Vu Truong is a program coordinator at VCIL Community, Vietnam, a grassroots movement towards well-being and regenerative society re-imagining every aspect of life through social innovation in alternative education, rethinking development, new economy and community building. Thien Quach is a community builder, regenerative educator, and social innovator with VCIL Community. He is passionate about reimagining education and rethinking development through alternative education, post-growth entrepreneurship, regenerative tourism, and solidarity-based finance. In this episode of Planet Local Voices II, Vu and Thien paint an evocative picture of the deeply relational, humble and nurturing traditional values and lifestyles that prevailed until recently in Vietnam, and how these have been dramatically undermined and degraded by the race for material wealth and "success" brought about by recent decades of mainstream development, modernization and "progress". Still, beneath the pavement and within the cracks of development, the old values still survive, and with them more and more people are turning away from the soul-deadening, polluting mainstream to create "many streams" of regenerative, life-affirming, meaningful alternatives - a process that VCIL Community is playing a vital role in nurturing. They emphasize the importance of changing mindsets, values, and worldviews in order to effect systemic change, and conversely, the need for systemic change to enable and encourage these inner transformations. It is a story that will resonate with communities and cultures across the world who are facing similar pressures, which is to say, it will resonate everywhere.
