Sandele Foundation Sandele Foundation provides opportunities for people within coastline communities of The Gambia

Sandele Foundation is a non-profit organization which spawned from Sandele Eco-Retreat, www.sandele.com. It is the overarching entity that actively supports and promotes grassroots community development including collaboration with The People’s Coast Ecovillage Network (which includes Kartong Ecovillage Network): an ambitious ecovillage network initiative for coastline communities in West Africa. The People’s Coast covers about 50km of fairly pristine coastline in The Gambia and Senegal. However, there is increasing encroachment and degradation caused by climate change and human settlements and activities. Eleven communities are being actively engaged in ecovillage development.
The objective is that the communities will join together to work towards ecovillage development while working to adapt to and mitigate, the negative impacts of climate change. At least two participants have been trained in each community in Ecovillage Design Education (EDE) and Permaculture (PDC). At a recent heads of village meeting at Sandele, it was proposed that the Alkalos (heads) and key players of the communities be trained in ‘mini EDEs.’ Sustainable development with resilience can only be possible with grassroots initiatives where opportunities are created for the people to design their own future.

Network members

• People’s Coast Ecovillage Network