Reveal Collective Wisdom to Change the World

Madagascar

In 2019, Health In Harmony began doing Radical Listening with communities living around the Manombo Forest on Madagascar’s southeastern coast. In addition to health care access, one of the primary issues the communities faced was food scarcity. Through Radical Listening the community identified that the creation of a modest system of water retention and irrigation would allow them to flood fields in the valley and not have to slash and burn more forest to grow rice.

Over the next several years Health In Harmony partnered with the communities to build this retention structure, dig a canal, and construct an aqueduct to flood new fields in the valley. They brought in the varieties of rice the community had also requested, and offered training in how to grow it. They helped the communities renovate their schools, and they improved health care access, other intersectional solutions the villagers knew would help them thrive and stop logging the forest.

After all this was accomplished, one woman poignantly summarized the success of the multifaceted project: “Because you listened to us, we are no longer afraid of the hunger season.”

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Photo: Mahefantsoa Nantenaina Claret

Indonesia

In 2005 Dr. Kinari Webb spent over 400 hours listening to the communities living around Gunung Palung National Park in Indonesian Borneo. Even though this park comprised government protected rainforest, the communities were forced to log it to meet their basic needs. In hour after hour of Radical Listening, Kinari heard the same two things: We need access to good and affordable health care. And we need to learn organic farming. We’ve heard there is a way to farm without slashing and burning, and without expensive fertilizers that we cannot afford. We must learn this.

To meet these needs, Dr. Webb and her team formed an Indonesian sister nonprofit called Alam Sehat Lestari (ASRI)*, and together with Health In Harmony, they helped the villagers implement their solutions. First, they built a medical clinic in the small town of Sukadana. This clinic operated on an innovative green credit system: everyone could barter goods for service, and communities that were reducing illegal logging received deep discounts. ASRI also created an organic garden at the clinic and offered the foundational training the communities had requested.

Following these two cornerstone solutions the communities partnered with ASRI to design and implement other programs: a system of Forest Guardians led by the community members themselves; a Goats for Widows program; a Kitchen Gardens initiative; a Chainsaw Buyback program; and finally ASRI Kids, an innovative program that educates elementary school children about the importance of protecting the rainforest, and offers education on a variety of topics from nutritious eating and hand washing to wildlife, ecosystems and sustainable living.

Several years after all these programs were established, one of the village chiefs near Sukadana gave a speech. In it he said boldly, “We are the Pathfinders for where the world needs to go, and now we want to teach the world!”

* Alam Sehat Lestari translates to “healthy nature everlasting.” ASRI means “harmoniously balance,” for short.

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Photo: Katherine Homes

Brazil

In 2020, Health in Harmony conducted Radical Listening sessions with members of several communities living in the Brazilian rainforest. These communities make a living from products, including wild rubber, that they collect from the rainforest in reserves that they collectively own. But Health In Harmony was told that sometimes when the people’s needs, especially health care, weren’t being met, they sometimes had to make unfortunate deals with outsiders. Deals that hurt the forest, and, in turn, their livelihood.

These Radical Listening sessions took place during the Pandemic. Therefore they were creatively conducted through shortwave radio, with the help of a man from a Brazilian organization that had worked with these communities for at least fifteen years.

Despite the craziness of the remote listening setup, the conversation was earnest and productive. The communities asked for help clearing several airstrips—so that they would be able to evacuate people who were sick. They asked for mobile clinics four times a year for basic health care, including vaccines. And they asked for help advocating the government for a local high school, so their children would not have to leave the forest for education beyond grade school. The communities knew that a combination of all of these things would help them protect their forest for generations to come.

As we listened, our Brazilian colleague expressed astonishment and delight at the ingenuity of all the intersectional solutions the people were articulating. Over and over again he exclaimed, “Whoa! I can’t believe we didn’t think of that!”

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Photo: Araquem Alcantra