Happi Homes
Every story has a beginning, every river a headwaters, and every human a home; we all come from somewhere. In the past, people had a sense of place in which they were familiar with the human and non-human beings that surrounded them. Community was not only a given, but an irreplaceable part of being alive. We, as a species, have a heritage of creating home together; it’s what we do.
In recent times, our tradition of homemaking has been hindered as we’ve moved from villages to towns, towns to cities, and cities to mega-cities. Over the past centuries, many of the planet’s populations have fled, migrated, or been uprooted from their ancestral homes as the powers of the time pushed forward, thirsty for endless growth and opportunity. Today, many of us live in the wake of that legacy, struggling to find our humanity, connect with our communities, and ultimately remember our belonging. But, this story’s ending hasn’t been written yet and a broken home can always be repaired.
This leaves us asking, what story do we want to tell? What legacy do we want to leave behind? How do we repair? And what does home feel like to us?
At HAPPI, there are many things we call home or would like to call home; our hearts, bodies, relationships, buildings, bioregions, and beyond. We believe home is the feeling that you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be and that you can create it wherever you are.
Happi Homes is devoted to the practice of creating the feeling of home in the places, spaces, and relations we belong to.
To do so, we’ve developed the following principles to serve as guide posts:
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Belonging is our birthright — We believe that anyone who exists on this planet is welcome here and has a role to play in the whole.
Relationship is the foundation of home — We all exist within a web of relationships i.e. the earth, an ecosystem, a neighborhood, a family unit, the food we eat, and the air we breathe. We believe cultivating healthy relationships within this web is the solid ground on which we build a Happi Home.
We all live under the same roof, but each of our rooms are different — We believe in having responsibility for the space we share as well as creativity and autonomy in our individual spaces.
Living is Messy — Creating home takes place through a series of mistakes, lessons, and iterations. Perfection isn’t our intention, authenticity is.
Use the resources you have to create something beautiful — We do not get to choose the ingredients life gives us, but we do get to choose what we make with them.
Home wasn’t (and isn’t) built in a day — We believe the best things in life take time and our ability to practice patience with the process is essential to feeling at home.
How do HAPPI’s other offerings weave into Happi Homes?
The Kitchen is the Heart of a Happi Home
The Kitchen is the space where we gather, and ultimately create meals that nourish the communities we belong to. For those of us in the ongoing journey of creating home for ourselves, we need time and space to try new recipes, tools, and ideas:
We call this process The Test Kitchen.
Learn more below:
The Happi Homie Internship Program
We combined the Test Kitchen toolkit and our Happi Homes framework to create The Happi Homie Internship Program.
This program was in part an educational curriculum we call “Home-Schooling” and in part an internship where program participants, or “homies”, worked with HAPPI and our fiscal sponsees.
Learn more below:
Roadmap
Happi Meals — Organizing Healthy and Intimate Dinners to help people feel at home away from home
Happi Home Online Workshops — Introductory skillshares centered around creating home internally and externally
Online Course(s) — Evergreen and cohort-based educational curriculum(s). The first offering will be directed at using Screen-Based Technology to nourish ourselves and create home.
In-person Educational Programs and retreats — Hands-on experience to learn valuable technical skills and life skills
“When education is not liberating, the dream of the oppressed is to become the oppressor.”