Zentopia

15/05/2020

What would you like to do once the world recovers from Covid? How about signing up for a 10 day natural building workshop in Tiruvannamalai!

About the organization -
Thannal Hand Sculpted Homes is a Natural Building Awareness Group, under Thannal Mud Homes Trust, based in Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu. It was founded by Natural Building architect Biju Bhaskar and his wife Sindhu Bhaskar in 2011.

About the workshop -

Thannal Natural Building School’s half yearly 10-day course is planned for people who want intense learning in natural materials, techniques and processes through hands-on work (1:1 scale) on our project.

Every aspect of Natural Building from foundation, wall systems, roofs, flooring & finishes is part of this course. Basics know-how of every ingredient used like different types of mud, lime, bamboo, herbal mixes and natural gums is explained. Participants are made familiar with how to identify different properties of material, source it, prepare it and different technique of using it. Various treatments for natural materials for termite resistance and how to repair mud structures is also covered.

Enhanced with Rural Study through site visits to indigenous & contemporary mud buildings. Inferences from such experiences can strengthen your confidence in building with Natural Materials.

Observe and learn from wide range of experimentation done in our campus:

The Singing Dervish Studio, using cob.
Earth bag studio.
Learning Center, using Cob, Adobe, Wattle & Daub.
Water tanks made with Mud and Lime.
Sensing Natural living. For more details, visit https://www.zentopia.in/product-page/10-day-natural-building-workshop-in-tiruvannamalai-tamil-nadu

About the organization -Thannal Hand Sculpted Homes is a Natural Building Awareness Group, under Thannal Mud Homes Trust, based in Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu. It was founded by Natural Building architect Biju Bhaskar and his wife Sindhu Bhaskar in 2011. About the workshop -Thannal Natural Building S...

06/05/2020

Volunteer to work with Tibetan refugees at Lha Charitable Trust, Dharamshala (Himachal Pradesh)

About the organization -
Lha Charitable Trust is an award-winning, grassroots and registered 12AA & 80G non-profit organization and one of the largest Tibetan social work institutes based in Dharamshala, India. They aim to provide vital resources for Tibetan refugees, the local Indian population and people from the Himalayan regions.

About the volunteering program -
As a volunteer with Lha you will be immersed in the fascinating culture of the people you are serving, develop friendships, learn about issues currently facing the Tibetan refugee community and create positive change in the lives of others.
Lha is staffed by 13 full-time Tibetan employees and assisted by the valuable contribution of volunteers from around the world. Wider social services, courses and vocational training on offer at Lha are designed with the understanding and insight required to acknowledge and respond to the challenges faced by the Tibetan refugee community and to also provide long-term assistance in rehabilitation and transition into the Indian community.
With the assistance of volunteers, there is an ever-increasing variety of services on offer to the Tibetan refugee and local communities, including daily English language conversation classes, graded language classes (Tibetan, English, Chinese, German and French) and computer training. Lha also maintains partnerships with many international volunteer organisations.

For more details about this opportunity, please visit https://www.zentopia.in/product-page/volunteer-for-tibetan-refugees-in-dharamshala-himachal-pradesh



@ Dharmshala (Dharamshala), India

23/04/2020

Volunteer with One All Trust in Chennai/Gudulur, Tamil Nadu

1. About One All Trust -
We are a registered non-profit organization that works with adolescents at schools and communities in Chennai and Nilgiris to teach life-skill education through mixed-gender sports, specifically Ultimate Frisbee. Ultimate Frisbee is a mixed-gender, self-refereed and non-contact sport. Our operations currently engage with more than 215 children across 3 schools and 3 communities in Tamil Nadu.

2. Why volunteer with us -
Youth in India, especially from undeserved communities, face challenges due to societal norms, peer pressure, gender bias and influence from media that shapes their ideas and behaviors. What we believe: Our goal is to provide life skills such as identity building, understanding feelings, conflict resolution, empathy building, nurturing interpersonal relationships and awareness about gender stereotypes to develop childrens' ability to make informed choices.

3. Nature of volunteer work -
We are looking for volunteers to work in any of these fields -
1) Evaluate the current system
2) Develop impact assessment to evaluate the outcome of our programs
3) Participate in life skill education through sports sessions with the One All team
4) Design documentation materials for better systems
Working together to build better systems with One All team will provide you with valuable experience in the social sector and help develop strategic planning for community engagement.

For more details, visit https://www.zentopia.in/product-page/volunteer-with-one-all-trust-in-chennai-gudulur-tamil-nadu

12/03/2020

Volunteer with Sahyadri Nisarga Mitra in Chiplun, Maharashtra

Sahyadri Nisarga Mitra (SNM) is a leading non-government organization (NGO) in India, engaged in conservation of nature through education, awareness, community participation, and research in the pristine region of Konkan on the western coast of Maharashtra state in India.

To read more about this volunteering opportunity and apply, visit us at https://www.zentopia.in/product-page/volunteer-with-sahyadri-nisarga-mitra-in-chiplun-maharashtra

21/02/2020

Since my college days, I used to keep tinkering with start-up ideas. I joined a start-up after my college where I helped them build a base of 10,000+ customers and raise pre-series A funding. Then I joined a bank and later on went on to co-found a venture with two friends. We worked on it for over a year and then decided it wasn’t working out. It was one hell of an experience. But also very mentally and emotionally exhausting. I did not want to take up a job right away. So I decided to take a break to explore what I want to do next - do I want to take a job? Launch another venture? Go to business school?

Read about Rajat's sabbatical experience at https://www.zentopia.in/post/a-sabbatical-gives-you-a-lot-of-confidence-rajat-read-about-his-9-month-sabbatical

06/02/2020

Volunteer at Ahimsagram Community Space in Jaipur

1. About Ahimsagram -
We are a social enterprise working towards Individual empowerment & collective abundance. We believe in doing ethical business and promote wellness & Sustainability through our vegan, gluten free, white sugar free Unlearning Cafe.

2. Nature of work -
You will be a part of a social enterprise which is self organized, promotes sustainability, swaraj and wellness of mind and body through food and practice of nonviolent communication. We welcome people who want to learn vegan healthy cooking, enjoy diversity and living with the community.
You are expected to be part of all the activities and help us with cooking, cleaning, gardening, washing dishes and organizing community events. You are also welcome to contribute by helping us with content writing and graphic designing.
During your stay you are committed to put daily 6 hours into the community work of your choice.

3. Duration of volunteering - Minimum 10 days

4. Number of volunteers required - 3

5. Who can apply - We are looking for people who are open-minded, accepting of diversity and enthusiastic about actively participating in the work we do

6. What will be provided to volunteers - Food and accomodation without charge.
Note - keeping with our philosophy of ahimsa, all food served is vegan

To apply, please visit https://www.zentopia.in/product-page/volunteer-at-ahimsagram-community-space-in-jaipur

06/02/2020

"The times are urgent, let us slow down." - Bayo Akomolafe

I remember once waking up on a Wednesday morning, opening my Instagram account and coming across a colleague’s Insta story where she and two other colleagues were at their work desks in office, smiling at the camera and holding up their hands in a victory sign. The hashtag read

I had known for a while that my advertising career was demanding but this post was the abrupt kick in the gut I needed to realize just how bad things were. We weren’t just ‘putting up’ with a late night at work, we were ‘showing off’. Working overtime had become not just a norm, but also desirable - a sign that you are passionate about work. Who in the world joins advertising for work-life-balance anyway?

It’s a disturbing trend I have noticed not just in advertising but many other industries - making ‘busyness’ a metric of success. And technology has evolved to facilitate this culture of busyness. Laptops have replaced desktops so you can carry work home. You have work email synced on your phone so you can carry work in your pocket, literally everywhere you go. Companies have started offering flexi-timing but, really, it just ends up making everyone work more. As they say - you can rest when you’re dead.

Yet, despite the pressure to be "always on," a growing amount of research suggests that the best way to stay productive all the time is to spend a good portion of it being unproductive. Working beyond 40 hours a week actually decreases productivity. Employees who are tired tend to make more mistakes, lose sight of the bigger picture and are significantly less likely to come up with breakthrough ideas. In fact, a study published in 2016, proves that employees who take more time off work are more likely to get a promotion or a raise at work - both signs that working less, in fact, is the way to go if you want to do well at work.

This post is not an argument against working hard. It’s a post about not making ‘the number of hours worked’, ‘being too busy’ and a ‘3amofficeselfie’ a measure of success. A quote on the Humans of New York blog perfectly sums it up -

“It’s not ‘no’ to working harder. It’s ‘no’ to excess. To not redoing something twenty times when you have it on the first try. Or creating thirty proposals because the boss would love to see ‘just one more,’ ‘just one more.’ It’s excess. And it’s almost as bad as doing nothing. Because what is good gets lost in the excess. I don’t have time for it anymore. I have to recognize what’s most important. I don’t have time for endless debate. I have to go straight to the source of the problem.”

31/01/2020

Old cultural habits and trends often fade out, only to make a comeback later in a new, cool avatar. For centuries, Indians used natural remedies to be healthy. Till it became outdated. But now we flaunt our turmeric lattes, aloe vera gels and neem daatuns (sticks). Everything comes a full circle. From food to fashion to how we spend our money. It used to be a famously Indian trait to be prudent with money - choosing to live frugally to save for a rainy day. But with rising incomes, consumerism, easy credit and the need for validation in an Instagram-ready world, spending on frills has become the new social currency. When it comes to spending on the latest gadgets, fancy automobiles, fine dining and expensive vacations - millennials are spending more than they ever have. After all, our generation gave the world FOMO and YOLO. What we can’t buy upfront, we buy on EMI. What we can’t buy on EMI, we rent. Today, there are firms in the market that allow you to rent an iPhone or an Alexa.

But for every cultural trend, there is always a counter-trend. Frugality is making a comeback in the name of minimalism. Only the context has shifted. From wanting to save for a rainy day, many younger people have started embracing minimalism to be able to retire early, give themselves the freedom to take career breaks or prepare a safety net of savings to be able to pursue their dreams. The motivation is not to ‘stop working’ but to ‘start working on your own terms’. Employees who have more debt and lower savings tend to stick longer to unhappy workplaces and are less likely to speak up to their seniors when treated unfairly than the ones who are more financially secure. A financial buffer helps you become more brave about your future and go after what really makes you happy.

Going down the path of radical minimalism will give you financial security sooner but it comes with making difficult and, at times, unpleasant changes in lifestyle - moving to a smaller but more affordable house, getting a housemate, traveling on strict budgets, saying no to eating out and shopping for things you don’t need. It’s a choice between working to be able to afford your lifestyle or working to satisfy your soul.

On that note, we’ll leave you with an excerpt from the poem ‘Caged Bird’ by Maya Angelou

A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

29/01/2020

Have You Saved Enough For a Sabbatical?

In our conversations with people who have taken sabbaticals, the most common issue we often hear about is ‘Towards the end of my sabbatical, I was struggling to pay my bills.’

Taking a sabbatical can really open up your perspective and give you much needed life experience. But needless to say, it can also be extremely stressful if you don’t plan for your finances in advance. Very few organizations in India allow for fully or partially paid sabbaticals. In most instances, employees don’t get paid at all. This makes financial planning a crucial item to be checked off the list before one decides to take a break.

Among the people we spoke to, while some had thought about finances and saved up for their time off, most had underestimated their expenses.

“I was a senior manager at Paytm till a couple of months back. I live in a rented place in Bombay with friends. It was only after I left that I got to know the price of onions. It sounds trivial but I had never truly realized that all the expenses add up to so much. I have had to reduce going out with friends. I think before buying a cup of coffee at Starbucks. All this is very new to me. I thought I had my finances sorted to not have to worry about changing my lifestyle. But now I’m not so sure.”, says Rohit

How do you plan your finances in a way that you can focus on your personal growth instead of worrying about money? We have put together some steps you can take to do just that!

Read more at https://www.zentopia.in/post/have-you-saved-enough-for-a-sabbatical

29/01/2020

Register for the Ecological Futures course at Shunya Farm in Bir, Himachal Pradesh

1. About Shunya Farm -
Shunya farm is a community supported farm in a small village called Bir in Himachal Pradesh, India. With an area of about 3/4th of an acre, the farm produces food for a few local people and restaurants. The farm is as much a source of food as it is a home to innumerable soil microbes, insects, birds, mongoose and more beings than we can see or identify, and place for visitors and seekers to reflect on the our connections with soil and food. The practices on the farm are influenced by Fukuoka’s natural way of farming and Permaculture design towards creating a sustainable organic food farm and a regenerative community.

2. About the course -
Ecological futures brings forth an exploration into the possibilities of and beyond sustainability and of the future of humanity and this plant. The clues for imagining these scenarios are revealed through patterns in natural systems that are inherently sustainable and that inform us of the next stage of human evolution.
The course will offer tools to synthesize our scientific and spiritual understanding of life and in that imagine ways of transiting from anthropocentric to eco-centric paradigms. To create a cohesive understanding of this, we will review philosophies and experiences from both the eastern and the western part of the world. During the course, we will journey through the history of our mankind and the history of life to put our future in perspective.
This course is for people who feel the need to articulate their ideas on sustainability before they begin working towards it. Overall, the objective of the course is to send back the participants with a lot to think about and the confidence and skills to start observing deeply and design their own gardens or farms

3. Dates - May 18 - 30

4. Course fees - Rs. 15,000

To read more and apply, please visit https://www.zentopia.in/product-page/the-ecological-futures-course-at-shunya-farm-in-bir-himachal-pradesh

29/01/2020

Register for the Soil Course at Shunya Farm in Bir, Himachal Pradesh

1. About Shunya Farm -
Shunya farm is a community supported farm in a small village called Bir in Himachal Pradesh, India. With an area of about 3/4th of an acre, the farm produces food for a few local people and restaurants. The farm is as much a source of food as it is a home to innumerable soil microbes, insects, birds, mongoose and more beings than we can see or identify, and place for visitors and seekers to reflect on the our connections with soil and food. The practices on the farm are influenced by Fukuoka’s natural way of farming and Permaculture design towards creating a sustainable organic food farm and a regenerative community.

2. About the course -
This course explores the depth of the hidden world of soil and its amazing relationships with microbial, insect, plant and animal lives and presents simple techniques on how we can participate with the natural processes to create abundance and diversity in soils.
This course is for people who want to develop a deep understanding of the relationships between food, soil and human health and develop skills on building healthy soil in urban/farm settings from locally available resources while establishing how soil microbiology helps in accelerating succession and creating healthy ecosystems.
In learning about the soil, the course aims to facilitate learning a little bit better about ourselves, and the world around us.

3. Dates - June 8 - 13

4. Course fees - Rs. 7,500

To read more and apply, please visit https://www.zentopia.in/product-page/the-soil-course-at-shunya-farm-in-bir-himachal-pradesh

29/01/2020

Register for the 'Sacred Calligraphy' workshop or learn about Kabir through films, songs and conversations at the Deer Park Institute in Bir, Himachal Pradesh

To know more please visit https://www.zentopia.in/product-page/sacred-calligraphy-workshop-traditions-history-and-techniques and https://www.zentopia.in/product-page/being-with-kabir-a-4-day-retreat-with-shabnam-virmani-swagath-sivakumar