At CI we take the responsibility of being a business seriously. We use 100% green power. We have a virtual office, with no environmentally expensive infrastructure. We use very little paper in our office, and none to produce our news. We don’t chop down half a forest to put out a new edition, as the mainstream media does.

We’re interested in building community, building this community, linking us to the world, and to social movements everywhere. We’re into connection. We’re all connected, via our technology, but also because we’re all connected morally, physically, genetically.

This is your home, it’s the only one you got

Click the wombat:

At Castlemaine Independent we share our income equitably and have a democratic working structure, with no ‘boss’ and no ‘employees’.

We see Castlemaine Independent as a corporate citizen of the world. As writers and aware citizens, it’s not our role to take the site of corporations and the powerful.

Loans and donations

Because education is the way forward for more than half the world’s population who have no access to it, we have donated to World Vision to supply school materials and to train a teacher.

Brisas De Leones Group, from Honduras, received a loan from CI that assisted them to buy livestock. They are one of 26 we have loaned money to.

But we don’t believe hand outs are the answer, and we have loaned money to Kiva, a fantastic organisation that supports entrepreneurs from poor countries around the world through micro-loans. Fourteen men, women and collectives from Ecuador, Paraguay and Bolivia to the Philippines, Uganda and Armenia are currently achieving their goals with the help of CI loans.

We have also donated to the Pachamama Alliance, to help the indigenous Achuar people in their struggle against more oil drilling on their lands.

FOUR YEARS. GO.

Castlemaine Independent has joined FOUR YEARS. GO. a global movement of commitment and action.

The earth is at a critical juncture. While politicians prevaricate and posture the planet warms, species drop off the list, empire-building regimes and rampant militarism trample the world’s weak and pollution takes an inexorable toll on natural ecosystems, other living beings, and our health. We are all connected.

FOUR YEARS. GO. is based on the premise that humankind is on a trajectory toward global tipping points, after which the decline of our natural life-support systems might become irreversible. We now possess the technology, resources and know-how, but to successfully address all our problems and set ourselves on a new path we need commitment. Despite the threats, this moment could be history’s greatest turning point — with a new future within our grasp. What is missing is the sense of urgency and the popular will and commitment to get it done.

With thousands of other organisations from around the world Castlemaine Independent has joined and pledged to help set our world irreversibly on a new path to a just, thriving and sustainable future for all. FOUR YEARS. GO. sees the next four years as crucial to be a positive tipping point in humanity’s future, by the end of 2014.

In our own community

Collectively, CI staff donate hundreds of hours to our own community, through Berkeley St Kindergarten, at Castlemaine Goldfields Football Club, by helping others with IT, and with the Castlemaine Fire Brigade.