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Kathleen Battke
As a Gaia University Post Graduate Diploma Associate, Kathleen Battke co-founded the German Regional Center of Gaia University and developed the Center’s Sustainable Money Design Degree Program. She is now working on her Doctorate, developing this program with co-founders Andy Langford and Liora Adler, under the supervision of Advisory Board Chairman, Prof. Declan Kennedy
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Kathleen is a biographer, writer, editor, and researcher; public relations consultant; long-time activist in the peace, women’s, and environmental movements—and former head of the Communication Department at Cologne University. As a Gaia University Post Graduate Diploma Associate, Kathleen Battke co-founded the German Regional Center of Gaia University and developed the Center’s Sustainable Money Design Degree Program. Prior to her enrollment in Gaia University, she wrote and published a biography on Margrit Kennedy—visionary and proponent of the alternative currencies movement in Germany. In addition to her oversight of the German Regional Center, she is a Process Advisor for Gaia University.
Of this experience, she writes:
I enjoy accompanying the wonderful people who decide to enroll in a Gaia University program on their expedition to their very own inner creativity, to realizing their unique contribution to the world, and increasing their impact for the sake of a healthy planet. It is helpful to have the very fresh memory of what it felt like to be on that studying pathway myself on my mind in every Advising session. |
Gaia U
Action research |
Development of Alternative Currency Design Degree Program, Co-founding of the German Regional Center: Gaia University Deutschland. |
| Vision |
Views on Activism
I’ve been engaged in down-to-earth practical political work. It was natural for me to also develop personally and spiritually, and that’s why my engagement and activities survived the nineties, while a lot of people were frustrated by their involvement, got burned out, and withdrew into privacy. I never thought we’d have all the power to stop everything we don’t like. We should simply carry an attitude that you stand up against things that aren’t right.
The Green Movement in Germany
We are lucky to have a Green Party candidate--Yoshka Fisher--as the head of our Parliament. The green movement is very strong here, and throughout Europe. We see that economics are breaking down; not making a good life for people. After the breakdown of the Soviet Union and globalization moved in, we saw that we have to civilize capitalism or globalization; or push it forward and cultivate it. That has to do with consumption. There is an end to that. The topic of “grading down” or “simple living” is a big term here.
It’s combined with wellness. People like the simplicity movement--the green movement is too ideological --we’re not advocating going back to the Neolithic period. It’s a more of a realistic view--we’re saying it’s not good to use everything up and contaminate everything with rubbish. There’s a movement here to slow down, for slow food--good and slow, and not too expensive. To get back to the worth of community and conversation.
Margrit Kennedy, the woman whose biography I completed, has developed a system of alternative currencies which has taken root now in many different areas of the country--there are people getting together to start exchanging what they can with their own money—interest free. We are taking it into our own hands; we the people can make our own money. In some areas people are using alternative currencies to pay for up to 30-40% of their spending. It’s an open movement.
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| Personal passion |
I have always had a strong desire to contribute to a healthy world. During those times when I have done work for too long that was not meaningful or connected to my passions, I have gotten literally ill and lost my language. I simply couldn’t articulate myself anymore. For my own health, I have to work on social, spiritual and ecological change. I feel connected to the health of the world by my own wellbeing. My husband and I changed our lives--becoming more mobile, for example, in order to be able to pursue these projects; to be in public, to infuse our vision into society, and to think about sustainability--how to live and die well.
It’s important to think about how you want to die as well. I want to connect personal life with the bigger structure: society, the country, the world, the universe: these layers are not so separate to me. I can best do this work through the word; writing is what I can do. And it takes a long time to dare to use my own words and not write just as others think.
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| Key Words |
German Regional Center, Gaia University, Alternative Currencies, Biographer, Peace Activist, Women's Activist, Environmental Activist |
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