Greening Ottawa’s Non-Governmental Organizations or “GONGOs”-as it is known by a few sustainability leaders, activists, and organizational representatives in the National Capital region-is led in partnership by The Natural Step Canada and the EnviroCentre.

Sitting in the room, waiting for the workshop to begin, is what appears to be a random array of individuals from various professional and educational backgrounds, currently employed by various nonprofit organizations with a diversity of focus areas. But this is the reason the magic can happen... This environment fosters a special feel to its members and allows them all to meet, participate, exchange information and learn from others as the structure of the workshops allows the facilitators to provide the participants with the tools to learn about sustainability and reflect on their own leadership.

NGOs are continuously struggling to find resources.  At GONGOs, best case practices, challenges, personal ambitions, failures, dreams are all shared and provide the fertile soil needed for each participant to become more creative and to find or suggest solutions to their quests for sustainability. Here each individual becomes both student and mentor…

As a communications intern for The Natural Step Canada-dealing mostly with a virtual community of contacts across our social media channels and web site-getting the opportunity to actually see what takes place in the real world, the real community through established programs like GONGOs, is a great opportunity. I felt that my experiences and insights-as one of the younger people in the room and an international development student-were just as important as the other leaders’ in the room as the conversation and debate continuously flowed from everyone’s comments and reactions towards the presented material.

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A final session on October 7, 2010 will celebrate two years of the GONGOs program-and the learning, networking and connections that it has fostered. The Natural Step Canada would like to thank everyone who has joined us; it’s been a pleasure working, and learning, with you.

Click here to read more on the GONGOs Program.