Who We AreEco Practicum was co-founded by Tal Beery and Eugenia Manwelyan, and is co-facilitated by a team of educators committed to promoting social and environmental justice through empowering learner-centered programming. The on-site educators are dynamic, experienced, and trained to provide high-quality guidance for Eco Practicum participants, leading intellectually rigorous activities and helping to maintain an open and healthy community.
We founded Eco Practicum on the principles of equity and social responsibility, with a profound respect for the knowledge, ideas, and experiences that each participant brings to the table. To create an environment of mutual teaching and learning, we are committed to democratic education and place-based pedagogies. |
So much learning today takes place in a square room removed from the subjects being discussed. I want to explode the way that people learn, reconnect them with place, ideology, and intuition.
- Eugenia Manwelyan, Program Director |
Leadership
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Tal Beery and Eugenia Manwelyan
Co-Founders Eco Practicum is led by co-founders Eugenia Manwelyan and Tal Beery. Together they bring more than three decades of experience in nonprofit management and education.. They are both practicing artists, and infuse management, education, and research with valuable critical and creative approaches. With more than a decade of experience in communal living and activist organizing between them, Eugenia and Tal bring a passion for social justice and post-capitalist economics to their work. Eugenia holds a Masters degree in Urban Planning from Columbia University and occasionally teaches at her alma mater. Her graduate research focused on urban food systems and the ways transportation, economics, and education intersect to influence the nutritional security of Brooklyn neighborhoods. She has brought much of this experience to bear on Eco Practicum curricula and partnerships. Her background in planning is also a major influence on her work as a choreographer, informing her frequent collaborations with architects. She has won numerous grants for this work. Tal is an acclaimed visual artist and educator, holding a degree in fine arts from Purchase College and exhibiting in museums and galleries throughout the United States and Europe as part of numerous artist collectives. Tal has more than a decade of experience with nonprofit leadership and fundraising, particularly focused on educational, environmental, and arts organizations. Prior to co-founding Eco Practicum, he served as the interim development director for Yes Lab, an artist/activist educational nonprofit; he consulted for Givat Haviva Educational Foundation on a major multi-year strategic planning process; and he served as the director of a youth summer camp in the Catskills. He writes and lectures on the relationships between institution building and art making. |
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Rachel Jones
Educator
Rachel Eli Jones is an interdisciplinary artist and designer with a background in construction, farming, and education. With an artful approach, Rachel's work manifests in functional utilitarian pieces that are designed to bring out the natural beauty and capabilities of the materials she uses. Rachel Eli Jones's life and work intersects art and social issues. Not only an artist and crafter, Rachel is also a farmer, teacher, and writer. Strongly motivated by the social, environmental, and economic issues facing the world today, everything Rachel does is part of an investigation into living more self-sufficiently, and responsibly.
Educator
Rachel Eli Jones is an interdisciplinary artist and designer with a background in construction, farming, and education. With an artful approach, Rachel's work manifests in functional utilitarian pieces that are designed to bring out the natural beauty and capabilities of the materials she uses. Rachel Eli Jones's life and work intersects art and social issues. Not only an artist and crafter, Rachel is also a farmer, teacher, and writer. Strongly motivated by the social, environmental, and economic issues facing the world today, everything Rachel does is part of an investigation into living more self-sufficiently, and responsibly.
Seasonal Staff
Benno Canner
Guest Educator
Benno is a farmer, educator, writer and traveler. He has studied permaculture design and has learned a variety of farming techniques through hands on experience working and learning at many different farms around the country. As one of our educators and our farm manager, Benno leads our participants in projects on the farm. He is as excited about guiding and engaging the participants as he is about learning new techniques and principles himself. Benno has been an enthusiastic member of our program staff and continues to be connected to our site, community and mission. He is currently traveling around the Hawaiian islands, teaching himself to grow coffee and swimming with dolphins.
Guest Educator
Benno is a farmer, educator, writer and traveler. He has studied permaculture design and has learned a variety of farming techniques through hands on experience working and learning at many different farms around the country. As one of our educators and our farm manager, Benno leads our participants in projects on the farm. He is as excited about guiding and engaging the participants as he is about learning new techniques and principles himself. Benno has been an enthusiastic member of our program staff and continues to be connected to our site, community and mission. He is currently traveling around the Hawaiian islands, teaching himself to grow coffee and swimming with dolphins.
Brent Lyman
Kitchen Manager & Educator
Brent is an activist, martial artist, chef and butcher. He studied organic farming in France, Zen in Japan and consensus decision making at Occupy Wall Street in New York City. In 2012 he helped organize the kitchen at the 520 Clinton Hub for Occupy Sandy providing aid to thousands of New Yorkers whose lives were disrupted by Hurricane Sandy. Participating in hands on sustainability projects, activism intended to affect policy and exploring theory has led him to discover how deeply interwoven are the environmental and social challenges we face in the 21st century.
Kitchen Manager & Educator
Brent is an activist, martial artist, chef and butcher. He studied organic farming in France, Zen in Japan and consensus decision making at Occupy Wall Street in New York City. In 2012 he helped organize the kitchen at the 520 Clinton Hub for Occupy Sandy providing aid to thousands of New Yorkers whose lives were disrupted by Hurricane Sandy. Participating in hands on sustainability projects, activism intended to affect policy and exploring theory has led him to discover how deeply interwoven are the environmental and social challenges we face in the 21st century.
Eco Practicum Interns
[email protected]
Eco Practicum hires alumni to work year-round and during the programs. If you are an Eco Practicum Alum and are interested in participating as an intern in an upcoming program, get in touch! We would love to hear from you.
[email protected]
Eco Practicum hires alumni to work year-round and during the programs. If you are an Eco Practicum Alum and are interested in participating as an intern in an upcoming program, get in touch! We would love to hear from you.