Kwendalo Conversations – 5 December: Are intentional communities actually viable?

December 2, 2024
Events, Harmony Centre, Kwendalo Institute, The Estate

This month during our Kwendalo Conversations, we will explore if – and how – intentional community living can shift from surviving to thriving.

Many of us seek community living but aren’t always sure how, or if, it can be done. What may present itself as a beautiful dream for a shared vision of flourishing can be derailed by the unwanted mundane: differing ideals on the ‘how-to’, socio-economic pressures, personality clashes and unintentionally repeating the same systemic patterns that one had genuinely sought to change.

Is there a solution to this? Can a better way be found?

Join us as we sit with Michele Bestbier and Tristan Holme to discuss what they have learnt from their time visiting, working with, and living in intentional communities around the world with relevance to the South African experience.

About the Guests

Tristan Holme is an intentional community co-founder who currently serves as a director at Kuthumba Ecovillage, The Crags. Using Values-Based Decision-Making and other tools, he helps individuals who are interested in community to understand which one would be a good fit for them, and guides collaborative groups through the process of identifying their core values and making decisions in a holistic way. He also practices and offers conflict transformation and community facilitation.

Michele Bestbier has a passion for the creative arts and specifically the role of water. She lived at the Kuthumba Ecovillage for 15 years and, in 2019, went on a pilgrimage to visit key intentional communities in South Africa and around the world. During the Covid lockdown, Michele spent 9 months living in her last intentional community after experiencing over 30 different ones. She has been inspired by Michael Tellinger’s ‘One Small Town’ framework and his observations on Ubuntu and ‘contributionalism’. Michele has experienced first-hand communities that really work.