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Seeking a Development Coordinator to Support the Origins Project
An Interview with Jon Young & Nicole Apelian
We are seeking a development coordinator to support the Origins Project. The Origins Project was founded and developed by Jon Young and Dr. Nicole Apelian working with a community of Naro-speaking San Bushmen in Botswana. This year, we are going to be visiting this community for the ninth time. During these years, it's become clearer and more obvious to both of us that there is a great opportunity to support these people in ways that will help them support people all over the world as educators and experts in connection modeling.
Two years ago, we had long discussions for several days with the community about this project and we received a complete unified yes, exclamation point, from this community in their willingness, desire, and commitment to help as consultants, as trainers, and as media talent in the development of a training system to help teach parents, educators, teachers, occupational therapists and people all over the world in the 8 Shields network and beyond how to effectively connect children to nature and how to create cultural modeling that supports connection in all ways.
Before the elder, Xanama passed away, he asked us for help in three different ways. One of the ways he requested was that we would visit more often, because we really nourished the community when we visited; we were also nourished by that visit, of course. They were saying that one year apart is too long and that they want to see more of us. They want to see more of the people within the 8 Shields movement because it really nourishes them to be seen as who they are. It helps them to feel good about their otherwise very difficult and challenging plight.
The second thing that was asked of us was to help them to get water for their community, which we, working with a lot of you out there, managed to do. With the help of some friends locally, we were able to secure their water issue - helping them in the dry season to not perish from thirst, which was actually happening in prior years. Last, they asked us to help them acquire a piece of land, which would give them self-determination and help them to establish a project where they would be self sufficient but also able to continue practicing their ancient ways, which are actually the ancient ways of all our ancestors.
In recent months, we've been alerted to the existence of a plot of land that would be perfect for the Origins Project to become rooted. We found a willing seller and now we need to pursue fundraising to make this purchase to give these people the security and to give the project security so that we can begin our work that will serve so many. We're really thinking that we need to balance out our skill sets with the help of someone who's more skilled in resource acquisition, development and fund raising as well as strategy who would be willing to begin as a volunteer, and if needed, work towards a paid position to help support this project. If you're interested, please contact Dr. Nicole Apelian at [email protected].
A brief interview between Jon and Nicole will follow. They'll talk a little bit about this project and why it's important, not only to Nicole and Jon, but also to so many people who have been impacted by this project. They’ll discuss how it's affected the San people themselves, what they're saying about it, and then, how the influence of this project has helped so many in so many locations around the world through connection modeling training, as well as furthering our research and discovering new and ancient ways, which are really innovations for us in the Western world to enhance connection modeling for families and programs everywhere.
I'll start, so Nicole, we're going there for the ninth time.
Nicole Apelian:
Yes, we are.
Jon Young:
It's been a long-standing dream of mine since I discovered the Bushmen through my anthropological research in the early 70s, early 80s. It's always been my desire to actually drop in with these people, living and practicing the ways of their ancestors, who, as it turns out, are also our ancestors, which to me, just sweetens it that much more. I have so enjoyed and been nourished from my experiences in Botswana with these people they've literally become part of my extended family and friend network. I really feel like they're part of our 8 Shields team now. I feel really supported by them. I feel a deep responsibility to support them. I'm wondering, what do you see in your experience, what is the importance of this project, from ... Let's start from their point of view.
Nicole:
From their point of view, it's so important. First of all, their culture has been disappearing. That concerns us, but more importantly, it concerns them. Their indigenous knowledge is slowly being lost. In conversation after conversation that we had with this community of Bushmen we spend so much time with, they don't want their culture to disappear. That's a crisis right there. They want their culture to continue. They talked about the old days and how they could hunt with bows and arrows. How nice it was and now if they're found in the bush hunting, they're kept by the police.
Because they can't carry out a lot of their "old ways”, they're losing them. Since our visits with them started many years ago, their culture has actually had a restoration. Now all of a sudden, they understand the importance of their culture and they've got self-determination. They want to stay out in the bush. People who have left to go to the settlements and have failed there, have come back to the bush and have brought their children back to live in the bush full time. They realize that their culture is healing for them. It's the only way that they stay healthy, connected people. That connection is so important. They've been so kind as to share that with us. We become more connected people just by spending time with them, both to ourselves, to others, to our community. We're able to bring that information home and really impact people all over the world by what the Bushmen teach us. They know they're able to impact other people.
I remember one time, they talked to us and they said, "We know you come to us because you're struggling in your own culture. We want to help you." That's such a beautiful thing. They have beautiful hearts and the individual people there want to help us connect with our families and with the rest of the world. When we go there and we get to examine the origins of our own culture - healing, connection and mentoring - it really ties us back to our ancestral lineage. It also reminds them that their ancestral lineage, which they're still living right now, is important in this world. That it matters.
Jon:
I second all of that. I was thinking about something that in our very first year when Pam and Jenn from the Wilderness Awareness community, we were interviewing them in their village. It was one of the elders, Kgum…
Nicole:
I remember that conversation really well…yes…
Jon:
Kgum so eloquently spoke about what he called the, as I remember, sort of the “on-ramp to Westernization”. That so many people there would like to have cell phones and cars and houses and integrate into modern times. He said that all of his friends and cousins and relations that he knew of, there weren't very many happy stories. He said the Bushmen, more or less, lacked some kind of immune response to integrating into modern life. That the only thing that kept them alive was being Bushmen. That was their commitment. That they had very intentionally, coming from five different language groups, they had very intentionally gathered together to form this intentional community, off the grid, away from pavement. Allowing them to essentially live off of their ability to collect plant foods and then the kindness and generosity of neighboring farmers to help them with things like water. This really touched me.
I began to realize that these people, this was not anything but a very intentional choice on their part. That a lot of them had left settlement life because of really terrible things had happened to them there. That they were trapped in that situation. It didn't match their culture, their style, their way of being. That this was truly life saving for them.
Nicole:
It really has been life saving for them. I remember that conversation so clearly as well. Kgum talked about how they would sort of fall off of that on ramp and fully fall to the side. That anything that was going on in the settlements: modernization, being forced into Western schools, being told that they're no good, alcoholism, drugs - all of those were things that were causing them to no longer be Bushmen. These were causing them to fail and falter terribly in the settlements. Only by going back and living in the bush full time were they able to be Bushmen. They were very clear and unified that they wished to have a place in the bush that they could live on their own, raise their children, practice their culture. They want to keep their cultural practices that get compromised when they move to settlements.
Their current intentional community in the bush is totally unsanctioned. That's a scary part - that they could be kicked out any day. They need access to their own land. It's so crucial to this community. It's crucial to the larger Bushmen community and outside of that to the larger global community. It has this ripple effect because of all the knowledge that they hold. Not just knowledge about let's say the plants and the local animals, but their knowledge about how life works. What's important: healing, how to connect properly, how to mentor your children. That knowledge that they hold could be gone forever. Because if this community breaks up and is sent to settlements and kicked out of their ancestral community where they live in the bush then their knowledge line breaks. In one generation, all of that indigenous knowledge could be gone forever. That's why, I think, it's so important to be able to help them get ancestral land back. Because if they don't have this place, they won't have a place to hold their own culture. They also won't have a place to hold this culture for the rest of the global community who really, really need it.
Jon:
Now, if we think about the last eight years of working with them, what kind of positive changes have you seen as a result of our working with this community?
Nicole:
First of all, inter-generational knowledge being passed on all of the time. Children, grandchildren going back to the land and living there full time, being taught by their grandmothers and grandfathers and aunties and uncles. Now the children are learning that knowledge just like their grandparents did because they're on the backs of their moms. They're walking with their fathers and their uncles. They're learning it the same way that their grandparents did. Their parents didn't necessarily learn it that way. There was an intergenerational break. A lot of the people in their 30s and 40s did go to the settlements and did lose a lot of that knowledge. Now they've decided to bring their kids back into the bush. People in their twenties who now have children are keeping them there in the bush.
They've re-established their own culture. I think that's one of the biggest things. The second would be cultural pride, realizing that they are the first people and that the information that they hold is important. Because they've been told time and time again that they're no good, that they are the lowest of the low, that they are serfs basically in their own land. They've been marginalized to an extreme. By living on their own land and being able to share their knowledge with us and people like us who need it and are grateful for it and hold it in such high importance has really helped establish cultural regeneration and cultural pride in this community.
They're not egotistical about it. When I say "pride," I don't equate that with ego. Because they're definitely a community, as we both know, which squelches ego because they believe that ego should be squelched and everyone should be equal. It's pride in keeping that knowledge going and keeping the lineage going. Now it's the hunting. They've lost their hunting rights. Having lost that, it interferes with rituals and rites of passage. By establishing a game farm and areas where they are actually legally allowed to hunt, all of that comes back as well. You can see that slowly creeping back in this community as well. I see huge changes that have occurred.
I remember a story of one of Xigao and his son, I remember Xigao’s answer to "Why didn't you teach your children to make fire by hand?" He said, "We didn't think they needed it anymore." Now his son Qoma is even better than his dad, doing all of that, you know. He re-learned the skills. Qoma’s kids, Xigao’s grandchildren, have grown up with the skills as if they never lost them, grown up since they were babies. They're living out on the land. I see this cultural repair and it's sort of what we try to bring back here. You work a lot of course in cultural repair, Jon. It's been one of the keystones of your work. I think we've helped catalyze cultural repair within this community of Bushmen. Now that we've catalyzed it, they're doing it themselves. This land purchase would be the final piece that would need to be put into place.
Jon:
Great, I was thinking also just reflecting on what you were sharing that you and I have observed year by year, the change in morale. The overall improvement and confidence and relaxed, almost casual ability to mentor in the most amazing way, not just their own people but the people that we bring with us. Have you observed that, too?
Nicole:
Most definitely. Every year we go back, I think it can't have changed that much and it has. I think I've got to bring the people who worked with us the first year, the second year to come back again. They would be able to see these sort of jumps that we've observed. I, like you, have noticed huge changes around this community. They do things seamlessly now that they used to have to do with effort. I think that's just because they live it fully now. They're fully ingrained living in the bush. The morale is huge. The elders have an elder council. When something important comes up and a decision needs to be made, the whole community weighs in on it, but the elders are the ones who really make those decisions and talk to the ancestors.
When Xanama died, I, like you, was worried about what was going to happen to this community. He was the main healer. Had he schooled anybody up? Had he trained anybody? Who was going to take his place? Then we show up, not only is there one healer, but there were multiple strong healers who were there, including his nephew, who were there in order to help with the trance dances and the healing in the village. All of that is moving forward very strongly without the effort that it needed in the beginning.
Jon:
For people who are unfamiliar with the experience that you and I have had and other participants have had over the years, we should let people know that what's unique about what we're doing with Eco Tours International, with this community, is that we're not using a kind of cultural tourism dog and pony show. When we first met them, they were sort of performing for people things that they wanted to check off their list. What Nicole and I decided to do was actually meet them where they were at and have them to do what they would do if we weren't there. We would just come along and drop in and give them the dignity to call their own shots. To a great degree, the farmers that helped them get started with their small eco-tourism business, which is what they're doing to sustain themselves, were really on the same page. That made it real easy for us to do that. She was like, "No, I want them to tell us what they want to do. What they want to offer" Neeltjie was very supportive of them taking that approach. I think when we dropped in with them and started to work them, we just allowed them to take that further. I think that's what's unique. I think all your PhD research has been on that, is that right?
Nicole:
Yeah, my PhD research is exactly that. Looking at the idea of restorative ecotourism, which is what we do. How that can actually cause a re-structuring of cultural identity due to this increase in pride, value, self-determination. Restorative ecotourism is more than just sustainable ecotourism. It promotes empowerment, local engagement, responsible global value systems, and aims to halt marginalization. In this case it has also increased the indigenous knowledge transfer between generations. The thing is, it's very rare to find restorative ecotourism that really works. Communities know the answers to their own problems but they're often dismissed by people who want to use them and do this looky-look tourism. The wonderful thing about where we work and of course the DeGraff family is that they didn't want that. They wanted to implement strategies that where local communities had their own authenticity and courage and their own authenticity valued. The Bushmen are the guides of what it is that they share. I think our work over there has really helped perpetuate the way that ecotourism is done and made it restorative to this community and helped to re-shape their cultural identity. I think that's really important.
Jon:
Yep, I agree. Just looking at the vision that we painted for them, I had explained to them that even before I met them, we had resolved that, in a sense, the 8 Shields network was built on Bushmen cultural technology, if you will. In other words, Ingwe and I, from 1983, and from my research prior to 1983. He had direct experience with the Bushmen, I had informal experience and research experience with the Bushmen. We brought our minds together and Ingwe kept saying again and again, "If you look at the way the Bushmen teach their children, if you look at the way the Bushmen track, if you look at the way they interact with the bird language and the animal language, if you look at the way they work with rites of passage and primitive skills and all these things. He said, they are really the masters in how to do this. If we keep it simple, like they do, and if we make it really friendly and available to everyone.” He so embodied their values. He so wanted to bring that forward. In very real ways, my research and all my modeling development was based on Bushmen structures, if you will.
When I finally go to meet them and finally got to know them, there was mutual trust established. I was able to pass the vision onto them a couple of years ago. Explain to them, hey for my whole life, I've been in service to you, without knowing you. I've been honoring your ways without knowing you personally as a community. Now I know you and I feel very personally motivated to dedicate the rest of my life energy to help support you. Because you've done so much to support so many people around the world that you haven't even met. Because your ways are really effective at meeting our neurobiolgoy in the most clear way. It's almost like the hard wiring of the human being responds so well to their approaches. That is because they've never done anything different. They are literally our collective ancestors for all humanity.
They have not really changed their ways significantly for tens of thousands, and Craig Foster would argue a couple of hundred thousand years. They are really, in a way, preserving something that is important to all of us. Especially in these times of disconnection, nature deficit disorder, sensory process disorder. We now know, and I explained to them, that many, many children and adults today suffer from all kinds of anxiety, stress, and sensory process related disorders that affect mental, emotional, spiritual, cognitive and physical health and well-being. We also know that when we apply these social-connection modeling technologies that we can reverse those things very quickly because the brain and nervous system responds instantly to these ancient instructions. The Bushmen got it right away. They were really excited. They were like, "Wow, you mean we're helping all these people in the world. We really want to be helpful. We really want to make a difference. We're really worried about people." Remember how aghast they were.
Nicole:
That's what I remember so much, Jon. I remember the original thing was, "Oh my gosh, this is what is happening in the world around us. These poor children. What can we do to help the children of the world?" I remember that so clearly – that the Bushmen wanted to help people in this world. They understand now through our conversations what it is that they have to offer. Because they never knew what they had to offer. Because it's like, it's a language for them. They grew up with it. This is all they know. For them, it's just how they live. For us, it's what we need. It's a way to tap into what it is that our world needs really for healing.
Jon:
Right, exactly. The purchase of this land, the establishment of a land based project that would be linked to their trust, that's a basically a nonprofit trust that supports their community now, would enable them to have long term security, intergenerational security, self determination. It would allow this project to move forward in a positive way. It would allow people from the 8 Shields Network all over the world to come more often for different kinds of specialized programming. For instance, Phil Bennett, in the UK, is really interested in bringing youth from the UK down there to interact with the rites of passage for youth among the San. He keeps seeing that vision.
This would allow for that kind of establishment of a network of activities that would be wonderfully supportive of all people involved. It would strengthen everything we've been doing. For everyone who's reading this interview know that there's willing people who have stepped up and said they would be willing to fundraise as well as provide financial support as matching funds to help get this started. What we really need now is a projects coordinator to help oversee and work with our fundraising team. To work with Nicole and me and to work with the various people at the international organizations that are helping us land this, to communicate with the various universities that we're in conversation with to back the research up on this to support this more solidly. We just need that lead person to help coordinate. What would you see that person's skills and roles to be?
Nicole:
We definitely do. We need someone to help us. You and I can help talk about why it's important and all of experiences there and really be a voice for the Bushmen, who have told us so clearly and so often why this is necessary for them. Really the time is right now. What we need is the person or maybe people who are going to be the ones who can be at the head of raising the money, marketing, getting the word out about fundraising. I think the really important thing is when we raise money, for example, for the water hole, we raised the money and had it installed in three weeks. The money gets funneled directly to where it needs to go. It's not like donating to some sort of out there group where you have no idea where all of the fees go and things like that.
This money goes directly to the project. It goes directly to purchase land for the San Bushmen. That's superbly important too. That there's very little administrative overhead. The Bushmen need this land to be able to continue their culture in the bush as they want to. It would be ground breaking. It would literally be ground breaking (laughter). To not only be there, like we talked about, for the global community but also to teach this to other Bushmen who may have lost some of their culture and what to re-learn their culture. This is a really important purchase.
Jon:
Last, but not least, there's so many people out there who have heard about this project in various countries around the world and in various institutions and organization who are on board. We're not starting from scratch. There's a lot of enthusiasm. There's a lot of excited stakeholders already who want to help. It's more the case now that Nicole and I find ourselves extremely busy with other projects and unable to move this project forward. We really do need somebody who's committed, energized, excited, who really feels the mission. Who really realizes that this is a contribution, not only to a community of Bushmen but to the world. It isn't really about us, it's not about Nicole, it's not about me, it's not even about the individual Bushmen. They know that, too.
They're thinking long-term. They're thinking as indigenous people do: inter-generationally. What will be there for our children and our grandchildren? They're constantly thinking that way. We would really like you to be thinking that way, too, if you're at all interested in this project. We're asking that you get in touch with Nicole, reach out, let her know you're interested or you know someone who might be perfect for this. There'll be an interview with Nicole, there will be an interview with me. We'll do a conference call with the three of us to discuss this. We need you now. If this is something that appeals to you and you feel called, please don't hesitate to reach out. Any concluding thoughts from you, Nicole?
Nicole:
I second what you said. We need someone who has passion around this project. I also know that we do have people who are passionate about this project throughout our global community. It's not an impossible task. It's just we need someone who has the skill set in order to help this project come to fruition. It's so important that it does.
Jon:
Thank you. My last thought is this. This is a haunting thought that I want to leave everybody with here. That is that it has now been proven by the people who study global genetics of the human family that the Bushmen are the closest thing to our living ancestors on the planet. I think about this fact right here. What does it mean when our collective ancestors are dispossessed of the right to land. They don't have access to land. They don't have self-determination. They don't have any kind of regenerative hope for passing land ownership or land ... They don't think in ownership terms, the way we do. At least, access to land that will benefit them and their children for generations to come. What is the meaning of that? Like for the rest of us. Our ancestors need this land. Our ancestors need this. How will that change the global community when, at least, this one community gets a foothold? Thanks for helping us.
Nicole:
Thank you to everybody for reading this interview. I really hope that the right person will step up. I know that person is out there, so please, please, if you're passionate about this, the global community needs you and we need you and the Bushmen need you. We really hope that the right person steps up and helps us make this happen.
Jon:
Completely join you in your thoughts and wishes here, Nicole. Thank you.