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The Transition Movement

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Vulnerability and resilience

The world we live in is seeing many kinds of crisis and catastrophes. Some termed as “acts of God” like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and some as man-made like oil spills, horrendous fires from a single flame; others in between like climate change scenarios of terrific storms; and now the unexpected pandemic putting the brakes on the world’s economic machinery, and even deaths.

While in the midst of this pandemic, we are brought to reflect on our own lives, our families, and our communities. Questions abound. How long will this last? We cannot really see the outcome. It this like walking through a fog, where there are pitfalls on the way in many levels?

My questions: When this is all past, what will the world be like? What will Negros island be like? Will we continue to bet on that runaway horse called tourism, and continue to build build build four- to six-lane highways to accommodate more and more vehicles?

We have seen how smaller towns have merged into mega cities, and the idea of limitless growth, and material affluence are seen as pathways to prosperity. We try to ignore the fact that it is also killing our planet, and therefore, ourselves, while losing our sense of community.

In response to this existential crisis, groups of people have formed themselves into communities. We see eco-villages turning up, and other forms of community living which has deeper connection to one another and to nature.

As an answer to the crisis of Peak Oil, Rob Hopkins and a community in Totnes, England got together to envision their future, thus, the Transition Movement was born. (Peak Oil is a hypothetical point in time when the maximum rate of crude oil extraction is reached after which it is expected to decline depending on economics and how governments respond to global warming.)

And exactly that, like in Cuba where the oil embargo forced the country on its knees, a vision of less dependence on oil and transport of goods, with an emphasis on “going local” came about. Building resilience to withstand crisis is the goal. In a crisis, we will be tested on our ability to have enough potable water, food security, and energy — these three will make or break a people.

The Transition is a movement of communities coming together to re-imagine and rebuild our world. (Transition Network.org) Transition has spread to among other places like Australia, Turkey, France, USA, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Chile, and Japan.

Transition-Negros Island was newly-born. A small group of people met for the first time beginning of February this year. We started a series of meaningful conversations for a positive future. Recognizing food security as essential in this present pandemic, we encourage the saving of open-pollinated seeds — those that can be planted, harvested, and planted again — without having to buy more for the next crop. Our group also started a treasure project — the Transition Seed Exchange.

But this movement is not only for gardeners and farmers. Artists, students and youth, bankers and economists, teachers and ministers, business people, craftsmen, bakers, carpenters, and others all have a place in this movement.

People do transition for many reasons — they would like to get to know their neighbors; to feel like they are making a difference in the world; as a means of community support because of the world’s huge challenges; to catalyze new projects, enterprises, and local investments; to learn new skills; to feel like they are creating a new story for their place; to feel connected to other people; to find happiness, meaning and mutual care; to do something historic and exciting because they feel it is “the right thing to do”.

As a way of measuring progress towards our vision, there are community “resilience indicators” that measure positive change.

Some of them are worth mentioning: percentage of food grown locally, amount of local currency in circulation as a percentage of total money in circulation, number of businesses locally owned, proportion of compostable ‘’waste’’ that is actually composted, percentage of energy produced locally, quantity of renewable building materials, proportion of essential goods being manufactured within the community within a given distance, percentage of medicine prescribed locally that have been produced within a given radius, number of 16-year-olds able to grow 10 different varieties of vegetables to a given degree of competency.

Physical meetings have been a reason for us to strengthen our connections, and form a healthy group. And we always find reason to celebrate the small and big steps made, focusing on the positive pro-active steps that we collectively take together.

Although our face-to-face meetings have been put on-hold because of the CoViD-19 threat, we are in-touch virtually, and Transition meetings continue online.

Join us in re-imagining and re-creating a better place for ourselves and our children. Be part of our growing community. Visit and like our Facebook page: Transition Negros Island on https://www.facebook.com/Transition Negros Island

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Author’s email: [email protected]

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