Creating New Spaces: Welcoming New Horizons
Dear friends of YIP,
Welcome to YIP18’s June recap!
We entered June in preparation for the Outdoor Experience. Six days and five nights of canoeing to different islands and setting up camp together in the Swedish Outdoors. This week is a space that is created to be fully present with one another. We leave all mobile and timekeeping devices behind in Ytterjärna. Relying only on our natural rhythms and the company of ourselves and each other to keep us entertained. We spend this time reflecting on the year, digesting what we’ve met along the way, and looking forward to what comes after. In this month we acknowledge and make space for the ending of our time together at YIP.
On our arrival back to Ytterjärna, we committed ourselves to a week of deep cleaning. Starting off with the gear that we had used for the Outdoor Experience, and then working our way to bedrooms and communal spaces. We find that cleaning has meaning. Putting in the work to prepare the space for the next participants to come, and giving gratitude for the spaces that have hosted us. We cleanse through memories made with each mark left on surfaces, in order to make room for new ones…
What follows and blends through with this week of cleansing are celebrations. These celebrations are hosted by the team and each check-in group. The celebrations vary in play and intention, from coziness spent inside, to games that are played outside. Each check-in group senses what is needed and creates a space of intentional time spent together. We then closed the celebrations off with the Ekoleden Walk– another tradition that YIP has taken on. Traversing through the same trail that we ventured through in the first week of YIP18, reflecting on the letters that were written last year, and writing new letters for our future selves to be received in a year’s time.
On the 18th of June, we officially bid our goodbye to YIP18. Dedicating the whole day to our Closing Ceremony. We have made it a tradition at the closing of each year to reflect and recognize the change and journey of each participant, and we show our appreciation towards who they are and what they have contributed to the community. We close the day with a marvelous feast, enjoying the evening sun, and sending everyone off with love.
Goodbyes always come with their challenges. Processes of grief and the effort we give to make space for after. But the ending of a chapter, also directs us to look forward to the beginnings awaiting us in our journeys ahead. And with that sentiment, we welcomed these 33 individuals of YIP18 into the community of YIP alumni.
May your summer be full of life in all its movement!
Warmth and sunshine,
Bella.
In this newsletter you will find:
- The Outdoor Experience
- The Year End Deep Clean by Gabriel Golding
- Closing YIP18 – Songwriting by Lilliahna Rogers
- The YIP Experience:
- Art by Jelscha Ganter
- My Journey by Sara Pagalday
- Interconnection – Art by Yasmine Engqvist Shannon
- What I Found Between Questions by Duwon Kim
- What Comes After YIP:
- Fermenting Ten Months by Riyo Harata
- Post YIP Plans by Qi (Kiki) Lin
- The Collective Wisdom Camp by Alice (Atlas) Falkestöm
- Goodbye to YIP18
- Ocean – Songwriting by Ida Paasen
- Alumni Update: On Design, Impact, and the Path Since YIP by Stephanie Hobmeier
- Curriculum Update
- Opening Ceremony of YIP19
Written by Bella Nicolas
The Outdoor Experience
I was so excited! Outdoor experiences are “just my cup of tea”. That’s what I said at the first reflection circle. Soon into the trip however, I noticed my old habits in these types of spaces. I asked myself: How can I be confident in my abilities and a leader while simultaneously being a learner and giving space? It was refreshing to have this intention. And soon I was adopting this new way of interacting with what i loved so much.
It felt so good to get out into the Swedish outdoors. It was so picturesque and peaceful. The lily pads and mossy banks, it was gorgeous. We came to appreciate the sun very early, having started the trip with a great soaking from the pouring rain. Day 2’s lunch was two desperate shivering clumps of yippies; 1 group under a small tarp with a smokey little fire, and the other holding a bigger tarp up with a tall stick and setting our lunch spread out. We had our pants pulled down, bums over the flames and our eyes red from the smoke. The spirits were still high despite this. We all had our coping mechansims. Some of us sung loudly and danced while others stood there stiffly staring into fire and praying. Over all it was an excellent exercise of team work and positivity.
I enjoyed the portages, once I knew how the process worked I took it upon myself to try to make it as efficient as possible, and to help everyone else out and onto the wheels. I pulled canoes up, holding them stable for the yippies to exit. Then I got a team of 4 lifting and 2 positioning the wheels. With a quick test of the balance and 2 tugs of the straps, I sent them up the hill. On one of those portages, a day when I had the very heavy canoe, was quite the exercise. A lot of huffing and puffing to lug that thing up and over the hill; it felt like it would never end.
On the water I relaxed into a nice rhythm, though I never managed to get the J-stroke. A theme of our paddle was the “Kakelambe” song that Lia had taught us. We sung it across the water to each other in the rhythm to our strokes. I loved watching everyone chatting to their canoe buddies. I really felt that throughout our experience we were like a big family.
My solo felt very simple. It was a great opportunity to move with true time.
Time was nothing but the steady smooth turning of the earth. The sun sliding along the great sky and dipping under the northwest pine horizon in a hot pink glow.
I didn’t miss what feels like trying to speed up or run after the kronos time. Instead I let my being exist timely. I took as much time as I wanted and more to do everything. I would be squatting and watch a huge black snail move across the path. I would also watch dragonflies dry their wings and to my slight discomfort and still patience, many, many ants explore my hair and sleeping bag when I awoke in the morning. That was a feat.
On the last night on Seal rock, I was so in love with the moment that I felt like I was looking at it as a memory. It really felt like YIP was coming to a close. Like the credits would roll up at any moment, all of us staring off into the setting sun, fire-cooked-dinner in our yogurt and peanut butter pots. I am so lucky to have had such incredible people in my life, doing such an incredible beautiful experience. I wanted to stay there forever. I know it was only a momentary sparkle on the time line. But its nice to know that that scene will be still, looping in my heart.
Written by Phoebe Leenhouwers
As we are lying
Like seals on a rock
Taking a picture of all the ones dear to us
To capture the moment
To capture the sun
The wild in our eyes and the warmth in our hearts
Soon we’ll be going, drifting away
Our dreams bring us home, slow
Afloating the waves
The world will be calling,
The cities and streets
Leaving the forest
Our tears salty-sweet
When you lay in bed there
And you look at the moon
Remember these moments
And I’ll dream you home
Poem by Ida Paasen
The Year End Deep Clean
During YIP we stayed in many different places, our base in Sweden, Navdanya in India and some other farms and projects. In India there is a common philosophy that the guest is a god. So as a guest you are usually treated with a lot of respect. In Sweden we were also warmly welcomed by the community, we were well held and people supported us a lot. A lot of care was put into space and you could feel it. The idea of leaving a place better than how you found it is important. It is a gift to the next inhabitants and a true thank you to the place that protected you.
So when the deep clean came about, I knew it was going to be tough (we had done it before we left for India seven months prior) but I looked forward to nurturing the place that held me so comfortably, to clearing my things and my energy from those walls. I think it is important for finding closure with a home you leave, otherwise you leave parts of you there. I, along with 3 other volunteers, took on the task of organising the deep clean. Part of me loves to clean, It is a way of clearing my head and expressing love for life. How you treat your inner world, both mentally, emotionally and physically reflects how you will treat the outer world. It’s a practice of paying attention, of being conscious and of letting go of the past – cleaning the stagnancy of dust and grime to create space for newness and life.
So with the help of Annie, we organised how the days would go. Luckily we could use the models that had been used in previous years. Each morning we had a meeting to organise ourselves into groups, addressing everywhere we had used that year. And even though there was a lot to do, with all thirty three of us working together it didn’t feel daunting. It did mean that everyone had to show up for the community, and I think we all knew we could trust each other.
I heard that in the world of dust they were calling it “The day of reckoning”… No stone was left unturned, no skirting board unwiped, no inch of floor unscrubbed. It was a deep clean, you get the picture, it wasn’t some sort of shallow clean, gossiping about your colleagues at work, it was deep, like catching up with an old friend you haven’t seen in a while about your lives in all their simplicities and complexities. And we all showed up because we had a deep love and respect for our community and the communities of Yippies to come.
We worked hard, from nine til five some days, and if you’ve done deep cleaning before you know how it is– it is tiring. Tensions often arose but we managed to keep it cool, reminding each other to be kind and supporting each other when needed, making sure to take breaks in the day (some people even baked some sweet snacks to keep spirits high, so a big thank you to those legends).
I’m happy with what we did, knowing that the next people who stay there can make it their space, without the remnants of our pasts there. I can proudly say that it was cleaner and tidier than when we arrived and I was so impressed by everyone. It was a moment to be present, a last push, a physical and spiritual closure with a place that I feel so lucky to have called home for the last ten months. Its something beautiful, that this has happened every year for the last eighteen years. A shared history and a connection to the future.
Written by Gabriel Golding
Closing YIP18
You and I
We were dreamers
All stars in the sky
So blue
Then from afar
a calling
From quiet to loud
It grew
Gotta follow it gotta follow
Gotta follow it gotta follow
Packed our bags
Tied our shoes
Stars once still
Began to move
Searching, seeking in the dark
Found your hand upon my heart
Hello stranger
Who are you
Did you hear the call
Did you follow it too
Went out searching
So uncertain
Didn’t know
I was looking for you
There is a land of birch and oak
Of dandelions and fire smoke
a big blue house, where we belong
With all our questions and all our songs
Tell me your story friend
While we watch the Swedish water bend
While we greet the spring and and sing the sun to life
Lay down laughing on my bed
we’ll sip tea and try to understand
The world and what it means to be alive
There is a thread we seem to share
Of wonder, will and tender care
We’ll braid each others wild hair
We’ll smile and we’ll cry
Peanut butter, belly aches,
broken bikes and forest raves,
skinny dips in frozen lakes
and warm sweet chai
autumn shedding all our layers
winter by the Himalayas,
woken up by morning prayers
asking why why why why
Even as you leave this place
little star, going back out to space
know that your home is always
here within my mind
But I know I gotta let you go,
Back out into the dark unknown
The world has been awaiting you
go shine your little light
Songwriting by Lilliahna Rogers
The YIP Experience:
“After YIP I feel so strong and ready to sail in a wild sea under many stars. I learned trust, and to see the world with different eyes– with love and hope, and so many ideas and possibilities!”
Words by Jelscha Ganter
My Journey
I knew I would come to YIP since the first time I heard about it, and 4 years later here I am: this place is what I’ve been calling home during this year. I look at the sunny blue sky. Soft breeze kissing the grass. Birds singing me goodbye.
I think that similarly to many people, the urge to understand the world and myself better is what brought me here. “What is my purpose in life? Why do some people have so much while others have nothing? Who am I really?… “ All these questions kept wandering in my head. The desire for deep connections. Hunger for adventures and learnings. Willingness to make a change. And the answer to all those wonders came in the shape of many more questions and a lot of open windows. Millions of possibilities shining through them.
I think that life brings us exactly the things that we need, even if it doesn’t seem so sometimes, even if I doubt this thought often… And here, I was gifted so many things that I needed. Not in the way I thought, maybe. Just how they had to be, maybe.
YIP has been to me a journey of becoming more of myself. It has been all these things I needed put together in a big blue house. In crazy travels across countries, in people that inspired me and taught me so much, in faces that I‘ve got to love dearly. YIP has been to me building community. Saying yes and saying no. Making me doubt the things that I thought I knew, reassuring the things I did know. Tasting freedom, responsibility. Finding purpose, feeling alive. YIP has been to me memories that will live in my heart forever.
I was told once that what we need nowadays is both courage and imagination. I think that another two things that we need are hope and love, and that’s what a place like this gives. How special it is to know that there are so many amazing people out there, all around the world.
I look at the flowing water for the last time. I breathe this clear air one more time.
I’m ready for what’s coming next.
Written by Sara Pagalday
Interconnection
What I Found Between Questions
When I graduated from high school, far more choices opened up before me than ever before. I had left the fixed structure of school and had also legally become an adult. The fact that I could go anywhere and choose anything certainly looked like freedom. Yet when I actually stood before that freedom, I felt more pressure than liberation. It was as if I were a salmon that had just opened its eyes in fast-moving water. I could swim in any direction, but the branches, leaves, and soil around me were already flowing one way. My friends had also begun moving along their own paths. I knew I could go anywhere, but I was afraid to decide which direction was truly mine. From then on, one question continued to follow me: In front of the freedom to choose, what should I do with my life?
I came to YIP hoping to find a clearer answer to this question. I thought that if I looked deeply enough into myself, encountered the lives of different people, and spent time in an unfamiliar environment, I might understand which direction I should take. But the first thing I encountered at YIP was not an answer. Everything was new. The place where I lived, the rhythm of each day, the language I used, and the way I formed relationships were all different. In South Korea, I had long occupied the relatively clear position of a student. At YIP, however, I lived alongside people who had already experienced university, work, travel, and many different ways of living. Living with them naturally brought me face to face with another question: what does it mean to live as an adult? I wanted my choices to be respected, yet I also wanted to avoid the possibility of making the wrong one. I wanted to decide my own direction, yet at the same time I wanted someone to show me where to go. I wanted to express myself freely, yet I constantly watched how others might receive me. Rather than resolving these contradictions, YIP made them more visible.
This led me to another question. Were the parts of myself that I discovered at YIP already there, or were they being created through the new environment and the people around me? I do not think the two can be separated easily. The new environment revealed parts of me that I had not seen before, while forming relationships and facing challenges also created new parts of me. YIP was not so much a place where I uncovered one hidden, authentic self. It was closer to a place where the person I had already been and the person I was becoming continued to meet. The clearest boundary in that change was probably the India Outpost. Before India, I was living in the same place as the other YIP participants, but I did not always feel that I stood in exactly the same position as they did. In a different language and culture, I sometimes responded before my thoughts were fully formed because I did not want to fall out of the flow of conversation. My desire to belong and connect was real, but at the end of the day I often wondered whether my reactions had truly come from within me.
In India, however, all of us were placed within an unfamiliar environment. We moved through unfamiliar transport, food, noise, living conditions, and unpredictable situations together. Of course, we experienced India differently, but we were at least standing in more similar positions than before, looking at the same environment. When we returned to Sweden, I felt that I had come home together with the people of YIP. When I first arrived, it had felt as though I had entered an already existing space alone. After India, it felt as though we had passed through the same experience and were standing beside one another. It was as if I had previously been walking behind the others, but now I was walking closer to them, shoulder to shoulder. This may have been a deeply personal experience, but that is exactly why it mattered to me.
My understanding of connection also began to change. At first, I thought that in order to build relationships, I had to speak well and explain myself clearly. Over time, however, I realised that connection did not depend only on how smoothly I spoke. It could begin with sincere attention. When I was genuinely curious about someone’s experience, asked questions, and stayed with their story instead of quickly turning it into my own, conversations naturally deepened. At the same time, I learned that I did not have to wait for someone else to understand me. I could ask what I wanted to know and share my own experiences in whatever way I could. Connection was not a state in which one person waited for another to understand them. It was a process in which both people moved gradually toward one another. This became even clearer during my internship in Udaipur. What stayed with me most was not one professional skill, but the experience of connecting with people through learning and acting together. We researched, made food, walked through the city, and shared the same work. Even without long, deep conversations, relationships formed through shared experience. Looking back, the same was true at YIP when we prepared food, shared tasks during Service Hour, and spent ordinary time around the dining table. We continued to learn from one another simply by living together.
My experience of being quiet also changed the way I saw other quiet people. When I sat quietly at YIP, my silence was never empty. I was listening, agreeing and disagreeing, connecting what I heard to my own experiences, and forming new thoughts. I simply did not always know when or how to express them. There was a much greater distance than I had realised between visible silence and the movement taking place within it. Being quiet did not make someone less significant. Their silence could contain experiences, emotions, and questions that had not yet found a way to be expressed. This did not mean that it was fine never to speak. Thoughts must eventually take the form of words or actions if they are to reach another person. But I no longer believed that connection depended only on fluent speech. Speaking and listening, asking questions and acting together, and giving someone the space to find their words were all different ways of moving closer to one another.
These experiences also changed the question I had carried before coming to YIP. At first, I believed I had to understand myself fully and find a clear answer before I could make a proper choice. Self-reflection was necessary, but it could also become a place where I continued to postpone action. Should I not think a little more? Should I not wait until I am more certain? Should I not first find the perfect answer in order to avoid the wrong choice? Yet my time at YIP did not unfold in that order. I did not go to India after finding a complete answer about myself. I did not present my farm design only after becoming fully certain of my abilities. I did not begin my personal initiative InnerNet after knowing every direction the project would take. I moved first, and through moving, I discovered myself. While preparing and presenting the farm design, I rediscovered my ability to organise different possibilities, anticipate risks, and shape an idea into a form that could be communicated to others. While travelling alone, I discovered that I enjoyed the freedom of moving without constantly checking other people’s judgement. InnerNet also began not with a complete answer, but with my hesitation before the freedom to choose. Self-understanding was not something completed before action. We understand ourselves in order to act, but we also understand ourselves through acting. I still do not fully know who I am. But I now know that I do not have to remain still in order to understand myself.
This also changed the way I think about choice. Most of the choices I encountered at YIP were not clear. I had to adapt to the community without losing myself, and understand another culture without erasing my own discomfort. While developing InnerNet, I also had to face the fact that the highest-performing AI was not necessarily the most ethical option. I began to understand that many real choices are not about choosing between good and bad, but about setting priorities between different values and needs. The fact that a perfect choice may not exist does not mean that any choice is acceptable. It makes it even more important to understand what I value and to take responsibility for the consequences of my choices. I came to YIP looking for a clear answer. Looking back now, however, YIP was not a time that handed me one. It was a time that changed the way I approach questions. In the past, I believed I could only move forward after resolving a question. Now I feel that some questions do not disappear, but continue to take different forms alongside life. And the fact that a question remains does not necessarily mean that I am not ready. In the end, what I am taking with me from YIP is not one complete answer. It is the knowledge that I can move while still carrying questions, that I can continue to discover myself through action, and that even when I cannot see the whole path, there is still a next step that I can choose now.
Written by Duwon Kim
What Comes After YIP:
Fermenting Ten Months
What I Love About YIP, and What I’m Taking Home:
There’s a question I carry with me: How can we honor the life that lives within us? These ten months let me meet that question from many angles, in many ways. The Yippies taught me so many expressions of love. There are scenes I never want to forget. Mornings that began in a circle, with song. A friend who, while washing vegetables, wouldn’t kill even a tiny insect, but scooped it gently into their hands and set it free by the window. Foraging in the forest, lying together in the grass, breathing deeply, the feeling of a hand squeezed tight in mine. The back of the one still quietly scrubbing the dishwashing station alone, right up to the very last moment. Hiding under the serving table at Almandinen during breakfast, confessing our secrets to each other as we ate. The profile of a friend who walked with me along the fjärd, drawing pictures, writing letters, teaching me which plants we could eat. A homestay in an Indian village, sleeping outside with the goats under a sky full of stars. A friend who patiently taught me to canoe, even though I couldn’t do it AT ALL.
When someone asks me, what was your biggest learning, your take away? — I can’t seem to fit it into a single word. What I received was many living stories.
I can’t forget something a boy said on a farm in India. “I want to become a tree,” he told me. “A tree asks nothing of us, yet it gives us shade, fruit, a place to lean, and healing. I want to become someone like that.” — Could I ever become like a tree?
The Reality I’m Heading Towards:
I’m returning to Japan — but not to my old shape. My former workplace (a major name in education) told me, “Come back to us when you return,” but I said, “no thank you”. I said it. From Tokyo, back toward my home regions of Tōkai and Kansai — to build a more holistic base for education, and to explore social art across borders. I want to cherish the time I couldn’t cherish before — biography work interviews with my grandfather and family, and in daily life, the exploration of fermentation. No matter how fast technology becomes, fermentation never hurries.
What has changed in me? Maybe I’ve become a little more human, ha! I can hold the sense of being alive from my belly now. I realized how deeply the terms “cost-efficiency” and “time-efficiency” had been internalized in me, and in realizing, I could finally forgive that part of myself as also being part of me. I learned that love has many ways of being told, of being shown. My walls were shaken. The disconnection from nature I carried before YIP– the clumsiness remains still, but thanks to the Yippies, I’m slowly re-weaving that relationship.
New questions are beginning to ferment. In this age of rapid change, how can I respond rather than react? How can I cultivate the stillness within me? How can I listen to the voice of my lower dantian (丹田), deeply enough to answer from my own will, without being swept away by the information outside?
This Summer (and Beyond):
From this summer, things begin to move. I’ll help Rie, my role model, start her holistic education base for life. I’ll launch a social art festival. I’ll trace my grandfather’s biography, little by little, through our interviews. And in everyday life, I’ll make kōji ice cream and learn through small acts of fermentation with my own hands. I want to set loose milestones while also practicing Empty empty empty, and surrender to the flow.
How I’ll Digest YIP:
Not by swallowing it whole. The way the gut does — slowly, fermenting as it digests. So much of what I felt in my body over these ten months will live on in the spaces I create.
I’m also still writing Recipes for Reconnection on Substack, one piece a month. It’s free to read on a donation basis, so please take a peek if you’d like. If you subscribe, a letter should arrive, slowly, once a month.
How I’ll Digest YIP:
Everything. Opening an education base, and the challenge of holding a social art festival — these especially make my heart race, drumming deep in my chest. Yes, it’s unknown, and it’s scary. But now I understand. By drawing on our Ugly silly potato (our nickname for our Unique Selling Point), we have things we can do as a team because we’re imperfect. It was the YIP process that let me see this — because I feel everyone’s hands at my back, pushing me forward. Because everyone is breathing as a part of my body.
Coming to YIP, I learned that until now I’d been living inside an indoor greenhouse in Japan. YIP gently let me step outside of it — so I could face the “givens” and the walls I’d built without noticing, and break them. From here, while continuing to explore the land I was born and raised in, and our ancestral wisdom, together with friends — laughing especially when it’s hard — I want to return all the love I’ve been given to the people I’ll meet from now on.
Photos and Writing by Riyo Harata
Post YIP Plans
“What are you doing after YIP?” is a topic that comes up at the dinner table throughout the whole year. I remember that at first, I was one of the few people who already had a plan in mind. Many people come to YIP with the intention of figuring out what they want to do afterwards, so I felt somewhat relieved knowing that wasn’t something I had to worry about. But soon, as everyone started brainstorming their fascinating ideas for the future, I began to question whether I actually wanted to do what I had planned. I changed my mind millions of times, from wanting to volunteer at an eco-village, to co-founding another program like YIP, and eventually coming back to my original plan, which is to study social sciences in Germany.
This August, I’ll be starting my bachelor’s program, Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, at Bard College Berlin. Although the plan has stayed almost the same, I think I look at it with much more certainty now. I also have a deeper understanding of why I want to do this.
This YIP year has truly allowed me to understand myself through my own stories. Especially through the Personal Initiative Project, where I chose “home” as my topic and conducted many interviews to explore the theme of belonging. The experience made me think a lot about why I cared about the topic I chose by looking back at my own biography. It also encouraged me to look into the future and ask myself what I want to create.
A year ago, when I chose this path for myself to study Governance within the field of social sciences, my head was full of ambitious pictures of what my future would look like, working in big international organizations and saving the world. Now, although I still want to “save the world,” I’ve also come to realize that my interest in social structures and social issues is deeply connected to my own story. Ultimately, that’s the reason I want to learn more about them.
I’m incredibly excited to continue exploring these topics that I’m passionate about in an academic environment. I think the experience will be a bit similar to YIP, living in a community with people from around the world and learning about our world together. However, I know that nothing can truly replicate YIP, and it’ll probably be difficult again to be in a space where artificiality is rooted in so much of everyday life. But I’m kind of ready to step back into the mainstream discourse and let it challenge me a little.
Written by Qi (Kiki) Lin
The Collective Wisdom Camp
by Alice and Freya (YIP18)
During this summer, Alice and Freya from YIP18 will be continuing a project that was born in YIP, through inspiration in the courses, the outpost, internship and the opportunity and time given for Personal Initiative. The Collective Wisdom Camp; a month long community learning experience, is an opportunity for young adults to live together on a farm and learn skills within self-sufficiency and connection to community and land. This is taking place on Alice’s ancestral farm in Jämtland, northern Sweden.
The goal behind the project is to give youths a space to experience learning that is lived and shared with others. And equally, a way of viewing wisdom that is decentralized from institutions and hierarchies. A wisdom that can be found in people within a community, harnessed within oneself, and found in nature if one only slows down and learns to listen.
Alongside organizing a space for young people to connect with community members with skills within different crafts and knowledge, Alice has taken inspiration from the experience in growing food that YIP has offered, and is spending the summer creating a garden that will feed the camp in August. This has allowed for a possibility to connect more with the land that their ancestors have grown up on, and created a reminder to slow down and ground.
It’s happening this summer from August 12th to September 11th. Applications are open until the spots fill!
If you or anyone you know would be interested in joining us for this summer,
check out our instagram: @thecollectivewisdomcamp
or send us an email at: [email protected]
Photos and Writing by Alice (Atlas) Falkeström
Ocean
Looking down the ocean
In the moonlight by the shore
Dancing as the wildest
Is a woman with a choice
And the waves roll in
With every beat of heart
And the waves roll out
Let it go
Longing for her freedom
Yet the future so unsure
She gathers all her courage
For the world she wants to hold
And the waves roll in
With every beat of heart
And the waves roll out
Let it go
Don’t you hide
The lonely in your eyes
Watch the tide
A second more
Belonging
Belonging
Belonging
Forevermore
Somewhere, across the ocean
There’s a blue house by a fjärd
In the quiet you’ll hear the music
Of a place we all call home
Belonging
Belonging
Belonging
Forevermore
Songwriting by Ida Paasen
A warmest of farewells and thank yous to YIP18!
May you find your place wherever you land, and carry the full weight of the love and memories you have carefully built with one another. We send you off with hearts full of love, grateful for the harmony and joy!
Alumni Update:
On Design, Impact, and the Path Since YIP
Dear YIP community,
My name is Stephanie, and I was part of YIP 2. It’s hard to believe that my time in Järna was almost sixteen years ago. Looking back, YIP remains one of the experiences that has shaped me most deeply.
Like many of you, I imagine, I left YIP with more questions than answers. The programme opened up a way of seeing the world that made it difficult to simply follow a conventional path. Since then, I’ve taken many different roads, made detours, studied a variety of subjects, and explored different fields – always searching for what feels like my authentic contribution to this world.
Along the way, I discovered design. I have always been drawn to solving problems, so it was fascinating for me to discover that this is, in fact, the original purpose of design: helping people navigate complexity, create clarity, and develop meaningful solutions. At its best, design is about far more than aesthetics. Over time, I found my way into communication design, and that is where I work today.
One observation has stayed with me over the years: many organisations and initiatives working for social and ecological change have powerful ideas, deep expertise, and a genuine desire to make a difference. Yet their messages often struggle to be heard.
At the same time, I have often encountered a certain hesitation towards communication, marketing, and design within the impact sector. Understandably so — these practices are often associated with commercial interests, consumerism, or superficiality.
Over the years, I have come to see them differently. I believe these are simply tools. Like any tool, their impact depends on the values that guide their use. When used consciously and responsibly, communication and design can help meaningful ideas become visible, build trust, and reach the people they are meant to serve.
This understanding eventually led to the founding of “By fair means”, the communication design agency I started together with my partner, Max, seven years ago in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps.
Our name reflects a belief that has shaped both our work and our lives: not only that goals matter, but that the way we reach them matters just as much.
“By fair means” is a principle from mountaineering. It describes reaching a goal with as little external support and resource consumption as possible, while taking full responsibility for one’s actions and showing respect for the natural environment.
For us, it has become a way of thinking that shapes both our work and our lives. It influences how we approach sustainability, how we collaborate with our clients, and the decisions we make throughout the design process. In many ways, it is our attempt to take responsibility not only for what we create, but also for how we create it.
Today, we work at the intersection of communication design, strategy, participation, and impact. We support foundations, NGOs, grassroots initiatives, educational institutions, municipalities, founders, and purpose-driven businesses in sharpening their positioning, aligning their communication, and making their work more visible—through strategic consulting, branding, campaign development, design, and the facilitation of participatory processes.
What drives us is the conviction that design has transformative potential when it is used consciously and responsibly. We do not see communication as an end in itself or as a way to generate attention at any cost, but as a means of making meaningful work visible, understandable, and accessible.
This network is full of people who contribute every day to creating a more liveable future. I believe there is still so much untapped potential within this community—to collaborate more, learn from one another, and support each other through our different skills and experiences.
That is exactly why I’m so happy to share a little of my own journey with you after all these years. We can only connect if we know about each other’s work. Perhaps one day we’ll collaborate on a project. Or perhaps we’ll simply start a conversation, inspire one another, and encourage each other along the way.
And if you’re currently looking for support in sharpening your message and making your work more visible, I’d of course be happy to hear from you.
Warm greetings from the Alps,
Stephanie
- Here is a little film Tom Schäfer (YIP 8) made about us
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- Instagram: @by_fair_means
- If you want to get in touch: [email protected]
We have updated our website with the new curriculum of YIP19. We have very exciting contributors and courses lined up, and a variety of them are open courses!
Interested in participating in the full curriculum?
APPLICATIONS FOR YIP19 ARE STILL OPEN
Limited spaces left! Applications are processed on a rolling basis.
We encourage you to apply as soon as possible.
Visit our website for the full details: yip.se
For any questions, please reach out to us at: [email protected]
