Aaron joined the Cultivate team in early 2015 following an interest in facilitation and group dynamics. Alongside Philippa, he co-coordinated the Permaculture Design Course (PDC) for several years, and, loving the social side of Cultivate, worked closely with Davie designing and facilitating regular courses and events. After supporting many facets of the Cultivate work programme over the years Aaron sought to bring them all together with the community-focused festival ‘Elements of Change’. Since it’s launch in Ireland, Aaron was active with Extinction Rebellion to passionately ring the alarm bell for transformative change; particularly focusing on how XR activists and any community can self-organise and best collaborate – ‘system change not climate change’. Aaron and Mel researched how digitalisation is impacting the rural area with the Horizon 2020 project DESIRA, culminating in 2 reports and 4 videos outlining current drivers of change and plausible future scenarios. Currently Aaron co-coordinates the ESC volunteer programme with Mel to welcome young adults into the cooperative and Cloughjordan community, and together they deliver NonViolent Communication sessions on the ESC and PDC programmes. Continuously interested in how critical issues and all these topics come together, Aaron hosts the talk tent Voices Rising in Global Green. Very importantly, he can also regularly be found DJing (listen on MixCloud) and dancing at events!

Living a diverse lifestyle in community, Aaron’s other livelihoods include teaching the Youth Mindfulness programme to primary school students, co-coaching the Cloughjordan Li Ching Wu kung fu/kickboxing club, and coordinating a wholefoods buyers club.