IN THIS ISSUE:

• Update & News
• "Water you saying?": words from our program participants
• Reflection Pool: water prose
• Waterlution Learning Programs & Services

UPDATE & NEWS

Happy spring! We've been busy...following up on the successful release of our Corporate Knights-Waterlution Special Water Magazine in Fall 2004, forging new partnerships, and hosting WaterTalks in schools, communities and organizations. We have some very exciting news to share with you here...

Waterlution website revamped!
Visit our newly developed website at www.waterlution.org - with many more links, partners, water stories, photos and details about current offerings!

Waterlution accepted to ecofilms
Waterlution's 'A New Culture of Water' learning tool and documentary film developed in Soweto, South Africa in 2004 will appear in the ecofilms: Rhodes International Film and Visual Arts Festival in June 2005 in Rhodes, Greece. A compilation of perspectives from water stakeholders and engaged youth co-hosting a water workshop with us in their community, the learning tool can help your community explore its relationship with water and is available for purchase - e-mail info@waterlution.org

Waterlution and Corporate Knights launch second Special Water Magazine!
Taking our partnership into a second year with another edition of our collaborative Special Water Magazine, this year's issue explores a number of water topics in Canada and abroad. Globe & Mail subscribers across major Canadian cities, look for your edition of the special water magazine in your newspaper on July 15th or contact info@waterlution.org to reserve your very own copy.

Save the date! for Waterlution@The Shire, August 17-21 in Nova Scotia
Do you feel overwhelmed by the diversity and scope of water-related issues and seek a way to manage more simply this complexity?
Are you interested in developing skills and tools to design deep inquiry processes around water in your organization and/or the community where you live?
Would you like to collaborate with an international group of people who are concerned about water, and to use this experience to develop local initiatives in your own environment?

We invite you to engage with the land and water at The Shire, Nova Scotia - an ecological and creative Learning Centre - as we inquire into what we can learn from water to inspire our leadership in this work. Through interactive water experiments, perceptual and artistic exercises, systems thinking and practices for hosting meaningful conversations about water, we invite you to this diverse and experiential learning experience exploring our relationships with water - in the natural world, in our lives, and in our work. It is an opportunity to connect locally with water as well as learn from colleagues in water work from across Canada and internationally. A combination training / retreat space, Waterlution@The Shire is an opportunity to cultivate your personal and professional leadership, inspiring a vision for water in our lives. Our promise to you is that when you leave The Shire you will be well equipped with the skills to support, initiate and/or develop water learning programs in your own organization or community.

Please download the full invitation here

"WATER YOU SAYING?"

Some words the participants in our youth programs/WaterTalks have shared with us...

“It has given me more courage than I really expected" and "I am very glad I did this workshop. I feel much more able to reach out to people to share ideas, ways of protecting and celebrating water. I loved the diverse mix of people and how we managed to find some common ground. The progression of the workshop was very effective” - Waterlution-YWAT 'Developing Youth Stewardship' participants

"The formal flow of WaterTalk concluded with great success. The ideas shared from across the corners of the globe and from different points in our life-journeys were inspiring, thought provoking and showed the prevalence of the topic. I want to thank Tatiana and Karen for hosting this with us." - co-creator of the Global On-line WaterTalk for AIESEC internationally

"You have an extraordinary way of getting the participants involved... I'd like to do something similar here at Ottawa U. I believe you have a lot to give to people around you.” – University of Ottawa student participant

“Your poise, dedication and energy are inspirational. It stems from consciousness. Everything does. We need more young people willing to dig a little deeper by exchanging blades for spades.” – Oakville Community Member

REFLECTION POOL

- WATER PROSE

I have often found myself living near a river,
including the Thames, Neckar, Ouse, Winooski and Amstel.

Over time they have all tricked me into stopping and admiring them;
and from there to lapsing into contemplation.

Now I consciously make time to go to the river when I need
to clear my head of concerns that otherwise will not go away.

The river offers me calmness and the space to think.

The water passes by, without passing judgement,
continually flowing not stopping to ask questions.

As I stand on a bridge or sit at its banks I throw my concerns
into the flow and the river takes them downstream.

It filters them clean of waste and returns them back to me as solutions,
flown in on seagulls’ cries or caught up in the ducks’ gentle quacking.

- Odilia Gartner-Ibrahim, currently residing by the Amstel in the Netherlands

WATERLUTION LEARNING PROGRAMS & SERVICES

Water Learning Programs
Workshops and learning journeys are experiential in nature and draw on a wide variety of interactive methodologies including Open Space Technology (www.openspaceworld.org) and World Café (www.theworldcafe.com). Extended learning experiences can include field trips, site visits with local water entrepreneurs and companies, and opportunities for deeper conversation and reflection.

Water Learning Media
We provide research and documentation services to share and communicate what people are feeling towards water and what relationships – and questions - people hold with water. In building a ‘knowledge ecology’ about water, we reach diverse communities, include different perspectives, and raise questions to inspire critical thinking among water stakeholders.

Workshop/Event Facilitation & Learning Process Design
We work with organizers to blend Waterlution’s key skills with the overall goals of an event or project. Waterlution provides event design and hosting – for workshops, conferences and project planning meetings – in your water work.

For more information visit our programs section at www.waterlution.org or contact us to discover how these offerings can support you in exploring your or your organization's relationship with water, contact Karen at karen@waterlution.org or Tatiana at tatiana@waterlution.org

CONTACT INFORMATION

Waterlution - A Water Learning Experience
50 Old Mill Road, Suite 401 - Oakville, Ontario - L6J 7W1 - Canada

Karen Kun, karen@waterlution.org, tel:+1 416 887 4709

Tatiana Glad, tatiana@waterlution.org, tel: +1 416 827 7811

"You can't be lost, if you don't care where you are."

- Dutch -Caribbean proverb

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