How can Learning Landscapes reshape movements and systems?

What is the Learning Landscapes approach?

“This wasn’t learning for its own sake - it was survival work, care work, movement work. It was learning to stay in dignity and action, rooted in the urgencies that shape our daily lives” – Jane Burt, founding member of realife Learning

At its heart, the Learning Landscapes approach recognises that learning should begin with the real experiences of injustice that people live through every day. It acknowledges that all knowledge systems have value whether they are spiritual, indigenous, scientific or rooted in the everyday life of a community. This model sees everyone as a learner, including researchers and facilitators, and treats the learning process as a shared and political journey. It understands learning as something that happens through cycles of action and reflection. And, crucially, it supports people to see themselves differently: as leaders, researchers, environmental defenders, and agents of transformation. This kind of learning doesn’t just happen in a classroom. It happens in rivers, clinics, courtrooms, and kitchens. It’s emotional and political. It’s about building confidence, confronting oppression, and rediscovering our power.

How does it work?

“The best people to research the contexts of people who bear the brunt of environmental injustice are those experiencing it and acting to change it." – December Joseph Ndlhovu, environmental rights defender and Director of the Ratanang Colab and realife Learning founding member.

Each person participating in Learning Landscapes develops a change project that is grounded in the issues they and their communities are facing. These projects aren’t hypothetical, they are rooted in lived realities and designed to make a real difference. As participants work on their projects, they bring back insights, reflections and challenges to the group. The course then shifts in response, meaning the learning process is flexible, responsive and shaped by those taking part. This way of working allows issues like gender violence, state exclusion, or the silencing of traditional knowledge to come into the centre of the process, not as side topics, but as central catalysts of learning and action. Paulo Freire called this recognizing the generative moment in a learning process.

Networks that grow from learning

"We argue in our case that spiritual water users are custodians of our rivers… and therefore should be involved as monitors of our water." – Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance change project

As people share stories and build strategies together, something powerful starts to happen: connections form between communities, movements, and places. People who once felt isolated in their struggles discover shared ground and mutual purpose. Relationships stretch across different sectors linking environmental activists with gender justice advocates, traditional healers, and many others. These relationships grow into networks based on trust, care, and commitment. And these networks, if supported and resourced, amplify knowledge, make injustices visible, and shape the direction of movements.

“It takes continual work to keep these networks and relationships alive, but unless you give time to this, they will be partners and networks in name only.” – Jane Burt, founding member of realife Learning

And it doesn’t stop with the participants

“We go to present the project itself… we have already done the research, we know what we are talking about… we have the evidence." – Mduduzi Tshabalala, member of the Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance

This approach isn’t just transformative for those taking part. It also ripples outward, shifting the institutions and systems that participants engage with. Funders and formal institutions are asked to reconsider what counts as valuable knowledge. When they encounter rigorous, lived knowledge from communities, presented with clarity and care, they start to see its legitimacy. Universities and government departments are challenged to face the ways they have excluded and silenced certain voices. Some begin to change how they relate to knowledge, power, and community. Researchers who may have begun the process as observers are transformed into collaborators. Facilitators are changed too, by what they hear, by how they’re challenged, and by what they learn in relationship with others. Relationships begin to form across traditional lines of difference: between activists and officials, spiritual leaders and scientists, women and men, researchers and Sangomas. These relationships enable new forms of organising, collaboration, and action. The evidence generated through change projects is used in public hearings, court cases, and advocacy efforts. Participants present to national commissions, write publications, and create outputs that reshape policy conversations. What began as a learning process evolves into a living, breathing learning network.

So what does this teach us?

“What we built together was not just a course. It was a movement practice, a learning rooted in place, pain, joy, and collective reimagining” - Jane Burt, founding member of realife Learning

Real learning is not just a method. What starts as a course becomes a political shift. The whole system becomes more connected. It’s a movement. When learning is rooted in justice, relationships, and care, it becomes a way to shift power, deepen connection, and grow new possibilities. Learning Landscapes doesn’t just teach, it transforms. It creates the conditions where people can reclaim dignity, reassert knowledge that has been marginalised, and build the collective power needed for long-term, systemic change. It reminds us that education is never neutral. It either reinforces the system or it helps us change it. And when it helps us change it, we begin to see something new: a world where rivers are honoured, community knowledge is taken seriously, and learning is a shared act of courage.

Contact realife Learning if you would like to know more about our Learning Landscapes approach and offer. hello@realifelearning.org

How can Learning Landscapes Reshape Movements and Systems? © 2025 by realife Learning is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/1