The Sustainability Institute, established in 1999, focuses on learning for sustainable living and is based within the Lynedoch EcoVillage Development, Stellenbosch. The focus has been combining practice with theory in a way that integrates ecology and equity in support of a sustainable South Africa, with special reference to ways of reducing and eradicating poverty.
Summary of current initiatives:
A home base at the Lynedoch EcoVillage Development which demonstrates child-centred sustainable living in practice
Masters Programme in Sustainable Development comprising a Postgraduate Diploma in Sustainable Development and a Mphil in Sustainable Development in partnership with School of Public Leadership, Stellenbosch University
Transdisciplinary Doctoral Programme in partnership with the TsamaHub, Stellenbosch University
Early Childhood Development (50 participants in 2006)
Ongoing youth development programmes
Community Development Management and Practice focusing on capacity building and career pathing in the HIV/Aids sector and sustainable human settlements
Further projects (applied research) on strategic design and development of sustainable neighbourhoods as well as policy change
Ongoing applied, academic and policy research, including the publication of Just Transitions: Explorations of Sustainability in an Unfair World by Mark Swilling and Eve Annecke (United Nations University Press, 2011).
An international living and learning centre located outside the South African university town of Stellenbosch. Surrounded by the breathtaking beauty of the Cape's towering mountains and rooted in an agricultural community needing to break free from its' racial past, the Sustainability Institute provides a space for people to explore an approach to creating a more equitable society that lives in a way that sustains rather than destroys the eco-system within which all society is embedded.
The Sustainability Institute forms part of the wider Lynedoch EcoVillage. This is an emerging ecologically designed socially mixed community built around a learning precinct, the heart of which is the Lynedoch pre- and Primary School attended by 450 children who come mainly from the families of farmworkers. This emerging community offers a unique African setting where creative work and learning can be inspired by the joys and challenges of sustainability in practice.