John Croft

I am an international trainer and consultant, who for 40 years has worked in the field of ecologically sustainable community education and community economic development. For 11 years, from 1974, I worked internationally in London, with London University Institute of Education, in Africa, with the British Ministry for Overseas Development, in Paris as a researcher with UNESCO, Geneva, with ILO, Indonesia with the Ford Foundation and British Council, and then with the World Bank’s Integrated Rural Development Project in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. There I developed literacy programs, village water supply and nutrition projects, organised youth and women’s organisations and assisted with developing the Southern Highland’s 2nd 5 year plan. Returning to Australia in 1984, I was co-Founder of the Australian Gaia Foundation, and have been involved in its activities of Personal Growth, Community Building and Service to the Earth sonce 1986, developing with others since 1990 the “Dragon Dreaming” methods of building organisations and projects that assist the cultural transformation necessary for economic, social and environmental sustainability, used in more than 611 Australian projects from 1986-2004. I am the developer and chief trainer of all 12 Dragon Dreaming training programmes. For 23 years I was also working with the Western Australian State Government in the field of Regional Development, helping small and middle sized communities, villages and towns establish and run local projects. During this time I have taught Community and Sustainable Development Courses in four of the five Western Australian Universities. I am a frequent public speaker at conferences, workshops and training programs around the world. Since 2006 I have been involved in taking the Dragon Dreaming methods of Consensual Participatory Strategic Planning for community-based projects and organisations around the world since 2006, to USA, Canada, Brazil, Western Europe (Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands, the UK, Finland), Turkey, Ghana, Egypt, and Russia, he has been involved in assisting Ecovillages, Transition Towns and organisations like the Global Ecovillage Network, and Permaculture Associations in a number of countries. I have been a frequent presenter at GEN Conferences since 2008 and assist as facilitator and consultant in Dragon Dreaming projects. My passion is in making people’s dreams come true by assisting in the development of outrageously successful projects for the Great Turning; the building of a new win-win-win culture that builds a safe and sustaining world for future generations. http://www.dragondreaming.org/trainer/john-croft/