One Year in Transition

If you are aged 20 upwards, are looking to find ways of living and working in a sustainable community, and want to learn practical skills that support right livelihood, this programme is for you.

One Year in Transition (1YT) launched at the 2012 Transition Network conference. It is designed to equip young adults with the tools needed to create (and flourish in) a low-carbon future that sustains ourselves, our communites and life on Earth. The programme is low cost, flexible and fun.   1YT is as part-time or full-time as you want to make it. YOU

• Design your own learning journey and have your project work guided throughout by tutors
• Explore your personal learning edges through Action Enquiry
• Do this in your own community, or in a Transition community (we can help you find one)
• Choose two skills to learn and find voluntary placements with skills masters (we help you here too)
• Are given a personal mentor to support you (for free)
• Get bespoke Transition training, and much else besides
• Co-design the shape of the year with your group
• Live as much as possible with non-monetary exchange
• Gain life skills that value both the inner and outer development of our selves
• Find the work in the world that only you can do

1YT is now under way with a small pilot group of young Transitioners. The next programme will start in October 2013 and finishes in July 2014 with a group celebration. There are four week-long meet-ups (mostly in Totnes, Devon, the headquarters of Transition Network) in October, January, April and July. We keep in touch and peer mentor each other via monthly Skype calls. You commit to showing up and completing the year. In return you receive certificates along the way from your mentors and skills masters, plus a completion certificate from Transition Network.

The challenge throughout is to work as much as possible with non-monetary exchange as we explore an economics grounded in personal relationships rather than impersonal transactions. However, in this age of Transition, we do need to ask for a payment of £1500 to cover essential tuition costs when you sign up. There is also an option to pay in three instalments. You will in addition need to meet living costs, travel expenses and the costs of residential meet-ups.

You need to have a UK passport to join the programme: we prefer to export the programme rather than import students. If you would like to start up this programme in your own country, working in collaboration with your local Transition groups, please get in touch.

Here are some comments from the current Transitioners following the October 2012 meet-up.

“This week has shown me many possible ways to tackle difficulties with a healthy attitude, but also how to avoid situations becoming difficult in the first place. It has encompassed personal, group and social psychology, and the technicalities of developing initiatives. It has given me permission to get wrapped up in nature and the metaphors of myth and has caused us, as a group of students to become close and to be truly honest and appreciative of one another” (Richard in South Brent).

“I signed up to 1YT because I felt I needed a container and support for the things I'm planning to do this year. I need to reframe success, and I want my ethics to be central to my working life, not something I do in my spare time. The first week's training was just phenomenal. I learnt so much from the Transition model, which is going to be so helpful in my own project. Especially the way people deal with the realisation that we are living in an unsustainable world, and how to support them and ourselves as we come to terms with the kind of appropriate actions we need to take” (Hannah in Oxford)

“As I stepped out of the door [at the end of the week] I realised how incredibly grateful I am to be a part of 1YT and how healing it is to be carrying out this work” (Lisa in Bristol).

For detailed information and to find out more, contact:
Isabel Carlisle, Education Co-Ordinator, Transition Network
Email: isabelcarlisle@transitionnetwork.org
Tel: 01803 847 976