An organisation close to our heart, Be The Earth is proud to be supporting the Brazilian social education organisation, Elos Institute. In this exclusive interview with co-founder Rodrigo Rubido, we explore Elos’ transformative approach to leadership — emphasising dialogue, community, and finding joy along the way.
What inspired you to start the Elos Institute, and how has it evolved over time?
Love, responsibility, and a pleasure of being in service: these are the words that best translate the reason we created Elos.
We were a group of 5 young architecture students when we started to engage in the student movement, trying to change the architect's education to be better professionals for people and planet. Through organising student's gatherings and workshops across South America, we fell in love with people, youth energy, and different cultures. We started to prototype and execute actions to change critical situations in the cities, such as the Brazilian favelas.
We realised that we could make a difference: that realisation brought a sense of responsibility. This was confirmed when a group of student leaders from other South American countries asked us to create a course to train students from their countries.
In 1999, that request propelled us to develop the GSA (Warriors Without Weapons) course.
The idea was to train a new generation of young leaders to address social, environmental and economical challenges through a methodology focused on listening, dialogue, co-creation and collaboration among local communities, developing solutions based on local culture and wisdom — connected with global challenges.
We developed a course that unites theory and practice, interacting with local communities to build a common dream together. That experience was really powerful. The 60 attendees from six countries felt deeply connected to the cause of transforming society through this approach and were inspired by the prospect of joining a global network of activists and changemakers, fostering future collaboration.
Moreover, the impact on the community was significant enough that participants remained engaged in new projects even after the course ended. Following the second edition of the GSA course in 2000, we felt a deep sense of love and responsibility for this work. Founding Elos Institute emerged as the best strategy to move forward, allowing more people and communities to benefit.
Back then, we believed our mission was to train a new generation of young leaders, promoting local development based on local talents and resources. With time, we understood that the mission was much bigger: to ignite cultural change.
Today, we speak of shifting from a culture of scarcity, competition, violence, and oppression to one of abundance, cooperation, dialogue and inclusion. We see our role in this transformation as “propelling a movement to bring to life the world we all dream of — now”. In other words, we train people to facilitate connection and dialogue around shared dreams, while inspiring hands-on collaboration to turn those dreams into reality.
What makes the Elos approach to leadership training different?
We seek to train what we call “mobilising leaders”. These are leaders who have learned to listen and foster dialogue and collaboration before telling people what to do — so the vision they pursue is not exclusively from their minds and egos. They learn to connect with people, and put themselves in service of a collective dream. Through this, they help collective intelligence and community power to emerge.
It implies an understanding that the path for change must be walked together. There is no hero that will save us: we all need to learn to dialogue and collaborate to make the changes we dream of. This can seem beautiful — I believe it is — but it’s also a huge challenge.
I often say that the biggest threat for the planet is not hunger, or climate change, or war: it is the ability of humans to dialogue, build trust, agree and collaborate. The solutions are already there but we fail in making them work because of that.
At Elos, we provide a practical methodology that helps individuals and communities cultivate these qualities — engaging in meaningful dialogue, imagining a shared future, and working together to make it happen. The approach also encompasses self knowledge, nature connection, and ancestral wisdom, as we need to develop internal strength to be able to lead this path of transformation.
Another key element is Elos’ strong sense of community. Participants become part of a supportive international network of changemakers, ensuring they never feel alone.
What's the greatest barrier for the new generation of changemakers, and how can they be overcome?
I can't say the greatest, as there are many. First, today's challenges the world is facing are complex (perhaps the complexity was always there but we are increasingly aware of it). Consequently, it’s hard to even know what to do and our attempts to provoke change can often seem ineffective.
Second, the lack of financial and social support. This is especially harmful when young changemakers are starting on their path and they need to be supported even to make mistakes.
The mindset of mainstream philanthropy is still looking for heroic individuals with “the idea" to change the world. The truth is that we need all the ideas; we need time to try out new ideas, make mistakes, adjust, try again.
We were led to believe that doing social work is about being a good person and doing good things. But the truth is that’s not enough. Making this world a good place demands a lot of thinking, practical research, methods, mastery and a huge energy to persist over the challenges. This context can be very discouraging — even more so when you feel you are alone trying to make a change.
That is one of the reasons I always tell our GSA students to not expect their path to be easy, so don’t take it alone — find good company. You don't need to be “the one”, but instead, look for people and organisations whose work you admire and join them.
Finally, make sure to have fun on the way, and celebrate the small achievements. The path is long, and sustaining our energy means finding joy in every step — not just at the finish line.
How does Elos define a regenerative society, and how do we get there?
The best way to answer this question is through the Elos Manifesto. It presents our values and the key steps that we propose to build a regenerative society. I'll share it here:
“Learning to transform is what moves us and, to us, the best method is working together!
Because learning happens along the way — in continuous movement between dreaming, realising, reflecting, sharing and doing again.
We discovered that transformation begins in your own attitude, in the way you live your experience. One must dive into oneself with a look of abundance to find, within challenges, the best opportunities to develop.
We believe that the most valuable transformation happens in interaction with people in real life. The relationship with the other makes us learn about ourselves. We cultivate caring and empathic relationships, at the distance of an embrace, eye to eye. We know transformation gains more power when it happens in community.
We believe in partnership, cooperation and coexistence. We value shared knowledge, action and enjoyment.
We celebrate diversity and build unity and trust among different people, so that the collective evolves to become community.
We reestablish our connection with nature to recognise that we are part of the community of life.
In direct interaction with the forest, the seas, the rivers, we encounter our own inner nature. We seek, in indigenous ancestral wisdom, the enhancement of human qualities that develop outside the mental, but within the physical, the emotional and the spiritual.
Thus, we understand that transformation must take place integrated with a greater purpose, such as the realisation of a dream shared by many. Then everything we do and learn is at service of building a wonderful world for all people and for the whole community of life.
This construction is the transformation we are learning to do, and are realising now!
Because we know that when we launch ourselves in search of an impossible dream, when we persist even in the face of the unknown, transformation happens and realising the best world we can dream of becomes possible."
What’s your greatest source of inspiration for ‘the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible’?
I couldn't help but notice that you used the quote from a book by Charles Eisenstein — who is certainly a great source of inspiration for me.
Another individual who inspires me is the Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire who was arrested and exiled during the dictatorship, and afterwards continued teaching, developing pedagogies for social change and talking about joy and hope until the end of his life.
In sharing these two examples, I believe that my greatest source of inspiration is the stories of people who dedicate their lives to making this world a better place. This starts with the common people: the mothers who raise their children with love and responsibility.
The small farmers who plant and produce good food for the world; the artists who dedicate their talents to producing beauty and enchanting the world by helping us imagine new possibilities; the children who always believe in the possibility of a wonderful world until we convince them that it is not possible.
The diverse people who accept our invitation every year and commit 30 days of their lives to attend the GSA course, to learn how to transform the world with us.
The nature that embraces us and teaches us how to produce life in abundance for all beings.
Finally, the indigenous and traditional peoples who — even though they are threatened, violated and oppressed by us, “civilised peoples” — are not fighting against us.
They are patiently trying to make us understand how to cooperate with life instead of extracting life, something nature taught them a long time ago.