2019 Hildur Jackson Award winner: ReScope Programme, Africa

The ReScope Programme in Africa is the winner of the 2019 Hildur Jackson Award for Extraordinary Project. The Hildur Jackson Award is a €3,000 annual prize that supports and honours projects around the world that demonstrate regenerative best-practices in all dimensions of sustainability. In the 2019 edition, 32 ecovillages and sustainable projects from all over the world applied to the Hildur Jackson Award. The prize is awarded to projects bringing the most impactful inspiration about ecovillages/ecovillage lifestyles to a broad audience, and the ReScope Programme was particularly recognized this year for their accomplishments of disseminating green technologies and permaculture techniques in five different African countries: Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Congratulations to the ReScope Programme! Watch the interview with ReScope representative, Mugove Walter Nyika:

ReSCOPE Programme

Facilitating the whole school approach to greener and resilient communities

The ReSCOPE Programme was born out of the pioneering work of promoting Permaculture in schools in Zimbabwe in the mid 1990’s which led to the establishment of the Schools and Colleges Permaculture (SCOPE) Zimbabwe. In 2006 the ReSCOPE Programme was set up to promote this work in the region of east and southern Africa. Now the programme has country chapters in Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Region: GEN Africa Countries: Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe Website: ReSCOPE Programme The core principles which ReScope use to evaluate our performance are:

• Promoting deep and thoughtful care for the environment and everything in it, based on a wholesome view that understands the interconnections between all things.
• Promoting a needs based integrated land design practice that creatively weaves together the building of resilience within the ecosystem while moving communities towards food sovereignty, nutrition and income security.
• Emphasize the identification and creative use of local and indigenous resources and knowledge while rooted in our culture and celebrating intergenerational learning.
• Genuine and wide participation of young people at all levels of our activities.
• Make learning fun, practical and relevant for everyone, while having an integrated approach across the curricular and promoting the inclusive and active participation of whole communities.
• Ensuring systematic and regular reflection and learning from experience, and planning ahead strategically at all levels, in partnership with our stakeholders.
• Ensuring user friendly, regular and systematic documentation and transparent information sharing. Always start small, ensure quality and grow organically.

ReScope main accomplishments in 2019

The Green Economy and Social Enterprise for Climate Resilience is their flagship project in Zambia and the region of east and southern Africa as a whole. The project, which is implemented in partnership with the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) with support of the Scottish Government is empowering more than 300 smallholder farmers in 10 village communities to diversify their farming into drought tolerant traditional crops and high value crops which they are learning to process into value added products. Marginalised groups in the these communities , who include single mothers, unemployed youths, the differently abled and the elderly have formed social enterprise groups that are into natural building, value addition and marketing. Children in the participating school communities are acquiring similar skills through inter- generational learning and practising them on school land. The partnership between GEN and ReSCOPE has enabled 40 trainers from the participating communities to be trained in social enterprise development and making of rocket stoves by Sonita Mbah, a GEN consultant from the Cameroon. The trainers were also empowered in value addition skills by Mathews Mpofu from Malawi.

Mugove Walter Nyika

GEN Regional Representative, GEN Consultant, GEN Africa Council member

Mugove’s academic background is in Environmental Education with a Master of Education from Rhodes University in South Africa in this field. He worked for 14 years at various levels in the education sector in Zimbabwe, and since 1996 he has been a Permaculture teacher, Project Manager and Environmental Activist. His Permaculture teaching experience and environmental activism has been specialized on working with school communities. The geographical coverage of his footprint includes Zimbabwe, Malawi, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique, Ethiopia, South Africa, Namibia and Madagascar. From 2011 Mugove added Ecovillage Design Education (EDE) to the package of training services that he offers. He is currently engaged with ecovillage initiatives in Zambia and Malawi.

Hildur Jackson Award

For Ecovillage Projects and Regenerative Solutions

The Global Ecovillage Network is made up of thousands of individuals and communities all over the world, innovating, rediscovering and implementing regenerative, just and pioneering ways of living together. The Hildur Jackson Award is given to extraordinary projects and exceptional solutions that bring the most impactful inspiration about ecovillages/ecovillage lifestyles into a broad audience. Together with Gaia Trust, GEN developed the Hildur Jackson Award, a €3,000 annual prize that supports and honours projects around the world that demonstrate regenerative best-practices in all dimensions of sustainability. The prize is awarded to projects bringing the most impactful inspiration about ecovillages/ecovillage lifestyles to a broad audience. The 2019 prize will honour an Extraordinary Project (€3,000) and was open to ecovillage communities or projects worldwide.

HISTORY

In 2004, Gaia Trust initiated the GAIA Excellence Award, given to a single European community who demonstrated admirable efforts to create a better world. The winner was chosen by the Council of GEN Europe, and was awarded at the annual GEN Europe Conference. In the past years it shifted to being awarded to more than one project, and from more than one region (adding GEN Africa and also CASA). It was decided in the GEN Board that from 2016 onwards the Award will be a global one, and re-named ‘Hildur Jackson Award’, after GEN’s late founder.