A New School for a New Earth

On February 5th, Ilchi Lee gave a talk to the young students of the current term of the Earth Citizen School—his latest project. Founded in 2013 by Lee, the Earth Citizen School aims to produce leaders who embody the ideal of Earth Citizenship and who will inspire others to adopt it to change their lives.

Students of the Earth Citizen School are learning:
1. what it means philosophically to be an Earth Citizen.
2. key life skills for sustainable living.
3. leadership skills for community service and promoting the Earth Citizen Movement.

The Earth Citizen School goes beyond the traditional classroom. It teaches students how to live mindfully using the mind-body system of Brain Education developed by Ilchi Lee. It also engages students in sustainable living practices such as organic farming and sends them into the local community to teach Brain Education.

The leaders who graduate from the Earth Citizen School will be self-sufficient and have a global humanitarian outlook. They will be committed to their continual self-development and promoting peace and sustainability in communities around the world.

Ilchi Lee emphasized this commitment to self-development in his talk. Self-development begins with being confident in your innate value. Its course is determined by the purpose you set for your life. He told the twenty-four high school and college students from South Korea who have gathered at Sedona Mago Retreat in Sedona, Arizona that they need to recognize that they are very valuable. They need to tell themselves with confidence that they are on earth right now because the 21st century earth desperately wanted them here. Given that, they can ask themselves what they are really here to do, and discovering their purpose, they need to pursue it with determination and integrity. Self-confidence and integrity are essential prerequisites for having the desire and ability to create a harmonious world for all.

Run by the non-profit New Millennium Peace Foundation, the Earth Citizen School began in June 2013 as the Earth Citizen Leadership Course. Passionate individuals in their twenties and thirties from the U.S. and South Korea spent three to ten weeks at Sedona Mago Retreat developing an Earth Citizen Lifestyle.

Earth Citizen School terms will be six weeks long, with the next term beginning on March 9, 2014. Four terms are planned in the U.S. for 2014. The terms are broken into two-week blocks, so students can take them two weeks at a time if they are unable to attend for six weeks at once.