Appreciation as a Portal

On what actually opens the future...

This is a continuation of the gradual harvest of Kufunda's story and lessons. This is a piece on what we have learnt about opening to the emerging future.

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Celebrating 21 years of Kufunda

As you know, Kufunda's starting premise is that we already have what we need. But also that we have learned to mistrust this.

And so we have to keep turing toward it — in a gesture of remembering. Turning away from the belittling noise to recover, rediscover, and nurture once more our gifts. Because like a plant not watered and cared for, they will die.

What does that turning look like in practice?

At Kufunda we began with the movement Otto Scharmer mapped: observe, observe, observe. We observed what had been neglected. Overlooked. Grandma's way of eating, how she healed, how she built. We observed stories of resilience — Cuba's organic revolution, Gandhi's call to self-rule. We brought in the medicine folk, the laws of our ancestors. In the observing, we re-dignified ourselves.

We were inspired and amazed.

And whilst doing this, we were also completing the village — upcycling, permaculturing, working with what was here to build our future.

We turned the observation inward too. Who am I? We brought in awareness of multiple intelligences, opening eyes to talents and gifts that may not have aligned with academia — and had therefore been ignored and eclipsed.

In the observation, we could already see the seeds of the future.

Then we retreated — to allow inner knowing to arise. A medicine walk. Sometimes just one day of silence. For a rural young person, that is a lot. And out of that silence, that deeper listening, the dreams could come. We could crystallise, harvest, and create new ventures arising out of people’s own becoming in community. 

We learned something important through failure. That when we did this work away from the community — with individuals — the primary transformation was individual. And the youth struggled to return to their home communities. They were returning as round pegs to square holes.

Later, we worked with community groups. Same process. And we saw traction — because they came as a collective. And when we finally took the process into the communities themselves, there was true liftoff.

This was learning over years.

The movement, distilled: Observe with appreciation and warmth. Follow the life from history into future. Find where the energy is. Ignite the dreams. Bring them into being.

Without dreams, a people can forget who they are or what is calling them forward. And in so many places, the dreams are dying.

On the basis of appreciation and aspiration — and in the warmth of the fire — we have learned that celebration matters more than we think. Community celebrations, for whatever has transpired, give immense trength to future becoming.

We learned this most powerfully at our own ten-year anniversary:

We were in the middle of Zimbabwe's worst economic crisis. Highest inflation rate in the world. Political meltdown. At that time - 10 years into Kufunda’s young life - we had plenty to moan about — including ourselves and how we were showing up.

We made a commitment: one week of no complaints. Only celebration of our 10 years of existence. What could we celebrate about our journey, everything we'd traveled, everything we'd learned, everything we'd become?

That week was a turning point. Out of it came the next series of youth programmes. The Kufunda Waldorf School truly took root. The women's work deepened. So many things opened — things that our usual cycle of "how can we improve, what are we doing wrong" had been quietly contracting.

How radical is that? And yet it is the same gesture as the beginning. Observe with appreciation what is already here. Then — at the close of a cycle — celebrate what became, no matter how imperfect. And begin again.

This is the arc. Appreciation opens the future. Celebration opens it again.

Will you join us in this movement of opening to what wants to rise through us - each one of us? 

An old collage from our Young Women are Medicine Programme