Adrian Röbke and Konkankoh Joshua On Infusing Modern Business With Indigenous Knowledge

Konkankoh Joshua is an Indigenous elder and social entrepreneur who combines regenerative education, permaculture and environmental leadership to reduce social inequalities.

He was initiated to be an elder in his village and has guided many rights of passage for young people ever since. His mission is to share the diversity of African wisdom with the youth of the nation. Konkankoh connects many cultures to co-create community building projects together and give birth to something new. He is a serial founder of impact and community management projects, such as an award-winning eco village. For many years, he developed extensive experience in building movements for systems.

Adrian Röbke is deeply dedicated to the thriving of people and the planet. born and raised in Germany, He claimed the responsibility to contribute to positive societal transformation.

He studied global management of social issues in the Netherlands to deepen his understanding of complex systems. While there, he discovered that it’s his life's work to weave multi-stakeholder networks to co-create systemic change. His main focus is to serve change makers across the world by bridging knowledge, mindsets, and practices. He's particularly fascinated by how we can cultivate the capacities to shift systems into more thriving and regenerative states, and serves life with great curiosity, compassion and courage.

Adrian and Konkankoh discuss how modern indigenous enterprises are creating and rejuvenating communities and why social entrepreneurs need support from impact networks.

Highlights from the interview (listen to the podcast for full details)

[Indio Myles] - To start off, could you please both share a bit about your backgrounds and what led to your work in social enterprise?

[Konkankoh Joshua] - Social enterprise may exist in English, so I will relate it to the Indigenous. I grew up in a village, and this village is a big kingdom in a part of Cameroon called Ambazonia. It was all about social connection, because the whole village lives in solidarity and off the land. The important thing was to be in good alignment with nature, and we believed that our ancestors speak to us through nature. I will give you a little bit of context, because I was growing up during the time of colonisation. It just happened that we had to practice our real culture underground, because we were now being imposed by a new culture through the education system that came with the missionaries and economic systems. Our food sovereignty was being changed; we had to farm what were called cash crops for the colonisers, which didn't give crops to the people. I was also growing up in a family where my father as a blacksmith was the real engineer of the village, manufacturing things like machetes. Then the Germans fought a war with us, and my father had to shift underground to start imitating the weapons they were using for royalty. This was a hectic time for me, you had to be really strong in order to survive in the system. Being connected with the royalty, we had some systems to preserve the culture and one of them was called rite of passage. This is how the village elders take the youth through the tough period, because when the times were tough, they needed tough people. I happened to be selected as one of them.

This background really set me onto entrepreneurship, because life meant being enterprising in order to live, and life was about social innovation. We had to adapt ways to cope with our situation, which meant improving with what we already had.

All we had was our love economy, because everything was then in solidarity. You didn't have to own anything. If the village woman or anyone wanted to make a farm, everybody came out and went and made that farm. If a man wanted to build a house, everybody came out and the house was built. They knew what to select from the forest. This is the background in which I grew up. Then of course, I had to do education, and it was through Christianity I got named Joshua. I had to adopt an English name in order to go to school. At the same time, I was also strong in the underground movement of teaching young people to remain themselves and preserve our culture. Later on, I did environmental journalism, and I also worked in government in social security. This also strengthened my will to adopt and adapt the indigenous to the modern. That's how I met Adrian.

[Adrian Röbke] - I was born and raised in the South of Germany, and it was also in my adolescence where I went into somewhat of a crisis as I came to realise the severity and urgency of our global situation. We see now more and more obviously how our ecosystems are collapsing, how there's just so many injustices and people being oppressed. There's such a great need for change and a huge opportunity. That really broke my heart in many ways, and obviously coming from Germany which is one of the countries in the West who has been creating a lot of this global hegemony, I was in a more privileged position.

This and just the basic fact of being human comes with this deeper sense of responsibility, and this question of where do I make my contribution and how do I bring my unique gifts into the collective to create change?

That personal crisis led me deeper and deeper into exploring what it is that I want to contribute, and I really set out to explore different cultures, ideas and be in lots of different communities to talk about these issues and see how they adapt to become more resilient. Then I went to the Netherlands to study global management of social issues, which is really this interdisciplinary program that equipped me to understand complex systems and how we can address these wicked problems of climate change and inequities more effectively. Next to these more scientific paths, I was always very practical. In the first month of my study, I founded a local community organisation, which was on the ground and had this idea of bridging different people together. It was weaving different initiatives and ideas, because I'm very convinced that we can only create change together. That led me over the years to be part of many communities and to facilitate lots of dialogues, to create many connections and organise with a lot of people worldwide.

As co-founders of Indigenous and Modern, could you both please share a bit more about this enterprise and its core social impact activities?

[Adrian Röbke] - Konkankoh and I met two years ago at a conference. It was really this moment of synergy where I was incredibly inspired by his indigenous wisdom and practices. I really already brought in these modern ideas of networks and how we can collaborate at scale. That was really where it was born.

Now we are exploring where indigenous practices of connecting deeply with the land and world meet modern science, technology and all of the new things we’ve learnt about systems and how they evolve?

In between the indigenous and the modern, we're really focused on capacity building and helping change makers around the world to build their initiatives. We have programs and learning opportunities where we bring together groups that are intergenerational, intercultural and we are going through processes where they build their initiatives. We ask them about what their theory is of change? How can they bring systems thinking into their work? What is their target group? How can they do all of these very practical things? At the same time, we focus on this inner transformation, because social entrepreneurship takes a lot of courage and dedication. We really combine this deep inner work with outer structural work.

[Konkankoh Joshua] - We met at the time when everybody was advocating for systems change. Actually, the conference we went to be a group of changemakers meeting to compare notes and see what the best strategy is. I came from the point of view that for once, indigenous knowledge can come to the foreground as a contribution when we imagine that the systems, we are trying to repair cannot lift out the natural systems. Growing up in my community, we knew that with the natural systems, water, food and especially the culture and our beliefs, we believe that the spirits of the ancestors live in trees or in the water or stones. We knew how to align and connect.

I felt that talking about systems change only from the point of view of the modern and the scientific leaves out a very important part of what could actually help in understanding why the systems are clashing in the first place?This could come from no other than the indigenous who have learned resilience by dealing with preserving nature.

Indigenous practices are quite diverse in our concepts of community development. We believe that the systems that make us have to be honoured, as we are part of the soil.

We are part of the trees we eat from forests to agriculture. It's something we believe; we have to honour food. It was really important for me to use the idea that we are not seeing one system being indigenous or modern. It's better when we look at all the component parts in a holistic way. It was very important for me to understand there are lots of complications and obstacles when it comes to trying to bridge the polarities. We know that naturally people who talk of the Global South/Global North, global poor/global rich and global have-nots/global have-all forget about the systems that are really perpetrating these events. It was an opportunity for me to find a reception point when Adrian displayed the system he had developed to try and connect the points. I felt that interconnection is also integrating. Indigenous for me found an entry point to be able to integrate not only the narrative, but also the systems.

What are some inspiring projects, initiatives or movements that you've come across recently that are creating a positive social change?

[Adrian Röbke] - The first thing to highlight is there are so many out there, and this is really what's giving me hope and inspiration. We see thousands of initiatives and millions of people making their contribution, so it's somewhat hard to just pick one. I'd love to mention 10, 20 or 100, but for the sake of time, it's nice to also talk about people who we've worked with and helped with their projects. Somebody who's come coming to mind is Puned Singal, he's the founder of Start. He has been incredible working in the slums of Delhi to build a resource centre for disabled people. He is doing incredible advocacy work to create more accessibility, inclusion, recognition and empowering disabled people in decision making. He was nominated as one of 50 voices in impact for disabled people, so he is really growing this work more fully. I think that's such a huge topic as well. The second person, who is from Kenya is Celestine, and she's really working in a rural setting, bringing together farmers, stakeholders and investors as well. This to create a centre for permaculture to save seeds to experiment with new regenerative agriculture products. Through joining our program, she really gained a deeper sense of confidence in her vision. She found a founder, sharpened her idea and really developed the courage to make it happen.

[Konkankoh Joshua] - For me, from the perspective of the Indigenous, it's always really practical and hands-on. I'm involved with the Eco Village movement, and the Eco Village acts as an acupuncture point in this regeneration process. They not only promote community, but a harmonious living between the animals, plants and water. Then there are many permaculture initiatives which concentrate on integral design. We've already said how important all initiatives are. I founded an Eco Village on these principles, and we found that it quickly made impact not only in the Eco Village movement in Africa, but also in the world. I'll also mention CoFSA, which is a conscious food movement. The UNDP are also trying to see how they can regenerate agricultural systems, but also especially from the point of view of raising consciousness around food issues.

When talk about regeneration, it's really to do with the practical elements that make us what we are as the first custodians of systems.

There are lots and lots of regenerative initiatives; one of them is the Regenerators Academy that I'm also part of, trying to look at regeneration from different perspectives. Recently, something started within the UN Conference of Parties. It's called the UNFCCC. It's about the resilient frontiers, and I think all these opportunities of looking beyond the boundaries that are often set by those who have the powers to control the systems, is an approach that is inclusive.

To finish off now, are there any books or resources that you think would be valuable to people looking at the social impact or entrepreneurship space?

[Adrian Röbke] - To all of you who are listening, I think it's a very vast space to navigate.

I just want to encourage finding the initiatives that suit you best; that are really resonating with your own purpose, your own heart and where you want to go. It feels difficult to learn about these issues, because they are so vast and complex.

But I really want to encourage the small steps; going from one conversation and resource to the other. In terms of books for this work, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer is a wonderful account of how indigenous teachings specifically about plants come together with modern science. It's very beautiful how she weaves personal story (the stories of her peoples) and her scientific perspective as a professor in botany. It's very moving, touching and insightful in terms of how we can bring the indigenous and the modern world views together more fully. Then if you want to dive deeper into the practice of weaving, connecting people and projects in these larger networks that we talk about, Namrata Arora and I wrote a very practical guide on the practice. It's just a few pages, but it really goes into key mindsets and practices that are important for weavers to pick up.

[Konkankoh Joshua] - When we talk about systems change, people are always talking about books and scientific theories. I wonder about that if all these books and science out there were actually giving the light on how to see systems change, why are the systems still clashing? I’m seeing this from the indigenous perspective, where we don't have books, we don't read books and we depend on an oral culture, which is learning by doing. I'm not saying books are not important, but sometimes you really need to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. This is what we are trying to bring folks strongly within Indigenous and Modern, that it starts with us if we don't have any practical thing around us, look at what another person is doing and it's good to your soul. This is also the way of the Indigenous people, we live in solidarity.