation, advice, logistics, and care.
I’m interested in building something that can hold projects well, allow people to contribute in different ways, and continue beyond one-off arrangements, while making sure that the work supports both the people doing it and the continuity of the Coop itself.
I see my own role as steward of the structure: holding the ethos, coordination, transparent financial management, and overall viability of the Coop, while projects themselves are carried by the right team for the job.
For this first pilot, I would love to invite you in as follows:
- Rachel and Tony: in a permaculture / regenerative growing capacity, helping shape the pilot through your knowledge, practical input, and advice
- Tony also, where useful, in relation to accounting and coordination
- Em: in local coordination, logistics, and cooperation
- Kat: by offering your new garden as the pilot site, and by helping us test the concept in practice
- Maria: in a hands-on as well as a biodynamic capacity, helping bring biodynamic understanding and practice into the pilot where relevant
My hope is that this first pilot can help us test both a regenerative intervention in one place and a way of working together that we’d actually like to keep building on.
In practical terms, I imagine projects undertaken through the Coop including:
- a strong regenerative ethos and alignment with permaculture principles, contributing to their adaptation in Cyprus, and the capacities of the team, context, and resources of each project,
- fair payment for the people doing the work
- a transparent contribution to coordination and the cooperative’s continuity
- where possible, a small contribution toward shared capacity, training, or future community-benefit work
Part of what is behind this is a problem I’ve run into myself. I’ve wanted regenerative help with my own garden and found it surprisingly hard to create something sustainable: a way of bringing together consultation, practical help, learning, and fair payment without everything depending either on unpaid goodwill or on expensive one-off arrangements. Over time I’ve tried to bridge that gap by educating myself further, doing work exchanges where possible, and hiring people when I could.
What I’d like to do now is turn that experience into a structure that others can also use:
- practitioners, consultants, and people in the process of learning, who are looking for opportunities to collaborate, consult, and gain experience, locally or remotely
- people who have land, some resources, and a genuine wish to do things well, but don’t have an easy way to connect with the right people and build something coherent
Part of what interests me here, too, is creating a framework that can help strengthen and demonstrate a regenerative way of working in Cyprus. I would also like it, over time, to bring in and train people who need work and would benefit from supported, meaningful participation in regenerative projects.
If this resonates with you, I’d love to hear back with your initial response: whether you’d like to be part of the pilot, what role you might be open to playing, and any thoughts or concerns you’d want on the table from the outset. If there’s enough shared interest, I’d then love to gather and shape it together.
With love,
Chrystalleni