"In a regenerative culture, we re-establish a right relationship with the places where we live." This key citation from Daniel Wahl — a pioneer and leading reference in the field — appeared in an interview published in September 2026, and encapsulates what any practitioner of regenerative development aspires to contribute.
In his inspiring work Designing Regenerative Cultures, published in 2016, Wahl highlights the importance of placing culture at the centre of regeneration.
Culture both determines and is shaped by our worldview — the way we relate, care, eat, and ritualise. It is the common ground from which a path of regeneration can consciously emerge. That path is nothing more than a reminder that we are part of a living system: biointelligent, dynamic, complex, and unpredictable.
Drawing a parallel with agriculture, culture emerges from below, never from the top — and it does not come from outside. It comes from local biointelligence. It is therefore more about understanding what is fertile and naturally springs from this soil than about importing cutting-edge technology from elsewhere.
Two fundamental aspects arise when speaking of regeneration:
What is the essence and potential of this Place?
What makes it unique, and towards what greater potential does it wish to move? If the Place could speak, what would it say? And how can we, as participants and stewards of the Place, contribute and create the conditions for more life, vitality, and health to be generated?
This conscious practice draws us away from the traditional degenerative worldview — heavily focused on separation and problem-solving — which leads not only to demotivation and exhaustion among activists, but above all to the repetition of the same mistakes and patterns (adapted from Carol Sanford, Regenesis Institute, and Lúcida):
Fragmenting: breaking issues into themes (poverty; climate; food) while losing sight of the larger system, sometimes generating problems in parallel areas;
Categorising: managing vast amounts of information by boxing it into categories;
Generalising: forcing everyone to fit into idealised concepts;
Determining: systematising rigid categories and processes that ignore the particularities of the Place;
Aggregating/linearising: reinforcing one worldview as superior to another;
Scaling: persuading others to accept that worldview as best practice;
Forgetting: entering autopilot mode, reproducing defined patterns and saturating markets with 'solutions' that may not be appropriate — even as they generate numbers that comfort our minds, fixated on immediate results.
It is important to note here that being an apprentice-practitioner of regeneration is more about unlearning than about a technical upgrade. It requires, beyond systemic vision, presence, listening, patience, and courage.
Regeneration is life itself happening. It means returning attention to the foundational principles of living systems and re-entering a partnership with life itself — relating correctly with the landscape, the ecosystem, and the community that inhabits it.
According to Brian Goodwin, and from Daniel Wahl's perspective, this requires three key aspects on which we can actively work:
The quality of information: do people understand what is happening around them and how their work relates to the broader context?
The quality of relationships: is there sufficient trust for people to listen to one another, navigate disagreements, and continue to collaborate?
Can people see the system as a whole — can the system see itself? How are they connected and what greater purpose do they share?
In my own direct experience, the work with the Clube dos Embaixadores (Ambassadors Club), now active across six distinct territories, has revealed that the greatest difficulty lies, first and foremost, in our worldview and our relationship with Life. The first thing to regenerate is thought itself.
The predominant perception of separation — Humanity versus Nature; Internal versus External; Myself and Others (where I am typically on the side of good and Others on the side of bad) — and its connection to the patterns described above (Carol Sanford) unconsciously directs not only our daily actions, but also, at the level of governance, the design of policies, programmes, and initiatives.
By reframing our lens on Life and the World, we can then build a shared narrative about the Place — one in which everyone recognises themselves and which serves as inspiration for the path ahead.
The second major difficulty — and this is where the selection of Ambassadors makes all the difference — is the quality of relationships. On one hand, extraordinary things are often already being done, but each actor continues to work in their own silo. On the other hand, a sense of powerlessness ('I alone can do nothing'), or disputes rooted in a worldview of separation, scarcity, and fear, make it difficult to create or return to a shared purpose: contributing to the regenerative development of the Place.
Re-igniting the Ambassadors' love for the Place is key to advancing from that common ground. Trust, belonging, and group cohesion are then fundamental for them to serve as stewards and mobilisers within their territories — not as Hero-Leaders, but as Host-Leaders and Guardians, capable of sustaining spaces for reflection, dialogue, and co-construction, and shifting the protagonism from the Individual or even the Organisation (Ego) to the Place and System (Eco).
Finally, and no less importantly, when we speak of regeneration, we must bear in mind that the quality of the work done externally depends on the quality of the work done internally. There is no truly inspiring or mobilising external activism without the willingness and courage to engage in inner work at the individual level. And this is continuous work, for life.
It is for this reason that the Ambassadors Club is a journey that traverses the three dimensions of Caring: Caring for Myself, Caring for Others, and Caring for the Whole.
The project's objective is always to bring together an intergenerational and interdisciplinary group — passionate about the place and committed to its best future. To map the strengths of the Place and work in partnership with them. To understand what is already being done that nurtures, cares for, and regenerates — and how that can be encouraged and amplified to bring more life, vitality, and health to the entire system across its social, environmental, cultural, and economic dimensions.
Yet funding still chases large, rapid results. What makes the report and the headline are usually the striking photographs and the data:
In our first territory — the village of Mahungo, Bilene — the first quarter of 2026 recorded four programmes (two completed and two ongoing), a total of 37 sessions, and ten collective actions across the areas of agriculture, biodiversity, climate action, soil health, water and air quality, waste management, financial literacy, computing, English language, gender justice, clean-up campaigns, and talks on peace and sustainability.
These activities involved 15 Ambassadors and nine mentors, reaching 460 community members through schools, assemblies, community meetings, church services, markets, and the beach.
But the most important element here is not these numbers. Problem-solving, best practices, and scaling up are not seductive words in the context of regeneration — we already know they are associated with patterns of mechanistic thinking and degenerative economics. Regeneration is about the Power of Life, not Power over Life.
What matters most is the quality of the relationships, trust, and safety that are gradually built and felt. It is the strengthening of belonging and local pride. It is the young Ambassador who sees someone dropping litter and speaks up: 'This is our beach — we do not want rubbish on the ground.' It is the young female Ambassador who, upon identifying a situation of violence at school, intervenes — and does so with confidence. It is the group of young people who, having gained a new lens on Life and the World, instead of engaging in the destructive actions witnessed on the last 25 September, channel their attention and energy into meaningful causes — for themselves and for the Place.
Kutsaca ONGD has 12 years of experience in capacity building and created the Ambassadors Club in 2022.
BCI is the official sponsor of the Ambassadors Club in our first territory — the village of Mahungo, Bilene — and is also the funder of our sustainable greenhouse.
+Emprego II, a programme funded and managed by IP Camões and co-funded by the European Union, launched two Ambassador groups in Cabo Delgado and Nampula in August of this year.
The programme is present in three additional territories in Portugal and Cabo Verde, holds recognition from the United Nations University, and is supported by a team of mentors and partners with extensive national and international experience.
Source: Diário Económico
Original article: https://www.diarioeconomico.co.mz/?p=549271
