Community Convergence

The last two years have shown a real trend of growth in new initiatives in Romania, and all over Central and Eastern Europe. There is an accelerating pace in the starting of new projects, and in the connections being made to the existing global and European networks. In June,2013, the new community Aurora, in Romania, will be the venue for Community Convergence. By Andrei Iuroaia

Many new communities are being founded in Romania, and a growing number of people are intending to make the transition to a more harmonious life. People are eager to shift to a more loving lifestyle and so the grinding work of building coherence and trust in groups and networks is being sustained.
Romania is a country with diverse and many still untouched habitats, where one can find all the glitter and glory of ”modern development” close to villages where people practice local forms of subsistence agriculture. The country still bares the scars of 45 years of communism, and the social and environmental decay that it produced. And yet, a traveler will be delighted to discover in many regions, traditional communities where true values are cherished and the sacredness of life is recognized.
For a country where half of the population lives in rural areas and where close to 2 million people still struggle below the poverty line, many embrace consumerism whole-heartedly and the pursuit of comfort without consideration.
Our country is, by inheritance, one of village communities and of self-sustaining peasant farmers. Our culture, art and history are deeply connected with the wilderness and the spirit and beauty of nature, and in spite of the mass alienation towards its own identity, there is still much of that spirit alive today.
We intend to assist the rejuvenation of that spirit, and share with the world a feast of the living fairytales and tomes of the grandmothers’ knowledge that are still preserved.

The broad region to which this convergence is primarily addressed – Central and Eastern Europe: the Danube Basin across the Balkans and Carpathian mountain ranges and the area between the Baltic and Mediterranean seas – holds very important treasures in the forms of vestiges of pristine wilderness and traditional sustainable human culture.
The sprouting community movement here needs the support of practical community building experience and social tools. There is much to share and learn and we believe that a healthy vibrant community network here would create an amazing symbiosis with the community movement that is already well established in Central and Western Europe. It will also physically enable the bonding with initiatives in Asia and the Middle East.
With this vision we are organising a 6 day long Community Convergence in June that will be hosted in the Aurora community in the Transylvania region of Romania. It will be an intensive work time for those dedicated to, or aspiring to be part of, the global community of communities. For our steering group, it will be the first of the community convergence events that we also plan to start organizing in other parts of the world.
The vision for the first Community Convergence (as inspired by Berkana Institute’s “3 stages of emergence”), is to create fertile space for the birth of new intentional communities of practice that can take social innovation to scale, and assist the emergence of bio-regional and global systems of trust and influence.
We plan to do this by connecting like minded people and networks across distance, generations, and styles, creating opportunities for learning, experiencing and sharing, as well as developing synergies between communities and projects.
We wish to extend the invitation to representatives of the larger European communities such as Tamera, Sieben Linden, and Findhorn, as well as representatives from GEN.
We hope to see, as a result of this gathering, new community groups forming, existing ones blossoming and the web of communities becoming more intricate.
The event has an international focus and the main language will be English, although Romanian will be an integral part. Meals will be vegetarian. Children are welcome. Drugs, alcohol and meat are not welcome on the community grounds.
Celebration will be certainly a part of the event but it is clearly not a festival or any kind of party.
Holistic values such as the love for all Life, inclusivity, honesty, solidarity, openness, diversity, friendship and respect are essential for healthy participation.

The Community Convergence will take place in June 2013 at Aurora intentional community in Southwest Transylvania, the exact dates to be announced soon.
Accommodation will most likely be in personal tents. Exact details about the agenda and travel information will be communicated soon with the launch the official announcement of the event.

The event will be a free economy experiment and will function on the principle of the gift economy. Depending on the outcome, resources will be shared among the steering group and core group members according to needs and inputs.

We are open for interested people to take part in the co-creation of this convergence. Those participating in the organization are also invited to participate in the physical preparation of the space before the event. This stage will also contain a community building process for the organizing group. Otherwise most of the preparatory work will be conducted via the internet and using project management platforms to coordinate tasks.

Steering group: Gabriela Dragomir, Fabian Lechner, Claudian Dobos, Andrei Iuroaia
Andrei´s Telephone: +40 0742.990.175
iuroaia.andrei@yahoo.com
www.communitiesconvergence.com
Ecosofie: www.eco-sofie.eu