Keystone Communities in Action: Strengthening Resilience Locally and Globally

The Keystone Communities project is gaining momentum, now bringing together 85 practitioners from 49 communities across 28 countries. Through our monthly Community of Practice, participants co-learn practical models, explore resources, and test tools, while exchanging lived experiences — from navigating difficult realities to drawing strength from hope and collective agency. We’ve explored the Adaptive Cycle as a lens for understanding phases of change in complex systems, examined Regenerative Resilience as a way to transform vulnerabilities into strengths, and deepened our awareness of interdependence with the more-than-human world through sensory presence, storytelling, and creative expression.

Building on this core space of sharing, we have launched five dedicated work streams to dive into key themes identified in the Resilience project: Risk and Future Scenarios, Community-Led Early Warning Systems, Disaster Preparedness and Response, Art and Narrative as Tools for Resilience, and Indigenous and Traditional Communities. Each group is developing and testing practical tools to strengthen Keystone Communities, which will then be brought back to the wider Community of Practice for feedback and cross-pollination before being launched into the whole ecovillage network at the end of next year.

Beyond the core group and work streams, there are also inspiring local activities taking place on the ground! Representatives are applying the learnings in their communities and regions to help further refine the tools. Many trainings are underway with more to come by the end of this year.

Ecodorp Boekel, together with GEN Netherlands and supported by ECOLISE, has launched a hub for Resilience Keystone Communities. They trained 46 participants from 13 Dutch ecovillages in using the Resilience Tracker, engaging nearly 500 ecovillagers nationwide. Through these workshops, communities shared stories, tools, and practices for building resilience. With Boekel’s own tracker results as a reference point, the group explored how to improve the community’s resilience, generating 241 potential solutions across all attributes. The process continued with a full-day session involving nine ecovillages to review results in depth and identify which solutions could be put into practice in their specific contexts. Building on this momentum, Ecodorp Boekel has partnered with the University of Applied Sciences to expand the Tracker’s functions, including linking solutions directly to the communities where they are being applied.

Across the Atlantic in Colombia, Aldea Feliz has also been working regionally, positioning themselves as a center of knowledge and inspiration. Their series of workshops focused on strengthening community-led resilience and supporting neighbouring communities in assessing their own capacities. As participants were creatively guided through the Tracker tool, insightful patterns emerged: crises as catalysts for resilience through collective trauma and healing; the urgent need to expand repair capacities; and the recognition that tensions are not merely personal, but expressions of the wider system. Together they assessed risks and strengths, mapped three horizons, and harvested new initiatives. They explored, in a systemic and participatory way, how the Inspiration Center can strengthen the community’s resilience, and how they can fund, build, and sustain it with systematic mapping tools. The community continues with energy and vision, imagining their Inspiration Center as a living, evolving organism.

Stay tuned for news on the other eight local events.

• Narara Ecovillage has held a resilience workshop at the Australian Intentional Communities gathering, presenting resilience tools, including the tracker.
• Keuruu Ecovillage has offered a series of collaborative workshops among aligned movements in Finland to explore future scenarios. This will be presented in an art exhibition next month.
• Piracanga Ecovillage will facilitate a deep exploration of bioregional action in Brazil, training changemakers to foster community resilience rooted in place, ecology, and collective agency.
• d’Ando Kpomey Ecovillage will host workshops in 6 ecovillages and a national training in Togo – combining traditional wisdom, climate strategies, and grassroots learning to support communities navigating polycrisis.
• Earthsong Eco Neighbourhood will bring together communities across New Zealand to explore neighbourliness to grow resilience in postnormal times.
• Damanhur will provide participatory workshops for the regional community in the surrounding valley, exploring resilience attributes, future scenarios and shared storytelling to build momentum together.
• Centro Ubuntu will incorporate the resilience analysis and tools for planning with 6 communities in Colombia, focusing on Climate Change adaptation and regenerative ecotourism in the bioregion.
• GENOA representatives will bring in person workshops to existing training events in the region, with resilience tools and networking as the focus.