Democratic Republic of Congo delivers its annual Ecovillage Design Education (EDE) course

The GEN Democratic Republic of Congo network (GEN DRC) just delivered its annual Ecovillage Design Education (EDE) course in Mingadi, approximately 1 hour outside Kinshasa. With the support of Vodacom, this two-week course provided training for 44 participants from 4 villages and was one of the first steps towards developing an ecovillage demonstration centre for the DRC. This event was the culmination of a very busy six months for GEN DRC and their lead organisation, Luc Lutala and his team from Espoir Pour Tous. Despite a challenging time for the country with its first peaceful transition of power since independence and yet an escalation of violence in parts of the country, Espoir Pour Tous has been working as part of a new consortium to implement large-scale change. The project, SEA 4D aims to support 70 villages in two provinces (Kongo Central et Kinshasa) with holistic development to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This holistic development will place the ecovillage principles at the centre of the project, which aims to reach 5.7 million people over 7 years through working with 30,000 hectares across 70 villages. The SEA 4D Project, which started at the beginning of 2018, has already had meetings with 22 of the villages included in the project, inspiring and engaging them on ecovillage strategies for sustainability and climate change adaptation. Four of these villages, Mingadi 1, Mingadi 2, Libulu and Diaki, have been involved in GEN DRC’s work for a long time and have offered 90 hectares of land to support the Project’s activities including tree planting, agroforestry and the creation of a training and demonstration centre the first focusing on ecovillage strategies in the DRC! To learn more about the project please see this great video they have developed: In addition, Espoir Pour Tous has been conducting a number of high-level fundraising and advocacy meetings to raise awareness of the ecovillage approach and GEN DRC’s work in the country. These have included, ministry meetings with the Ministry for Rural Development, the Ministry for the Environment, and five regional governors in the process of creating new development plans for their regions, WWF, Hans SEIDEL Foundation, OSISA, and the National Forestry Fund as well as a presentation to Vodacom’s annual strategic meeting which led to their support for the EDE course. Their next stop is a meeting with the new President to gain more support for GEN DRC going forwards!