GEN Africa Cover Letter

GEN Africa is sowing the seeds of hope and abundance on the African continent

Dear Readers,

It is a privilege and honour to have a special GEN International Newsletter entirely focused on GEN Africa and the fantastic community dynamics our network is implementing and supporting throughout Africa.

Since its birth in December 2012 on the fertile banks of the River Nile, GEN Africa has been spreading its roots across the African continent, inspiring grassroots communities and their leaders and bringing radical changes on the ground through capacity-building and awareness-raising programmes, such as ecovillage design courses, workshops, conferences, TV and radio shows, and social media networks.

As a result of this momentum, national and regional networks have come into existence: GEN Mauritania, GEN Rwanda, GEN Ghana are all legally registered. Other networks are in the registration process. In West Africa, REDES or NEEDS in English (Network for Ecovillages Emergence and Development in the Sahel) is a registered sub regional branch of GEN Africa.

GEN Africa is now a well established organization. It is registered at the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Senegal as a community service organization. Its birth is recorded in the national government official journal.

With the technical support of GEN International and the financial contributions of the governments of Germany and Senegal, GEN Africa organized the first Global Ecovillage Network Summit in Dakar in December 2014. This major international event gathered community leaders, experts, and NGO representatives from around the world. It was officially opened by the prime minister of Senegal and closed by world famous pop singer Youssou Ndour and the Grand Sérigne de Dakar.

Today, GEN Africa is promoting best practices in development across the continent. It is supporting food security projects in southeast Africa where its regional partner, RESCOPE is greening schools and encouraging school children to produce organic food for themselves.

In Ghana and Cameroon, permaculture centers and projects are taking off and significantly improving the quality of life for beneficiaries. In addition to preserving the environment through reforestation and designing improved cooking clay stove, Better World Cameroon is doing its utmost to preserve the cultural and architectural heritage of the Bafut Kingdom.

GEN Africa is encouraging a twinship programme between eco-communities in the North and the South, a promising programme through which humanity will explore deeper meanings of human fraternity and cooperation. This programme has already started with the twinship between Damanhur, the city of light (Italy) and Guede Chantier, Sénegal’s first
eco-community.

GEN (Africa and International) is now working with the Sekem Foundation to explore possibilities of creating beacon ecovillages in different parts of Africa. This project is inspired by the Sekem Ecovillage model. It will surely, together with other ecovillage models, positively impact Africa’s worldview and approach to development.

GEN Africa wishes to acknowledge and express its gratitude to GEN International, Gaia Education, SOS Environment, the Sekem Foundation, and the Gambian, Senegalese, and German governments for the precious support they have provided at different levels over the past years.

Ousmane Pame, PhD
President of GEN Africa