The Otesha Project is a grassroots group of hopeful young people who know that our current way of life is harming the planet and its inhabitants, but believe that hope and action will remedy this.

Otesha means “reason to dream” in Swahili. This group insists that we must BE the positive change we want to see in the world, by re-evaluating our own daily actions and recognizing alternatives to our culture of overconsumption. Otesha insists that each one of us has opportunities to make positive impacts every single day.

Otesha spreads the word with educational programs and bicycle tours. They use theatre, multi-media, and storytelling to engage a wide range of audiences, and have reached thousands of people this way.

In fact, the 2008 cycling and performing tours will happen in May, July, and September. Teams of 15-20 people aged 18-30 will set off on tours throughout Canada, performing plays and offering workshops on sustainability and social justice issues to schools and community groups. Before taking off, participants receive training in public speaking, group facilitation, theatre, media, relations, sustainable living, bike touring and bike maintenance. You can be one of them! Here’s the page with all the information.

Otesha also has a Triple-H program: The Hopeful High School Hooligan. Since 2004, 18 teams of students across Ontario have participated by getting trained over an intensive weekend session, to perform the Otesha “Morning Choices Play”. This play is about choices we can make before setting out in the morning, involving: Water, Clothing, Media, Coffee, Food, and Transportation. More info about Triple-H.

Then there is “The Otesha Book: From Junk to Funk”. This book is produced by a revolutionary process used by Warren’s Waterless Publishing in Toronto, Canada. This company uses no water, 100% post-consumer waste, and vegetable-based inks. The paper mill is even powered with bio-gas from a nearby landfill.

The book itself can be bought, or downloaded. The chapters are the same as the Morning Choices Play: Water, Clothing, Media, Coffee, Food, and Transportation. Each chapter is split up into: Removing the Blinders, Mirror, Empowerment, and Action. So for example, the first chapter is about Water. First the blinders are removed, showing how clear freshwater is such a tiny percentage of the world’s water, and over a billion people don’t have access to clean water today. The mirror section shows the lowdown of our daily actions, from flushing the toilet to showering to brushing our teeth.

The empowerment section shows us that individuals and organizations are out there raising awareness, like the Young Water Action Team at Ywat.org. The action section shows us positive changes we can make in our daily lives to conserve our fresh water supply. These include ways to preserve toilet water, for example, by only flushing down if it’s brown, instructions to convert a standard toilet to a low flush with only a rock and a container, and using grey water from the shower to flush.

Otesha is an informative, empowering, and inspiring project. We do have reason to dream and to change our daily actions towards sustainable lifestyles! Check out The Otesha Project web site.