ICM em Ação – Instituto Caminho do Meio

ICM in action

Middle Way School

The ICM maintains a non-profit educational institution, which translates the Buddhist tradition in a non-religious way to teach children and adolescents

Escola Caminho do Meio offers an education centered on familiarization with the internal world and on the development of technologies of the self. We cultivate a practice of hands, mind and heart, favoring relationships and meaningful bonds, contextualizing the languages learned in fundamental creativity and immersing them in a forest with a profusion of beings.

The school was born from the dream of Lama Padma Samten, within the Buddhist community and next to the temple of Centro de Estudos Budistas Bodisatva. Seeking to translate this spiritual basis in a non-religious way, the School aims, from early childhood, on each child's contact with their deepest dimensions and, with that, a relationship with the world that is healthy, interested, creative and transforming.

College

Experience carried out by Instituto Caminho do Meio (ICM) which is part of a non-school education movement for young people aged 16 to 30

The Formative Experience for Young People is structured in three levels: in the mind level, to articulate the perception of how the world is today with a deeper vision of the wisdoms and nature of the mind from a Buddhist point of view; in terms of energy, reinforcing the insertion of people in meaningful communities and in life in the middle of the forest, based on the CEBB Village; at the body level, to develop ways of effective action in the world through “living laboratories”: collective action projects that move from the experience of ICM and its network partners.

108 Hours of Peace

The 108 Hours of Peace promotes dialogues, lectures, dream circles and cultural activities in favor of a Culture of Peace.

“Our intention is to reinforce horizontal networks of interdependence, compassion and collaboration, which become especially important in times of heightened social and environmental issues. We believe that by strengthening our joint movement based on positive and broad visions and giving visibility to relevant and constructive initiatives, we can generate action that makes sense and that will help us build better environments beyond conflict and crisis”

Ricardo Pellegrini, president of ICM – Instituto Caminho do Meio.

School Gardens

School Gardens is a project of the Federal Institute of Education/RS that, through the EcoViamão program, covers 28 state schools, 1 municipal and 1 private.

Making classes more dynamic, in an active and interdisciplinary learning environment, and also promoting awareness of environmental responsibility, sustainability, healthy eating and cooperativism are objectives of the extension project Hortas Escolares Agroeclógicas, of the Campus Viamão do Instituto Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (IFRS).

Fellows help in the productive and pedagogical process, in addition to providing support with inputs and tools through the EcoViamão Program.

Instituto Caminho do Meio facilitates the planning and execution of this project, providing support to students and scholarship holders.

Virtual Panels

The initiative began amidst the Environment Week 2020, when Sergio Kumpfer (teacher of a public school), Claudio Fioreze (IFRS Viamão) and Ricardo Pellegrini (Instituto Caminho do Meio) got together to dream a virtual meeting that would address enviromental themes through different people and institutions in action in Viamão - a city that supports the largest rural area in the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre.

The meetings seek to promote the exchange of knowledge and experiences at the most diverse levels, making visible all the socio-environmental assets of our city: its various environmental protection areas and aquifers, its traditional communities (indigenous, quilombolas, fishermen) and its wide production network of organic foods, including the largest production of organic rice in Latin America.