Cleary Ecovillage Collaboratory

Global Ecovillage Network logo with a turtle and leaf design.
  • Communities

About the Communities

  • Forming
  • English
  • Ecological
  • Urban

Founding year

  • 2018

What we do

Cleary University in Howell, Michigan www.cleary.edu – an 800 student Business University www.cleary.edu – is developing a unique Ecovillage testbed on campus, with students, staff, faculty, partners and other stakeholders to research and deliver a template or model Ecovillage design and development package. This package would be so designed and tested at Cleary that it can be adapted to meet the needs of any particular community or region. It would include a limited set of cost-effective designs, instruction sets, recommended components, governance approaches, traning programs, economic/business models, cultural options, and recommended sustainability technologies/structures for a 250 person community that can be added to lego like to create larger systems. An example and research and development collaboratory will be emodied on campus over a five year period. The assumption going in is that these communities would want to be at least 80% self sustaining without significant dependencies on larger conventional economic and cultural systems. The development of the package would be based on best practices from around the world and new experimental findings. The goal is to allow a rapid scaling of the Ecovillage way of organizing sustainable living that is quasi independent from large food, economic, trading, transportation, provisioning, and energy production systems that may become impaired as Climate Change increasingly puts them under pressure. As such we see this as a process of designing the “life boats” for a possibly increasingly unsustainable future. The project was approved by the President and Provost of Cleary University based on a preliminary proposal presented to them by Professor Geoffrey Henny, a faculty member of 8 years standing with a strong international career and education background in the skill sets needed for the project to succeed.

  • Purpose
  • Ecological
  • Languages
  • English
  • Activities
  • Permaculture
  • Education
  • Experiences

Commemorative dates

  • January 1, 2018
  • Started planning
  • January 1, 2019
  • Started living together
  • Open to new members
  • Open to visitors
Total
500

How to join

Send an email to the project director Professor Geoffrey Henny ghenny@my.cleary.edu

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Location

  • United States

Cleary Ecovillage Collaboratory

Promoted Needs and Offers

  • Events
12 years ago

Gaia Ashram Internship

The Pioneers of Gaia Ashram , 5th of July– 2nd of August 2015 The Gaia Ashram Internship is a one month program on Ecovillage Design, Permaculture and Deep Ecology. The internship will be a holistic participatory learning experience & process. Interns will experience being part of the Gaia Ashram Community and we will live together for one month at– Gaia Ashram-. At Gaia Ashram we belief in holistic learning that balances the head, hands & heart. Gaia Ashram encourages participatory learning & values the power of community in holding the learning space. We design the daily & weekly structure of the internship and of our lives here based on these values and principles. Theoretical learning (Head) The theoretical sessions will be participatory and interactive. It will cover the 4 keys of Ecovillage Design Education (Social, Economical, Ecological and Worldview inspired by Gaia Education). Each week will cover one of the Ecovillage Design Keys and integrated into this we will be introduced to Permaculture Design & Deep Ecology in terms of philosophy, movement and personal experiences. Overall, We will have a maximum of 2-3 hours of theory per day on the session days, to also create lots of space for practical experiential learning. See more details of the key content below. Practical learning (Hands – on) For the hands – on practical learning we will be developing the Gaia Ashram’s farm and restoring nature on the Gaia Ashram land using permaculture strategies & techniques that are appropriate for the Rainy Season & the land and its local context. The hands-on work will focus on Gardening work i.e. developing the vegetable gardens, planting seeds & seedlings, transplanting, propagation of plants, making composts, growing and maintaining a Food Forest, planting green manures, planting lots of trees, planting seasonal crops. Apart from the Gardening we will also will be doing some natural building which mostly will focus on creating natural finishes usi

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An institution, business, network, or project that isn’t a residence (e.g. a learning center, farm, or network with no one living there full-time).

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