The COMMONS, COMPASSION & COMMUNITIES

10-24 July 2016

The Chula Right Livelihood Summer has been established as an annual activity of the 4 partners: Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand (where it is based); The Royal University of Bhutan, Thimphu; the Right Livelihood College with its secretariat in Bonn and the Sathirakoses Nagapradipa Foundation (SNF), also based in Bangkok, Thailand. Together they shape a Wellbeing Studies Programme. In this framework we celebrate the annual Chula Right Livelihood Summer School, in brief CURLS.

The Chula Right Livelihood Summer School aims to create and strengthen the concepts and action of Right Livelihood worldwide by linking Right Livelihood Laureates (Alternative Nobel Prize) to the youth through informal personal contact and mutual learning processes. The motivation of this endeavour is to create a wider space of action for young people (professionals, community leaders, students, researchers) to commit to the insightful fields of knowledge and practices related to social justice, ecological sustainability, spiritual well-being and happiness.

Once we cultivate genuine compassion, the soil is prepared to receive seeds of happiness. Communities grow and shape ‘the commons’.

Seeds are essential for our livelihoods, for our food and the security of future generations. Private and public property regimes are not sufficient to match with the challenges of sustainable development. When we take good care of the Earth, grow our food with dignity and organize our consumption sustainably, we can speak of “Right Livelihood”. For achieving this goal we have to re-examine our worldviews with compassion and re-think the governance paradigms ruling our world. Land-grabbing, seed dependency and corporate strategies getting hold of our lives by means of intellectual property challenge the very foundations of our Human Security. Our challenge is to re-create ‘the commons’ and explore common property or “trusteeship” as the foundation for democracy and genuine sustainable development.