Living Earth Community Action Training
Local Action for Global Change
The Earth is calling. Ready to take action?
The Living Earth Community Action Training will teach you to design, incubate and launch climate and environmental solutions in your community.
Join people across the world reviving forests, converting their towns to green energy, and building climate action movements. There are hundreds of ways to heal the earth. What the world needs is people to make them happen on the ground in their community.
Your town, your turn.
What is your passion? What do you want to see happen in the world? We created this training to give you the tools, training, and coaching to turn your hopes into a solution.
Graduates of our Action Training have launched over 150 climate projects in 8 countries.
Project Examples Created by Graduates
Oregon Climate Action Hub (ORCAH)
Oregon, United States
David Hakan and his team created the state’s first website that networks all climate organizations in the state and connects people to the climate solutions taking place in their community and across the state.
Interfaith Creation Care of the Triangle
North Carolina, United States
An interfaith alliance of 74 organizations created to educate and activate individuals and faith communities to implement local green actions. They are currently working to help direct Federal climate funds to low income families in the area.
Environmental Awareness Reclamation for Total Health (EARTH)
Kenya
Micah Opondo has organized 22 community organizations and 30 schools to plant over 300,000 trees.
Citywide Sustainability Council
New York, United States
Pat Wartinger, a former high school teacher with no previous experience in activism, convinced her city council to create a Sustainability Committee and became the Chair. In under a year she moved the town towards renewable infrastructure, including a citywide composting program and switching all street lights to LEDs, which reduced the power usage by 75%.
Consciousness projects for the fragile ecosystems in the world
Brazil
Jan Paul Buijs helped create drinking water infrastructure for the NukinÌ tribe in Brazil; a hybrid health center for the Shipibo-Conibo tribe in Pucallpa, Peru; and the development of an art school in the Cerrado of Brazil.
Cincinnati Nature Center
Ohio, United States
Ted Bergh helped form a Climate Action Advocacy team to mobilize the Nature Center’s 16,000 members into legislative lobbying on environmental and energy policy in the Ohio legislature.
Magic Radio FM
Buchanan, Liberia
Christopher Yarwoe created Magic FM, a radio station and community center that educates his city and country about climate change, forest protection, and how people can actively engage in protecting their lands and communities.
Dialogs on the Future of Farming
Kansas, United States
Noni Strand is working with the local Catholic Bishop to have a series of in-depth listening sessions with rural groups in Kansas to create a vision for their future. They explore the struggles of farmers with our current food system and work to develop a vision for a food system that works for the farmers and for the land. Through the dialogues, they are slowly, humbly, creating openings to discuss the impacts of climate change, looking for solutions that bridge the political divides.
GoFundMe GreenTeam Education Project
Washington, United States
Scott Hensen, a Vice-President at GoFundMe, is supporting its 500 employees and company leaders to engage in regenerative advocacy and solutions through GoFundM’s network and platform.
A New Future for Humanity
Earth Guidance
Root your work in connection to the Earth as a source of guidance and support.
Tools and Skills
Discover skills, community organizing tools, and strategies to take action and create change.
Connection
Create meaningful connections to key allies and change makers in your community by using transformative communication tools.
Climate Justice
Gain an understanding of local environmental, socio-economic, and political systems to identify key points to further climate justice in your community.
Who Should join
We have 3 levels of training, based on your level of experience with community action.
- The Activist Training
- New to community action? We'll take you on a step by step journey to find the climate work that fits your skills and passion. By the end, you'll be connected to environmental movements in your community and taking meaningful action.
- Mobilizer training
- Ready to step into leadership? We'll help you design, incubate, and launch your own climate project with the support you need to succeed.
- Organizer training
- Seasoned organizer? Learn holistic leadership that integrates climate solutions, climate justice, and deep Earth connection into your strategy and organization.
What graduates say
"The training gives concrete skills and frameworks to "go out and do something" that you've always dreamed of doing but needed a bit of encouragement and structure to act on."
"A hands-on program to support you in taking action in your community. Trainers are dedicated and compassionate with years of experience they each share with you to help you accomplish what you dream. An extraordinary opportunity."
"A thorough, well-rounded exploration of the many ways to strengthen one's action confidence, addressing both the inner and outer journey."
Course Format
Each training is tailored to the experience level of the participants, designed to meet their unique talents, questions, and resources.
Build Community and Take the Journey with Other Change Agents
In the Community Action Training, you will be in an Action Team, a small group of 5 to 8 people taking this journey with you every step of the way. You learn together and support each other as you stretch into new skills, celebrate your successes, and learn from your challenges. You can form an Action Training with people you know or you can join one we organize with other people at your level of experience. Your Action Team will meet weekly.
Coaching
Your training will be led by a Moderator - an accomplished community organizer with experience using all of the tools and skills in the training.
Learn Through Taking Action
You will learn by being out in your community taking action. Each week, you’ll learn a new skill and apply it immediately. Reality is the best teacher. Your Moderator is there to guide the journey and coach you to success.
A New Future for Earth and Humanity
In our era of environmental crisis, social disintegration and political polarization, we need to go deeper than new laws and solar panels. We need solutions that heal the divides between Earth and humans, across communities, and within ourselves. Living Earth Community Action Training brings together personal, interpersonal, and community transformation.
While many organizing programs that focus on tactics, our training centers your whole being. Our approach weaves your political action with your place in your community, your inner resilience, your spirituality, and your connection with the Earth.
Build Community
- Practice practical community organizing strategies that create lasting change
- Develop community building skills that strengthen social fabric while advancing environmental goals
- Learn to navigate political landscapes with both strategic savvy and emotional wisdom
Personal Leadership Development
- Discover new levels of leadership capacity within yourself
- Build resilience and overcome fears that limit your impact
- Cultivate deep self-awareness and emotional health for sustainable activism
Cross-Community Collaboration
- Develop foundational skills for working across divides of identity, culture, and power
- Learn the arts of co-creating solutions with diverse stakeholders
- Practice balancing a strong vision with deep humility and active listening
Positive Power
Politics inherently involves power dynamics. Rather than avoiding this reality, our training provides practical frameworks for:
- Understanding and working skillfully with different levels of community power
- Moving beyond broken dialogues about power to collaborative problem-solving
- Creating win-win solutions that honor all stakeholders
Connecting with Earth
- Deepen your connection with the place you live as a source of inspiration, rejuvenation, and guidance.
- Learn to draw on the natural world for direction and support in your activism.
Join us in creating environmental action that heals communities while protecting our planet, builds lasting coalitions while honoring differences, and sustains activists for the long-term vision our Earth needs.
Results of this course
Climate Actions and Impacts
- 150 climate action projects created across 8 countries
- 3,980 people in their communities mobilized into climate action
- 49,297 people impacted
Action Areas
- Ecosystem Protection and Restoration
- Political and Policy Action
- Regenerative Systems
- Training, Awareness, and Media
- Infrastructure, Technology, and Systems
- Connection to Earth and Spirituality
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Training Details
How the training is organized
Coursework - Each week you learn the course material through videos, readings, and practices that you go through at your own pace. These will take about 90 - 120 minutes per week.
Weekly Action Team Meetings - You meet with your Action Team and Moderator for 90 minutes each week. In these meetings you discuss the ideas and practice the new skills. Your team may meet online or in person - that will be decided by your team and the Moderator.
Midpoint Intensive- In the middle of the training, you will meet for an extended 4 hour session for in-depth practice with the key organizing and communication skills.
Action Plan - You complete the course by creating and launching a project in your community.
Time commitment
Expect to engage for at least 3.5 hours each week during the training.
Your Action Team will meet for 90 minutes.
Learning the materials takes between 90 - 120 minutes each week.
The most powerful learning of the training comes from being out in your community, applying the skills and building your action project. That can range from an hour to several hours. The amount of time you spend on that is up to you.
Donation-based tuition
Pachamama Alliance offers this training for free.
There are two ways we ask participants to keep this training moving forward: Co-creation and Donation.
Co-Creation: We ask that you meet with us after the training for an in-depth review and assessment of the training. First, we will have an assessment survey for you to fill out, giving us your reflections, feedback, and ideas on all the aspects of the training. Then we will have an Action Research meeting with all participants to discuss your thoughts and ideas for how the training can improve. This training has been a co-creation with community activists from its beginning. That is a major reason why it works so well. So, your deep thinking with us is part of the co-creation of this training for future organizers and activists. Giving your time and co-thinking with us is the main payment we ask for.
Donation: This training costs Pachamama Alliance $1,000 per person to offer. We have a donation-based tuition model that is voluntary and keeps this training available to everyone. At the end of the program, you’ll be invited to contribute an amount that works for you financially and reflects the value you’ve gained from the training. There is no pressure to donate. This model gives each participant a way to pay it forward - your donation makes it possible for others to benefit from this transformative training in the future.
What's inside the training
Fine Tuning Your Activist Aptitudes:
Discover and understand the skills you already have to contribute to climate justice projects, and experience the new range of skills you can develop for effective social change.
Finding Your Area of Focus:
Identify an area to take action and apply the lessons of the training, developing skills to create solutions your community needs.
Using Community Mapping:
Developing a community mapping practice gives you tools to identify the “critical connections” in your community that can be at the heart of your local climate action: the environmental organizations, politicians, government officials, community members, businesses, friends, and family.
Learning the You, Me, We Framework:
This framework for communication, used for years in social movements, transforms relationships into collaborations. Share and enroll others in your vision as you build support for your ideas.
Enhancing Your Connection to Earth:
Seek guidance from Earth with practices to help you connect and stay grounded as you engage in local climate justice solutions.
Weaving Soul into Social Change:
Learn how grounded optimism, evolutionary activism, and somatic centering can increase resilience, address climate grief, and bring joy into all the work you do in your community.
Setting Goals and Planning:
Learn how to set realistic goals and create a strategy to attain them, a key component to successful activism and organizing.
Integrating Climate Justice Locally:
Look deeply at the question: where could my work on climate also help create justice? Any community project must include the needs and perspectives of all members of the community, and you will have opportunities in the training to practice integrating climate justice into local climate actions.
Assessment and continuous improvement:
Successful social change requires constant assessment of what is working, what is not, and how to improve. The training will offer usable ways to gather data and input so you can make grounded evaluations of how to move forward. You will also learn how to build a culture of authentic inquiry and honest dialog in your project team so you can learn together and find the best ways forward.
Integrating it All:
Bring together the above core elements of this training with weekly practices out in the world. Practices are integrated and discussed in group meetings; you will learn by doing, with support from your Action Team and Moderator.