The Otesha Project (Australia): Cycling for Sustainability

Being part of a collective community, working together, presenting, and helping youth to believe in themselves along each tour is an incredibly powerful thing to experience. Incredibly empowering for tour members. It's such an amazing way of engaging youth by supplying them with tools, knowledge, and resources necessary for them to really "BE the change they want to see in the world." Performances and workshops developed are the major focus (along with some serious FUN) on this journey and are essential in keeping the team together and helping us grow as individuals and as a mobile community.

Workshops
Many workshops are developed for Otesha prior to each tour by individual tour participants. These workshops are then presented to youth within schools along the road within teams that are committed to talking about that specific issue. This can range from issues such as food miles to adbusting to pulping old growth forests. This type of individual and team development leads to some serious ownership over each tour by it's members, which is really really important for not only their experience but also how they deliver sustainable consumption to youth. Both the delivery of the workshops and presentations increases the confidence level of the tour members in their ability to engage people with the issues that are happening in the world today.

Tour Planning
As well, prior to the start of the tour (depending on availability) team members take on the responsibility of booking presentations, finding places to sleep, donations of food, and some other tour logistics. This collective work helps to ensure that everyone has an equal ownership and part in helping to develop the tour they are about to embark on.

Reflections Reflections
On a larger scale it is really important that on a regular basis teams gather to prepare, debrief workshops or presentations, and evaluate the process along the way. These steps are really important in ensuring that together we are always evolving, developing, and growing everything to make it more powerful and have a bigger impact.

Taking Time Out
The health of each tour is only as healthy as it's crew. It's a pretty important thing even in The Otesha (OZ) office .. ensuring that we are doing well all the time. So it's important to note that sometimes during tours people have other important engagements, need to take time out, or just have a few extra days off. All of these things are easily worked around to ensure that everyone still feels like they are able to contribute their most.

... And let's not forget about those days off every six days! What's that all about? It's a day where you don't do anything that relates to Otesha (Australia) unless you want to. During these days people usually go out for a boogie on the town, read a book, and just plain catch up on some journal writing. We all seriously value these days and try our best to ensure that every sixth day is not touched - it's a sacred day for everyone.

Rotating Roles of Responsibility
There's heaps of things that need to happen to make sure that on a daily basis things run smoothly. And some might think that it could potentially be a logistical nightmare, but actually it's not. Nope not with our trusty little rotating roles of responsibility.

It's this rad little circle that outlines common roles that people can do each day or week that ensures that everyone takes equal responsibility for the activities that have to be done to keep the collective crew movin. AND even better is the cooking mobs that are established (and rotated) to ensure that the cooking responsibilities are divvied up equally amongst the entire crew. It also gives everyone an equal break at the end of the day for rest and other jobs.

Reflection from Canada - from Shane Bill
It was an incredible experience being a part of the British Columbia tour in Canada for The Otesha Project there. I recognise that experiences, people, and crews here will be totally different. They were completely different even between each tour group, but what I can say is that the collective community that was developed for me has become my extended family. That it gave me an opportunity to really look at my life, be the change, and grow inside (and out if you count my calf muscles). It had a massive impact so much so that I went back home and quit my job (as a Computer Science programmer) and sold my house to inevitably end up in Australia trying to help setup something Oz-ified here!