Returning to Balance: An Equinox Gathering on Growing Collective Futures
You are warmly invited to gather in community at the September Equinox, a moment when day and night come into relative equilibrium across the planet. Together, we'll pause to reflect on how we are honoring Justice, Equitable, Diversity, Accessibility and Inclusion in our work and life? At Transition, we are learning how to put these principles and worldviews into practice together. Come learn, reflect and grow with us!
Together, we’ll pause to reflect on how we are putting Justice, Equity, Diversity, Accessibility and Inclusion into practice in our work and lives, and what we can learn from one another as we work towards more just and equitable futures. This time, we’ll be joined by Bianca from Queer Food Growing Collective, South Africa, and Keeshi from Uma Uma Rainbow Collective, Nairobi, Kenya. Their work invites us to explore what queer communities can teach us about collective care, food, land, belonging and creating alternative futures.
Queer communities have long challenged the structures that determine who belongs, who has access to land and resources, and whose ways of living are valued. Their practices of mutual aid, collective nourishment and reclaiming space offer powerful perspectives on justice and diversity, and on how we might create better futures for everyone.
As the seasons turn, we’ll make space to ask: What are we cultivating? What needs to be released? And what becomes possible when we re-imagine nourishment, belonging and justice collectively?
Wednesday, September 24th, 13:00–14:30 UTCLanguage: EnglishCheck your local time here.
Come pause, listen, reflect and learn with us.
Meet our guests
To keep learning and exploring, we are happy to welcome two dear guests this time:
Keeshi Nganga from Uma Uma Rainbow Collective, is a queer community organizer based in Kenya whose practice refuses the boundaries between disciplines. Their work spans research, writing, body piercing, podcasting, visual art, and mutual aid organizing, not as separate pursuits, but as interconnected methods of sensemaking. They currently facilitate Uma Uma Rainbow Community which they co-created with friends. Uma Uma is a queer collective involved in the imagining and building of alternative and more equitable futures. This work is currently done in the form of mutual aid, building gift economies and political education.
BiancaVan Rooi (she/they) from Queer Food Growing Collective is a member of the Queer Food Growing Collective, based in Cape Town, South Africa - a city still shaped by a legacy of colonial spatial planning and apartheid-era laws like the Group Areas Act. As a collective, they listened deeply to the lived experiences, cultural practices, and ancestral wisdom that reveal how food, land, and memory are used to survive, resist, and reimagine life in the face of climate injustice and systemic erasure. These offerings took shape as a recipe book. She looks forward to sharing some of these recipes on behalf of the collective with us.
What to Expect
- Reflect on how justice, equity, diversity, accessibility and inclusion show up in our everyday lives, work and communities.
- Explore with our guests what we can learn from queer communities, mutual aid, food growing and relationships to land about creating more just and diverse futures.
- Connect with others across our global community through shared listening, reflection and dialogue.
- Prepare for the upcoming season through reflections on what we are cultivating, sharing, releasing and renewing as we work towards futures where everyone can belong and thrive.
Bringing more Justice into TNi
One way we are trying to bring more balance into TNi, is through our JEDAI policy. At Transition Network International (TNi) we choose to use language that reflects our ethos of support, care and compassion to align our guides/frameworks/policies/processes with our values. Justice, Equity, Diversity, Accessibility, Inclusion is our chosen language to replace the more widely used Equality, Diversity, Inclusion (EDI) which is often merely a text book exercise covering the legal position regarding protected characteristics. We understand those principles as follows:
- Justice: We are committed to systemic change that creates fair opportunities, equitable treatment and outcomes while recognising and addressing power imbalances and the disproportionate impacts of oppression.
- Equity: We understand equity as equitable access to power, knowledge and resources and foster this through global representation, flexible working, autonomy and shared governance that helps address power imbalances.
- Diversity: We value different identities, perspectives, experiences and ways of being as essential strengths that build resilience and help us address complex global challenges and systems of harm.
- Accessibility: We work to make environments, digital platforms, language, information and activities usable, meaningful and appropriate for as many people as possible by identifying and meeting diverse needs, particularly those of people with disabilities.
- Inclusion: We create spaces that welcome diverse perspectives and ways of being, encourage everyone’s participation and actively amplify the voices of people who have historically been silenced, excluded or discredited.
We’re not perfect and this is a work in progress which needs to be a live document, shaped by those who participate in our shared governance. That we are a learning network who are committed to continuing to learn and grow and adapt.
You can read more about our efforts here. We also welcome you to look at our Just Transition Bundle and the Just Transition Cards, our open-source, evolving resource designed to support more inclusive and equitable practice within the Transition movement.
Support our work
This event is offered in the spirit of gift economy, to remain accessible to all. You are welcome to join freely, and if you feel called, to support the work through a one-time or recurring contribution that helps us compensate guest speakers and interpreters.
You're warmly invited to join this and all our seasonal gatherings as we reconnect with the Earth, each other, and our shared journey. Please register to receive your confirmation email and event reminders with the Zoom link closer to the gathering.
Just Transition Resources for you
About our Just Transition Cards
We're looking forward to sharing this moment together.
With care,
The hosting team – Cultural Transformation
Transition Network International