Our Community

We are creating an Intentional Community!
If you are interested in finding out more about our vision for an intentional community please email us at: community@stand-center.com

Our various programs bring people from all backgrounds and every place on the globe here to the Center to learn, teach, work, and play together. This creates a dynamic and vibrant community that is unique and full of diversity. One of our goals is to create a more solid foundation eco-community here at the STAND Center through crossing paths with the right people. Perhaps you are one of those people! If you often find yourself daydreaming about a life that is part of something larger than yourself, (but not so much larger that you are lost in the fray) a community founded on the laws of natural development that seeks to change the world from a grassroots level, then perhaps you will consider the opportunity of joining our community.
We believe the community we wish to create here will unfold naturally, like a fruit tree that takes its own time to first sprout then grow and mature and finally blossom and bear fruit. The right people will find the STAND Center through one of our various programs, or perhaps through other means and when we meet and spend time working and playing together, sharing our visions and our goals, it will become clear to each of us that an opportunity for a lifelong community relationship exists. Already our community is unfolding by way of a nomadic family of students and interns, some of whom return regularly.

Our Vision
We envision a community of 15-50 people living in an intimate, environmentally conscious eco-village tucked into the tranquil rain forest of Belize. Race, age, or gender are irrelevant. What matters is that we share a common vision and that our goals work together to form a cohesive community centered lifestyle. Seeing yourself as part of a larger global community that crosses all boundaries of species is a key understanding. If you value human life over the life of an insect you have missed the crucial truth that all things have been created together in a web of life and each part depends on the others to function optimally. We are not saying you can’t swat a mosquito that is robbing you of your blood, or that faced with the choice of protecting your child or protecting a fly you feel torn..... Being a part of this global community means being part of the food chain. The mosquito plays its part in collecting your blood to create a new generation and you play yours in crushing it to protect yourself from vector-borne diseases and anemia. Similarly, while we respect and honor a vegetarian lifestyle, we ourselves choose to eat meat at times in response to our body’s natural craving. We prefer hunted game or fresh fish that has lived and died a natural death as part of the food chain.

Generalized Reciprocity
Just as our learning center is founded on the Laws of Natural Development so will be all aspects of our community. We will all agree to share our time, energy and gifts freely with one another. This is called generalized reciprocity. You are expected to share whatever skills or gifts you have (for example being a doctor or a massage therapist) freely, within reasonable limits. That is to say if there is a cost for
supplies or if you are strained for time that will be understood and the community will work together to help each other out. You may work for pay outside the community but there should be very minimal monetary exchange (if any) between community members. All efforts will be made to provide employment through the STAND Center. But we are first and foremost a not for profit organization, so
opportunities are limited, especially now at the beginning stages of our development. Your money is your money, your belongings are your own. This is not a cult, it is a community. However, we should all also be ready to help each other out in whatever ways we can. Part of this would ideally be a community insurance fund that all members pay an agreed upon yearly premium into to save up an
emergency fall back financial support system for any critical needs that a community member presents before the council. In this way we can avoid the high cost of unnecessary insurance premiums paid to for profit entities.

Decision- Making and Conflict Resolution
Decisions will be made through consensus government, with deference to community elders. This means that everyone in the community gets an equal say in things. We even invite children to give their input. Often, children can see and share things in profoundly simple and relevant ways. In order to make a decision about something all community members over 21 must agree. There will come times when
this is not possible and that is when we defer to Elders. Elders are those persons who have been part of the community for at least 10 years. or more details please feel free to email us.

Food Production
Our gift to our fellow community members has already begun with our biodynamic stacked polyculture food production system. All organic food will be provided from the orchards and terraced gardens. We truly are what we eat so eating a variety of organically grown, freshly harvested and prepared foods will make us healthier happier people! Currently our orchard provides far more fresh nutritious food than we can even begin to eat!!!

Education
We believe our children learn best in an environment that is safe and familiar. We also believe that no one knows a child and the ways they learn better than their parents. For this reason we believe the best education is in the form of home schooling.
Our long term vision for educating our young ones is to work on a rotating basis with the other parents in our community teaching the children in age appropriate groups the basics of math, science, geography, world history, and language arts in an interactive form themed around the environment and conservation. Working on a small scale will allow us to see the unique gifts and talents of each child and encourage them to expand in those areas. We also believe that creative thinking and imaginative play is crucial to healthy development. In addition, we envision a program that teaches children from preschool age on up through graduation key life skills like gardening, animal husbandry, cooking, cleaning and organization.

Holistic Health Care
We hope to create a holistic health care system within our community, but this depends largely on who may join us. We envision herbalists, massage therapists, sages, midwives and naturopathic M.D.'s working together to help all members achieve total health!

The Arts
We love art in its myriad forms such as acoustic music fireside or chants and west african drum beats, visual arts like painting or sculpting, performing and literary arts, domestic arts like weaving and basketry, primitive arts like flint knapping and brain-tanning, or even the arts of natural construction...we encourage all of these to blossom and grow here in our community.

There are infinite possibilities for how our community might unfold. As it blossoms we will welcome it's development. Right now our community is like a tidal pool....an ever changing cast of characters moving through with our family as the hollowed out rock that catches the tides. Our family teaches and learns beside people from all over the world. But best of all, we are a cohesive family unit- we
spend every day together, and our work in not only enjoyable but deeply meaningful to us!
A large part of why we decided to leave the comforts of a traditional western lifestyle in the United States is our desire to have authentic community.

Consumerism and financial burden keeps so many families split in a million directions seeking out success and happiness when the key to both lie within the family. We have seen so many beautiful family units, within our extended family and our family of friends, torn apart by the divisive nature of capitalism, and the over extension and resulting stress and alienation its consumer oriented lifestyle so often leads to. We believe so many of these broken homes could have survived in the sanctuary of an authentic community!

If you feel that you could be a kindred soul and community member please reach out to us! Come visit and learn on our farm through our eco-course or internship programs and we will just see what happens! You never know!!! Email us at: community@stand-center.com