RDNA Cultural Mentoring Program
Applicaitons are still being accepted for 2010-2011
We need authentic, powerful leaders, who are ready to take our communities into a sustainable future. The goal of the RDNA Cultural Mentoring program is to provide the training for you to step into this role.
As a participant, you'll work with lead staff to design, build and support the weekly learning culture for the ongoing Regenerative Design and Nature Awareness (RDNA) program. You have the opportunity to directly apply these teachings as a team of mentors during weekly permaculture and nature connection projects.
The power of 8 Shields Cultural Mentoring is multi-dimensional. You'll walk away with a complex understanding of how to :
- Build effective invisible structures in community design
- Help lead communities to create resilient and abundant ecologies, economies and cultures
- Awaken the gift in yourself and others, so each can find their contribution to the community and live an empowered, meaningful life
- Design a complex learning village
- Facilitate essential nature connection
- Unfold the designer and leader that exists in all of us
The Knowing is in the Doing: Action Learning
It is an old cultural principal that the knowing is in the doing; you can't read about it, you have to do it. This program is designed to give you experience as a mentor in a village on a weekly basis. Being immersed in the action of mentoring, you will learn a multi-dimensional skill set
the only way it can be learned – by doing it. As you take on your role as a mentor, you not only become a better mentor, but your awareness and understanding of the RDNA curriculum expands.
Each week the program will focus on various aspects of the cultural mentoring experience, and you will apply these tools as members of a service team. Concepts are presented and explored during Tuesday training, and then applied within the RDNA learning community on Wednesday and Thursday. At the end of the week, a group debrief allows the group to glean lessons, edges and creative moments of the implementation process. This routine, called action learning by Gaia University, is on-the-job training for mentors, educators, community facilitators and permaculture designers.
Step Into Your Gift
As your group deepens awareness, experiences the healing connection with nature and steps into the power of mentoring, a sense of "purpose" blossoms. With authentic nature connection comes authentic connection to and expression of the self. Each individual's gift shines brightly as an important strand in the village web, and participants become unconsciously competent in bringing out the gifts in others.
The weekly activities of the Cultural Mentoring program are "on-the-job training" for revitalizing authentic, powerful leadership in ourselves and in the coming generations. The curriculum helps develop a deep understanding of the creative process, which helps to awaken the gift in those immersed in it. Cultural mentoring tools help each participant to renew their own creative process, as well as positively influence the creative process of those around them. This renewed creative process helps participants find their contribution to the community and live an empowered, meaningful life.
A Deeper Immersion
In Cultural Mentoring, you'll gain a deeper understanding of the curriculum presented in RDNA Essentials. The core principles and teachings are revisited and, in many cases, the stories become more relevant and tangible, as if you are hearing them for the first time. With intentional "planned redundancy," repeated immersion in the RDNA learning community allows you to more fully embody the teachings.
You'll develop a deeper awareness and connection to living systems, a skill essential in becoming a community and ecological designer. The Cultural Mentoring curriculum emphasizes the invisible structures of community-based permaculture systems, especially with respect to how projects may be powerfully developed and applied during the program. Cultural mentoring graduates are often found developing new systems and structures in communities based on the combination of permaculture design principles and cultural mentoring techniques – modeling new possibilities and inspiring hope in the next generation.
The four major strands of RDNA's learning community are:
• Regenerative Design
• Nature Connection and Awareness
• Ecology of Leadership
• 8 Shields Cultural Mentoring and Core Routines
Designing Your Life: The Personal Study
As a Cultural Mentoring participant, you will design a personalized leadership training experience for yourself. Through the lens of cultural mentoring and with the support of RDNA staff, you'll be responsible for your own area of focus, learning goals and final project.
This personal learning journey, however, is put into action through team leadership. Your Cultural Mentoring group will work closely as a team, in service to the village, to help run the culture and curriculum of the RDNA course. The learning is a blend between group process and individual learning, and much of the learning occurs as team design, implementation and debrief.
The year culminates in a self-designed community project, which highlights your interests and the training you have received throughout the year. Based on your area of focus, you will receive individual coaching from the appropriate staff to support your process. A formal presentation will be given at the end of the year.
Leadership and Facilitation
In the RDNA Cultural Mentoring program, we explore how our thoughts, mental models, beliefs, and the stories we tell – both about ourselves and those around us – affect our life and our ability to make a difference in our family, community, and chosen work in the world. As we understand and evolve this "Inner Ecology," we become more effective at manifesting our dreams.
Cultural Mentoring participants are integral to the facilitation of both the RDNA Essentials and the Native Eyes Programs, as well as events open to the wider community. Given weekly opportunities to hold leadership and facilitation roles, the Cultural Mentoring participants develop strong skills in leadership techniques, facilitation styles, curriculum creation, facilitating debriefs, one-on-one mentoring, giving and receiving feedback, effective communication strategies, and community site assessment.
By integrating these elements, participants will begin to experience leadership as a dynamic process that translates awareness and insights – about self and the world around us – into effective action towards intended personal and professional goals. The Cultural Mentoring participants leave the course with the skills to facilitate community action, mentoring systems and build effective invisible structures in community design.
Initiation into Service
The Cultural Mentoring journey is a rites of passage into community leadership and personal empowerment. It is an initiation into service – a journey from the "I" to the "We." Cultural engineering tools are given to help the Cultural Mentoring participants assess how to best support the learning community as a whole and to positively influence an individual's learning journey. These skills can be directly translated to personal relationships, the greater community and are imperative for anyone with a drive to influence the health of family and community. The cultural mentoring participant will gain the passion and tools to powerfully lead communities in creating resilient and abundant ecologies, economies and social networks.
What Will I Do After Cultural Mentoring?
As a graduate of Cultural Mentoring, your work with human resources, working with families, working with people in career development, or any other career that affects a person's greater learning journey, will be greatly enhanced. Many Cultural Mentoring graduates are developing powerful youth programs, adult education programs, developing new systems and structures in communities based on permaculture design principles and cultural mentoring techniques, creating positive community change and are instrumental in transition work in their communities. Cultural mentoring graduates are having a tremendous influence on the next generation already.
How to Apply
Prerequisites
RDNA Essentials, RDNA Native Eyes, or an equivalent training experience. Affiliates from the Coyote’s Guide network and residential trainings where the Art of Mentoring is applied (such as the Wilderness Awareness Residential Program, the Vermont Wilderness School, Alderleaf Wilderness College, etc.) are encouraged to apply.
If you feel called to this program and think you may not have the background, please inquire with our staff anyway. We're happy to help you discover if your experience and vision fit well with the program!
This program fills fast, so get your application in early. References and interview required.
Application and Deadlines
Applications are still being accepted for RDNA 2010-11.
To apply, please download an application form and return it to RDI with a $45 application fee.
Early Bird Discount:
1 May Application deadline
14 May Acceptance announced
1 June Registration and full payment complete
Full Tuition:
15 July Application deadline (extended)
22 July Acceptance announced
30 July Registration and payment complete
Tuition
RDNA Cultural Mentoring
with approved prerequisites for participant who requires PDC training
$10,500 Full tuition
$9,950 Early Bird tuition, paid in full by June 1
RDNA Cultural Mentoring
with approved prerequisites
$9950 Full tuition
$9500 Early Bird tuition, paid in full by June 1
RDNA Cultural Mentoring
with completed RDNA Essentials
$7500 Full tuition
$7000 Early bird tuition, paid in full by June 1
Additional tuition rates for RDI veterans. Please contact the office for more information.
Tuition Payments
Once accepted into the RDNA Essentials program,
please register online and pay tuition via credit card or check.
Tuition payment (full or payment plan) must be received by July 31, 2010.
For questions or additional information, contact:
415-868-9681 or email us
Course Cancellation Policy
Cancellation policy is outlined in the Finacial Agreement document included in the online registration form.
RDNA Cultural Mentoring Program 2010-2011 Schedule
The RDNA Cultural Mentoring program starts in mid-August and meets weekly through mid-May, with six breaks.
The RDNA Cultural Mentoring program begins with three weeks of training (Weeks A-B-C), including the week-long Mind of Mentoring, before teaming up with the RDNA Essentials program. Along with the Mind of Mentoring intensive, Cultural Mentoring participants will attend a 2-week Permaculture training in September and a weeklong Bird Language Intensive in April. These three trainings are required for all RDNA Cultural Mentoring students.
The normal weekly schedule is from 12 noon on Tuesdays through 5:30pm on Thursdays.
Cultural Mentoring 2010-2011 Schedule
CM Week A: Aug 15–20 Mind of Mentoring
CM Week B: Aug 24–27
Week 1 & 2: PDC Sept 3–18
~ Equinox Break ~
Week 3: Sept 28–30
Week 4: Oct 5–7
~Gaia Orientation Break~
Oct 8th – 13th: Unless enrolled in Gaia, RDNA participants will have this week off
Week 5: Oct 19–21
Week 6: Oct 26–28
Week 7: Nov 2–4
Week 8: Nov 9–11
Week 9: Nov 16–18
~ Fall Break ~
Week 10: Nov 30–Dec 2
Week 11: Dec 7–9
Week 12: Dec 14–16
~ Winter Break ~
Week 13: Jan 18–20
Week 14: Jan 25–27
Week 15: Feb 1–3
Week 16: Feb 8–10
Week 17: Feb 15–17
~ Late Winter Break ~
Week 18: Mar 1–3
Week 19: Mar 8–10
Week 20: Mar 15–17
Week 21: March 22–24
Week 22: March 29–31
~ Spring Break ~
Week 23: April 17–23 Weeklong Bird Language Intensive
Week 24: April 26–28 Survival Trip
Week 25: May 3–5 Design Presentations
Week 26: May 10–12 Graduation
