Roots of Return CIC
Growing Healthy Communities
We serve the communities of St Leonard's, Hastings and the surrounding areas, empowering people to lead their best lives through building community and belonging.
Co-Creating Positive Change
Roots of Return CIC is a not for profit organisation providing safe spaces for communities to heal, grow and flourish. We offer a range of research based tools such as mindfulness and nervous system education together with traditional practices such as drumming and singing circles and nature connection that build belonging and enhance mental, physical and emotional wellbeing.
Embedding A Healthy Social Architecture
At the foundation of healthy cultures is a healthy social architecture also know as return pathways. These are social structures built into the fabric of the culture that are designed to maintain and enhance health and wellbeing. They are ways in which someone experiencing distress is supported by the community so that they are not left feeling isolated and unable to move beyond that which is challenging. Today's culture has forgotten these pathways and part of our purpose is to support individuals and communities in remembering. We share a variety of social technologies including grief tending circles, culturally appropriate ritual and ceremony and marking rites of passage. This provides a foundational healthy architecture that serves communities for years to come.
Belonging At The Heart Of All That We Do
Both modern science and traditional wisdom practices acknowledge that we are a social species. We need connection and a sense of belonging just like we need food and drink to remain healthy. From a wellbeing perspective, belonging is not optional, it is essential. We like to talk about radical belonging. This means giving a place and space to all parts of ourselves, welcoming all the parts of us that we otherwise deny. In this way, we heal fragmentation and are able to relate to ourselves and others in a more authentic and healthy way. Belonging begets belonging. The more we belong to ourselves, the more we can belong with one another.
Facilitating Collaboration and Partnership
Every individual in a community has gifts, skills and talents to give and receive. Often these gifts will remain latent and the individual and community is poorer as a result. We empower individuals to realise their skills and capacities and to connect with other members of the community in networks of wellbeing and health. Communities of wellbeing then become self sustaining and self organising as local expertise is recognised and utilised. This leads to an increase in economic, mental, emotional and physical wellbeing as well as a life enhancing distribution of available resources.
