Introduction
Welcome back to Community Resilience, a podcast created in collaboration with the Ecovillage Resilience 2.5 Degree Project, facilitated by the Global Ecovillage Network. I’m your host, Eva Goldfarb, inviting you to gather around the fire as we explore resilience, adaptation, and transformation in our time of deepening polycrisis.
Meet Alfusainey Sey, a dynamic leader and passionate advocate for sustainable development. Trained in Permaculture Design and Ecovillage Development, Alfusainey is the operations director at Sandele Foundation, where he oversees innovative projects in briquette making and compost production. His IT expertise was pivotal in the establishment of the People’s Coast Ecovillage Network, which proposes a transformative development model for the coastal zone from Carfontine, Senegal to Kachuma, Gambia. This network places communities at the heart of development, addressing ecological challenges, fostering social and economic opportunities, creating long-term wealth and employment, and promoting regional cooperation.
Currently serving as a network secretary, Alfusainey is also a key figure in the NextGEN Africa leadership. Join us as we explore his journey in conservation, restoration, and organic farming, and learn how he’s driving the Ecovillage movement forward in the Gambia.
Interview
Eva: Hello everyone. Today we are joined by Alfu. Alfu, I’d love to just let you introduce yourself. How did you get here? Who are you? What are you participating in?
Alfusainey: Yeah, my name is Alfusainey. I’m currently living in Kachu, The Gambia, which is in West Africa. Yeah, I’ve been working with the Sandele Foundation for nearly seven years. I’m getting into the eighth year now.
Eva: How did I get involved with the Sandele Foundation and the People’s Coast Ecovillage Network?
Alfusainey: I first started working with them as a volunteer. I started volunteering as an IT assistant and to support the whole Ecovillage movement within the Gambia using my IT skills, helping preparing flyers, taking photographs, and publishing it into the social media platforms. At the same time, I was also helping the work on the Sandele Foundation and running their website. And yeah, several other activities led to me becoming a fundamental figure, I would say, in the whole movement, where some of the members have seen me as somebody that can lead some of the organizational activities and projects. And so when these projects came, I found myself as somebody that was designated by the People’s Coast Ecovillage Movement to participate in the COP project by them. And so I was selected and I more of lead the workshops, also reporting back to the quota and the like. And so yeah, I found myself and that’s how I came to become within the People’s Coast Ecovillage Network.
Eva: What were some of the favorite workshops that you’ve gotten to lead through your participation in the Resilience Project?
Alfusainey: Especially when we, at the beginning, very beginning, when we started, we have a map of where the Ecovillage Movement or the peak in People’s Coast Ecovillage Movement, where it started and where it has gotten into. That was really amazing. We had the team coming up and talking about things that we never realized were as important and in fact, key parts to having a functional body. Things like the establishment of the Sandele EcoRetreat by the British couple, Gerry and Maurice. And also looking at how much each and every one of us from a community point of view contributed in an impactful way that we didn’t, we’re not able to realize. So that the history mapping was really, really a workshop that still holds a piece as a memory for me. It was really exciting bringing people together, sharing and mapping where we came from or where we want to go to and some of the challenges that we have overseen over the years. So that was one of the workshops. I think the most, not really the most recent, but one of it was having the, doing the horizons and that was really also a memorable one. Talking about the impacts that will happen in the future and what is already happening or what is driving all those activities and challenges within the community. So that is one. We also had to talk about tipping points. Where are we, where do we see the problems, the climate crisis, where are we seeing it the next 10 years, in the next 20 years, the solutions that we are trying to apply or where do we really see those solutions? What are the surprises that will be coming out of those solutions that will impact the solutions that we are trying to apply in a negative or positive way? So those workshops were really exciting and then it kind of gives you a measure of how much of an impact from a personal point of view and also from a community point of view. As a group, the impact was also measured. So those workshops really helped a lot.
Eva: When you were asked to participate in the Resilience Project, I’m curious if you brought any expectations with you. Were there any lessons or messages that you really wanted to bring from your work at the People’s Coast and in your home community to this wider network?
Alfusainey: We wanted all of the messages, especially from the People’s Coast point of view. It’s more talking about our challenges as an institution, also as an organisation. But what I realised, in fact, what the group initially thought what the project would be, it ended up becoming something more of, in fact, giving us the platform to actually analyse and become the solutions to some of the challenges that we were already facing. For example, we at the People’s Coast Ecovillage Network, we did have some separation in terms of connectivity with the GEN movement itself for nearly one year or two. One of our great partners that we had, or the most approachable person that we had within the GEN itself was Kosha Joulbert. And we haven’t had that contact since she left. And so we are relying a lot with talking to Sonita and the like. So the lack of connectivity between GEN and GEN Africa to the peak and ecovillage movement. And you also had several other reasons for that. It’s just not about Kosha. We also have a transition phase where, and we are still in the transition phase also, where we have the pioneers of the ecovillage movement in the Gambia with Jerry and Maris, also not having so much activity within the Gambia anymore. And so all those things we want to really say, how can we re-establish the relationship between People’s Coast and the ecovillage movement in the outside world. And so, in fact, we realized that is a message we wanted to pass out. But also with this project, we were able to just not do that. We’re able to, in fact, set out and actually better analyze what our position will be within the whole Global Ecovillage Network and the whole wide world and how we can actually protect and also continue operating as a network within the Gambia and be important to the community. So those are some of the messages we really wanted to get out of there. And our expectation, we have to say, is met in a way that we never thought it will be.
Eva: That’s very nice to hear. I’m very grateful for this project to really be able to integrate all of the regions and the regional representatives into the structure. I think it’s really been important. And I also think it’s very important to recognize and honor the transition that a lot of the movement is in right now between more of these old pioneer, pivotal people and the rise of the new generation. I see you’re also participating in NextGEN Africa. Would you like to speak at all to your experiences there?
Alfusainey: Yeah, I mean, NextGEN Africa, I think I got into the group in 2019, yeah, 2018, 2019. I became part of the interim executive position to kind of find ways of coordinating NextGEN Africa into becoming a more established organization. And so we have been organizing meetings and also organizing online workshops. Unfortunately, some of the challenges that NextGEN Africa has is also mainly because we lack resources in having to have one-on-one meeting sessions. And also the team is so diverse. And also, you know, we are not living in one location. Some of them are in Ghana, so in Nigeria, Cameroon, Portugal and the like. So that lack of connection, it really disturbs the operations of the NextGEN Africa organization itself. And so those are some of the challenges we have. We’re still trying to find ways of really channeling our energy in a way that we can still have a functional body that is yet impactful, not just regional, but in the whole continent, Africa. At the same time, on an individual point of view within each community, each individual that’s part of NextGEN to be impactful in your own country. But it has been beautiful. I’ve been able to meet Charles, who sadly passed and has been a huge loss for NextGEN Africa. We have the likes of Crystal and, you know, you have Mercy. All those people I have really not known, I haven’t met in person, but through the calls that we have, we have been able to learn from each other and inspire each other, take ideas from each other that we try to implement within our own community. And so that has been beautiful. We have been able to open up a channel on a WhatsApp kind of group where we have many Ecovillage, young Ecovillage people, young Ecovillage lovers that really want to become or establish Ecovillage within their own communities to join up into that group and perhaps share their work. In 2020, we had an Ecovillage award program where we gave some young inspiring ideas within Africa here and to send in their ideas. And then later on, we gave them prizes to support their own projects. So that’s some of the activities that we have done. We are wanting to continue moving on. And obviously, as I said, the passing of Charles really disturbs us. And so we need to find ways of replacing and also giving, hopefully giving demand to young Ecovillages within Africa to continue their work.
Eva: Have you learned anything through your process with the Resilience Project that has helped this connectivity, both between GENAfrica and the global movement and NextGENAfrica and the global movement?
Alfusainey: On a personal point of view, I feel like just learning from what other people are doing from outside and the way they are trying to use, even though the distance, I would say, as I just said, one of the bigger challenges is that how we can still be impactful for the youth that are living. And we are hoping that we will pick all those things, the ideas that other people from Brazil and from Findhorn, Sieben Linden and some of the ideas and the results that they have been able to have from certain projects that they are running. Those ideas, we feel like are suitable for our end here, and we can still implement them. So those are some of the things we are able to learn from them. And I feel like it just rejuvenates the whole movement within the Gambia here. In fact, as I’m talking on Friday, the 24th to the 26th, we are having another Ecovillage gathering within the region here, and that we will be having an Ecovillage gathering, and we’ll be talking about some of the challenges and using things like the horizon to kind of map out some of the solutions that we could be able to start implementing and set out plans for just not this year, but in the following year as a whole group. And so it gives a new starting point, as I just also said earlier, that we are in a transition phase as an organization. So it gives us the opportunity to also connect to other partners within Africa here. We have Mr. Mugove, and that we know that he’s doing some certain work within Zimbabwe, and also knowing that Mercy, who’s an exemplary member, who lives in Zimbabwe, finding ways of partnering and working together, and we can be able to perhaps use those people to come and train people here within the community in permaculture techniques or more of a project management. So those are some opportunities that the Resilience Project has really given to us, more of a networking point of view for us. It’s also given us the skills, like workshops, where we’ll be able to analyze, talk about the problems that we have, even though in fact already, as the people’s goals, we have already mapped out some of those things in the quarter, start to use those things again, and also use it as a study and go around the community and talk about these things and tell us if they don’t agree or they do agree, how can we move forward. That’s really impactful from the Resilience Project, is that it just gives us an opportunity to really increase our capacity in terms of intellect.
Eva: Lovely, you are invited today to share your story and experiences with your project, and also in relation to the problems with sand mining that you are facing. I would love to just open and let you begin to tell the story, and I will chime in with questions to help steer us deeper.
Alfusainey: One of the major challenges that the People’s Coast Equipment consists of 13 communities, and all those communities are within the southern end of Senegal and the Gambia, and they’re all around the coastline, so therefore they share the challenges, similar challenges in terms of environment and social. And in the environment, one of the challenges is that we are having lots of coastal erosion, that’s obvious because of the climate change. We are having more water runoff into the ocean, so the coastal erosion, we can’t really stop it right now. When in the early 2000s, 2003-2004, and five, the Gambia started really seeing the results of climate change, where some of the lodges, some of the hotels within the coastline started, their fences that are near the water started to be destroyed by the water, and so we had high waves coming in, high tides, and all those kind of things. And when those things happened, the government intervened, and they brought huge amounts of rocks and just, you know, spread around the coastal area, but they can’t do it in the whole coastline of the Gambia. The kilometers between Kachu, which is the last community in the Gambia, to where Banjul is, is huge, nearly a stretch of more than like 100 kilometers or more, and so you can have the government really throwing rocks everywhere. And so with the communities that where we are, which is 13 communities, having coastal erosion itself is a big problem. We realize that the government is wanting to push more on sand mining, and so they continually came into the communities and then forcefully pushes the community gardeners and farmers, women farmers, away from their farms and using those sand for infrastructural development. And even though there have been measures that have been set on boundaries where the mining needs to end, we realize in starting from 20 to 2010 that those boundaries and those measures that were set out where mining needs to end and it needs to be responsible, the mining companies were not respecting it, and so they started digging deep down six foot under and up to the level where they started getting into onto the water table. And that is not helpful because what is just not moving the women wouldn’t be the problem that they are creating. And the other problem they are creating is that the communities might not be able to exist anymore because then the small stream of sand that they are living between the mined quarries and where the ocean is just less than 20-25 meters apart, a very small strip of sand within an area of like 27 kilometers, and they are also digging deep down under. And so when we have a storm and the water might just come into those quarries and perhaps also affect the community more. We are in a situation where we realize that if you’re going to continue to let the government continue giving license for mining to happen, then it’s at the cost of the communities and the indigenous and not on to the whole country. And so that has been a big problem. And when that happened, we had one of the communities where I live in Kachuma, we actually stood against the sand mining within our own community because we already saw that the mining companies are not respecting the boundaries and the agreements that they have with the Department of Geology. And so we just stood like young men stood out. We had one of the great fallen men, I would say we call him Habib Ture, was one of our leaders. He stood out and said this can’t happen. We can’t allow another sand mining company to come into our community knowing what they have already done and what they are doing in other communities around the country and around the coastline. And so in 2016, we stood against the sand mining and we had 33 young men from the community that were locked up in jail for two weeks just for protecting the sand that we have within the coastline of Kachu. And so when that happened, took the government by surprise that young men and young people and in fact a whole community can stand against us. And mind you, this was during a regime within the Gambia that is, we call it a dictatorship, very brutal. And so the president that was there had so much power that he normally has it his way. But the people of Kachu just refused and said, you know what, we are not going to allow the even though the company that is coming here is in fact having relations with the former president. And so the youths of Kathu stood against it and they were locked up for two weeks. We had a court case where in fact later on the president and the government did let the young men, let the three young men, let them go. When they came back after a week, we saw the trucks coming back into the community. But what we realized that was that the elderly women and Alcalo, who was the community leader, went on to have conversations at the resolution to let go of the young men and also to say to the government, you know what, you can have some little sand to particularly use it for a certain project that you guys wanted, but it just, that’s the only sand that we can give. And so the trucks came in, took the amount of sand that they wanted and went with it. And so the beautiful thing about the story is that after that incident happened, we actually had more uprise from other communities standing against the mining of sand within their own communities. And that was so beautiful. And the People’s Course Ecovillage Movement was in the middle of this. Most of the men that were trained, the participants that were trained in some of our Ecovillage Development Education courses were within those communities and actually said, you know what, we have seen other communities, a community like Kachuma standing against it, we can do the same. And the result was not the same, but it was impactful that the young people started to realize that they can also stand up for what is good and also stand up for the environment and also talk about the environment in a good way. And so as I’m talking in fact today, now the community of Kachu and the community of Gunjur, which is also next to Kachu, have stopped all mining activities by the government. We stopped it completely and we took it back into our own hands. Say, you know what, this sand belongs to the community. And if it’s going to be mined, it needs to benefit the community in a way, but also just not in a way. We need to mine irresponsibly, thinking about the coastal erosion that is already happening. And so that’s where we are. And the sand mining within Kachuma, I have to say, it does have a history. Before 2016 mining happened, in the early 2000s, there was sand mining from the First Republic. And when that happened, by then, you know, the population within Kachu was not much. Also the population in the Gambia was not much. And the infrastructure development demands were not much. So that government really did mine responsibly. In fact, the old places that were mined, in fact, have regenerated in a way that the community is benefiting. Those places now serve as birdwatching sites. So you don’t want the government to, in fact, come back again and disturb those environments. So that’s the fight. We do know that also that the fight is a continuous one, because lately in 2021, 2022, they have been another sand mining company that has approached the government and also came into the community, started bribing community elders, so they can give them the go-ahead to mine the place. And thanks to the people’s support and also some of the members within the community of Kachuma and outside communities did come together and try to facilitate community awareness meetings where all the community came out and, you know, started fighting against this and saying it wouldn’t happen here, whether you are bribing the elderly or not, they don’t have the final say. Whenever we are going to decide, we have to decide as a community. And so they are still in negotiation with the community to find ways of mining the sand. The community as a whole has agreed that, you know, when the sand is not going out of the community, we’re going to mine, we’re going to mine to develop our own community. And also we have ways and certain places that we are going to mine, paying attention to the coastal erosion that is already happening. So that’s where we are in terms of the sand mining that is happening within the People’s Coast.
Eva: What an incredible story. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. I have taken so many notes on different themes that really stood out to me. One of the most recent, I think, is an extremely powerful example for the network, but how communal and group decision making is stronger. I think this is something that sees a lot of controversy, especially in the Western world for the length of time it takes. But really to say, wow, no, you can’t bribe our elders because they don’t make the decision for the community. We make the decision together.
Alfusainey: It’s so beautiful, yet so confusing a bit. In fact, as I’m talking about, group decision making is what everybody wants. Those are the structures that were in the communities, perhaps in the olden days. The people, when certain developments need to take place in the community, you need to call for a guidance. So those kind of principles within the communities are being forgotten. People are just not going back to those things. And the young men within the community, knowing that in terms of good leadership, in terms of good development, it needs to entail everybody’s participation. And so that’s what we are calling for. There is a bit of confusion where our elderly personnel within the community and the elders are the ones that have seen times where people have been decided in a general group, but they are actually not wanting to use those routes and wanting to just confine the decisions within a certain smaller group and not using it as a community. Whilst the youth within the communities who have not seen yesterday, but do learn about what happened yesterday, we want that still to continue. We want to have a participation of everybody in terms of decision making. And so that’s a little bit difficult. And those are some of the certain societal conflicts that we have within our communities that the elderly want to just confine their decisions within their own group. And perhaps if certain decisions come in, certain developments and some benefits come in, it goes directly into their pockets. And so we don’t want that. And so the conflicts, majorly within the communities in Kachu, in Gunju, in Sambuya, and all these communities that I’m calling are all part of the People’s Coast Ecovillage Network are all the same. They are similar. It’s just the elderly against the youth in terms of development. When development comes in, even if it’s good, everybody needs to participate. And so those conflicts are still there. We do understand that as a People’s Coast Ecovillage Network, and we try our best to find ways of moving in a way that is going to be respectable to the elderly, and also try to facilitate activities. Encourage the young men and the young persons that are within the network to actually use those kind of approaches, peaceful resolutions, respectful ways of approach, considering the elderly contribution to the communities. Inasmuch as we want development to happen, and we also actually don’t want bribery to happen, we also have to recognize that the elderly do have wisdom. They have been there before or they do have experience. And so therefore we need to find ways of respecting ways of approaching them. And so those are some of the things that the challenge that we have and the People’s Coast Ecovillage Network have been trying to facilitate to their members.
Eva: I see this pattern of intergeneration, I don’t want to call it conflict, but differences emerging in a lot of spaces within my life at the that keeps coming back into conversations. It’s just very interesting.
Alfusainey: We actually have never foreseen it coming when the people’s cause was setting up, because in fact when the people’s cause was setting up, it’s the elderly that actually went ahead before all of us were gathered and you know as a community as young men and taking up the training and the EDE certification and the permaculture, before we actually knew that happened it was the elderly that actually brought in those kind of developments and so in fact they signed the accord that they want the cartoon to transition into an ecovillage and so when we set up the People’s Coast Ecovillage Network after the trainings in 2014 and 2015, we actually thought one of the biggest stakeholders in this whole journey would be the elders and so we go two years, three years further, they realize in fact the biggest challenge is to overcome, maybe globally also that’s the case.
Eva: And one piece of your story stood out to me as a really beautiful example of how these generations can work together in a very supporting way. You said the youth were the activists, they were out there protesting, they got sent to jail and then it was the elders that came in and through storytelling and their position of wisdom were able to argue with the government to get the youth released and then the sand miners out of the region and I think this is a very nice balance between the generations to really use the fire and the passion of the youth to drive things forward and then bring in the wisdom and the storytelling of the elders to really cement that and ground that in the earth.
Alfusainey: And so what is happening within also the within our Kachu, I normally call Kachu because it’s one of the more active in terms of community conversation and dialogue, what is happening is that within the youths we also have differences within ourselves as youths. We have some that want to stick by the rule of law where you know what if somebody is bribed okay you need to go to directly to the police report and get into court and have somebody prosecuted and when you do that you are actually provoking another young person within the network and within the group because it’s either their father or their uncle that you are about to prosecute. And so they will also prefer a different approach where it’s more of a community dialogue in terms of cancelling out those people that are bribed and not giving them the opportunity and also the platform for them to actually be able to perform their bribery and scandalous ideas. And so those kind of approaches, those two differences is what is actually working around within the communities. We want to have dialogue and settle out conflict and the difference within the community and you have also young men that just want to use the rule of law and say you know what we need to do this otherwise it wouldn’t work. But then that is now us moving from a community point of view into a modernized way of approaching the whole challenge and if you do that you are creating so much chaos that perhaps later on you will not be able to resolve because then the people that you are working with actually don’t like, just not don’t like, but don’t think that that’s the right approach. And so those differences and those kind of conversations are what we also have within the young people in the communities that are part of our network.
Eva: Amazing. You also spoke a bit to, you might have to help me piece this together with the story, to how communities were benefiting to sustainably harvested sand. Yeah. Is it true and can you speak a bit more to this?
Alfusainey: Yeah, so what we are doing now within the certain communities, what we want to do, we have certain portions of the area within the coastline that is allocated and we know that is viable for mining but also the mining needs to be responsible and so the community itself is saying that the sand that we’ll be mining is not enough to supply to the whole Gambia, the whole country and therefore we are going to confine it into the development of our own community and so it’s just going to be within the community and that we know that it’s going to be enough for anybody that wants to do a modernized type of building and so we are going to stick with that and so therefore that’s what we are doing. The approach is that the sand mining companies have also derived is that they’re not going to land owners, they’re going to individuals and families that own lands within these communities and actually giving them a huge amount of money and saying that you know what we want to mine your land, that’s the approach that they’re using and so therefore we have another problem where the land ownership problem comes in where we say okay all land belongs to the indigenous communities, the lands are owned by the families and so if the families own those land then it means that any mining company can approach there. We already know that that is happening in Gunjur a neighboring community where two families have been approached and have given their consent for their land to be mined and so those are some of the challenges that we have and in a way it’s not sustainable but those are certain benefits that families within the communities are getting and not as the community as a whole. In Kachu, the community as a whole are not benefiting in a way that they are now in charge, the community is fully in charge of the mining places and also they know and they have set standards of how much depth can you mine and how much space can you mine, how much sand and where is the sand going to be used. So those standards are being used and now I think basically those are the sustainable approaches that really I wanted to use until new technologies are implemented in terms of building.
Eva: Just wondering if there’s any support that you need to make these policies accepted regionally?
Alfusainey: Right now we started the People’s Coast Ecovillage Network. Some of the solutions and ideas that we had over the last four years is to start running a restoration project and so majorly what I’m just saying is that we can do a lot in terms of the policies that are already there but we believe that if the land is there and not being used then the government will then have the opportunity to say you know what this land is not benefiting the community in one way or another and therefore we are going to come and use it and we are going to just mine it because in fact the sand needs to benefit the whole country and so we want to run away from that by running restoration projects to restore some of the already mined places within the coastline and so the government that if you’re going to do mining you actually also fund restoration projects and actually also run restoration projects in this way and in this manner. If there’s any way that a person is going to help or an organization is going to help we’re going to really want to run a restoration project where we saw and implement a pilot project to restore some of the one place or just a certain area of land within the already mined places kind of a sample of what is possible after mining and not like we want to promote mining but already places are mining as I’m saying that other places have reached the water table and so the government have no other choice but to leave those places alone. I have said we have taken footages pictures and videos of this already mined place we shared them online we talked about them online we went to the government officials to say you know this what is happening you guys need to stop what you’re doing you should not do it in any other community but then after visiting and then having agreements you don’t have a sand mining company coming in the next following year after the rainy season they come and do the mining so they don’t agree they don’t hold on to their words they’re just in for the money and they’re going to take any amounts of bribery just to get and they can give any amount of bribe just to get the sand and so we just want and as well you fight against sand mining we also want to find ways and implement solutions which the government can actually also adapt to and do some restoration of already mined place in Kachu in the first mining that happened in the first republic it has been bad but then the place started itself naturally and so those places are now one of the leading places for bird watching to nearly a thousand tourists coming to do some bird watching and we have young members from the communities that are bird watchers and also having their living from it and so it’s not too bad but if you’re going to do it and you do it responsibly and the place is able to be restored it can actually also benefit the community in other regards amazing is there anything else you would like to share about sand mining before I transition us a bit I would also really like to hear about the local workshops that you’re running and how you see this contributing to community resilience.
Alfusainey: About the sand mining, I did talk about the pioneers who were running the Sandele eco-retreat so the eco-retreat that they were running was built from earth blocks the earth block uses what they call in the compressed stabilized earth blocks and the system was gotten from Auroville I think it has to be in Asia or India and so that techniques were was brought into the Gambia and they constructed the ecology that itself as a solution to end the sand mining within the Gambia is there the previous government started a funding of young people to go outside to study they came back and were weren’t able to afford the machines and all those kind of equipments to run those projects but that is picking up a little but we have to say that thanks to Jerry and Maris who also are the pioneers of the ecovillage movement with the Gambian People’s Coast thanks to them those kind of solutions are being implemented proudly people’s cause also have contributed in running that program and that is that has been beautiful and we have to say that we want that to continue we want to train more young men to be able to know how to do the compressed stabilized blocks and take that up as an employment build their skills and able to transform the construction system within the Gambia into more eco-friendly ways we hope that it continues on because sand is it’s really scarce in the Gambia now in fact what is happening the government has started doing a dredging in the capital city of Gambia Ganjul they’re dredging sand from the ocean and that’s major because the community within the coastline are refusing for their sand to be mined so now they’re trying to dredge and also selling that sand when that sand that they’re dredging is finished they will want to come back they will turn their eyes back to the small sand that’s left in these communities when that is finished they will then need to find new systems and new ways of building and so we think that we are further ahead we foresee those problems and we are hoping that we will be able to train more young men and to prepare to when the demand of more sustainable construction systems and then they will just take the market into their own hands.
Eva: Amazing. Thank you so much for sharing all of this. I think there’s a lot to learn from your story. Would you like to speak at all to how has the resilience project impacted how communities are responding to the sand mining crisis?
Alfusainey: So the the workshop has also mapping of the history of the ecovillages and also mapping out the solution and the challenges all those mapping works of that we did have our members especially five of us have been able to run and host this workshop because what the other thing that has happened is that we needed to transform some of those materials into the local language because most of the members within the community here are not better equipped in the english language so you need to speak mandinka a lot so most of the programs and works that we have been hosting have been in mandinka the local language and so therefore in order for you to be able to do that you yourself need to be better equipped in terms of understanding what the workshops entails and some of the things that need to be said out there the questions that need to be asked and also then translating that and so that has helped us as a team and it helps us to be able to actually run or the workshop within the People’s Coast as I said by next week we’re having another workshop not a gathering a complete garden where we have other equal networks or organizations and so the team will be the one hosting that gathering and we’ll be able to share all the things that we have learned from the eco bridge Resilience Project. We haven’t been able to talk about the sand mining in so much detail these two years last year and this year we’re able to write and understand the problems deep deep deep deep problems that are causing the sand mining and certain other challenges that we’ve had the sand mining is one but for example as I said we never realized that when the sand mining came the women just going out of the those plots of land where these are used for gardening actually did impact them in a societal point of view and just not economic point of view and so thanks to the project that we are able to analyze those things and understand it’s just not the economics of the problems you also have social aspect of the problem and so that has really helped us and we are able to have a deep dive and to analyze and talk about the problems that that are facing our communities thanks to the project and so in fact during the project also we have been able to lay out plans we are now talking about wanting to establish an ecovillage center where we’ll be able to to take more to have more capacity building workshops so that plan did not come out until when we started having the workshop we started talking about you know “what do you ambition for 2050?”, “how do you see your community in 2050?” and so those are some of the things that came out of our plans is that we want to have an ecovillage center where we train young people within the communities and continue having the same kind of impact that we really wish to have but haven’t been able to achieve it and so we are hoping by having an established ecovillage center we’ll be able to take more people and also you know like having model systems where we are able to analyze what are the relationship between how does our society and ecology really relate that has been amazing what really causes the society to act in a certain way towards the ecology and perhaps what kind of benefit do they get from the ecosystem and all those kind of things so through the Resilience Project we are able to get all those kind of knowledge analysis we’re able to also ground ourself and also kind of analyze ourself from a personal point of view and a community point of view on “what our strengths are?”, “where are we more resilient?” and “why are we more resilient?”, “how can we become more resilient towards the challenges that face us in the times of need?”. Thanks to the project we have been able to get some of these answers for ourselves now and so basically that’s that’s some of the things some of the works that we have been able to run we have been able to get data on we already have flip charts but we are yet to in fact have printed out all this information that is already type in the computers and be able to perhaps share it to other more people within our communities so those are some benefits. I can talk about all day talking about some of the benefits and thanks to them given to run the project workshops are not easy to run within the communities, you know, you need to cook for the people, pay for the venue, you also need to find of incentivizing the person that is going to be or the persons that are going to be running the daily activities and also doing the typing and all those kind of things. I think the GEN support was in a major way it’s very rare that we have this kind opportunities where you’re in a program and again at the same time have some financial incentives this has really supported us and we are hoping that this will really take us far especially for the information that we have been able to gather for the last one year and a half or so.
Eva: Absolutely this interplay between the social and ecological dimension specifically and then how one really affects the other is one of the patterns I’ve really loved hearing about during this podcast. I don’t know if you have any or just one specific example of how different dimensions have impacted each other?
Alfusainey: The elderly had ways of living and they had this consciousness that you know what for for us to really to be in this community in this kind of environment we need to live in a certain way and so they have principles that guided the whole community there was this ability where you wouldn’t cut a tree unnecessarily. If you’re going to cut a tree you wouldn’t cut the whole tree. If you needed firewood you’re going to just cut branches and you also have places where you’re going to cut out branches and so because the society has started moving away from the community point of view into a more civilized point of view where you have a government overlooking and actually governing the communities instead of governing the whole country and so society started moving away from that from just a community point of view and now we are looking at the government to actually make those decisions for us and so majorly because the societal change in terms of knowledge in terms of civilizations and modernization we have moved away from the community principles to a more a more diverse point of view and so what affects the coastline it doesn’t affect the inland communities and so those kind of mistakes that’s what right now we have realized thanks to the project we actually realized that those kind of mistakes really happen and so the society is shifting in terms of ideas in terms of behavior. We also have young people that actually don’t see their communities anymore. What they see is the outside world most of the young men within within Kachu within within the People’s Coast Ecovillage Network they want to move out they want to move out from their own communities and therefore they they are ready to do anything to move out from the communities and therefore if a person doesn’t want to live in a certain environment they wouldn’t protect the environment and so those kind of thoughts are actually some of the things that are really really impacted at the ecological point of view and but at the same time we are able to to be exposed to the outside world thanks to people that really love ecotourism so we had trees we have a very good flora we had the beach we had very good beautiful sand dunes that actually invited people from outside they came without their own knowledge they came without their own wealth their own characters their own ways of living into the communities but majorly they are attracted by the ecology and so we have been using that as a source of employment we have lots of lodges within the coastline and we just they’re just not normal they’re ecologdes and thanks to that people have been able to sell produce they’re able to take people for guided tours to look at the the communities to take them around but majorly the thoughts of of the young person have changed and are actually looking outside of their own communities they’re not thinking about protecting what is within their own community. We have a generation where young men and women are neglecting their community ecology and therefore the ecology is not being considered and so if you are not considering the ecology that has been actually providing a living for your parents and for yourself and paid for your school fees when you don’t take care of that then it doesn’t take care of you and it doesn’t benefit you anymore. So that is major, for me that is the connection. Let’s say, for example, one of the things that is happening is that the young men are using the the Atlantic Ocean trying to get to Spain and once they get to Spain, how they got there is by selling their land a portion a piece of their land and they found this this journey and then whatever did they earn they actually send it back they either come back or send back to their parents right but their parents are not they are not living in conditions that are right because the land that they have sold out is not being occupied by an outsider and an outsider that doesn’t really care about the environment doesn’t care about the ecology and the way and the standards that the coastal communists live by and therefore they bring in with their own kind of impact that is negative. It’s so, it’s so so deep. Thanks to the project we are able to think deeper and you know able to analyze it from a different angle than we studied before.
Eva: Thank you so much for your incredible story and all of your work also as a bridge between these generations. I think this is a very important thing that is a pattern throughout your episode and before we end I’m just curious if you have any ways that the youth of Africa can engage with NextGEN that people can engage with the People’s Coast Community but trying to draw some of this connectivity that we identify as a challenge at the beginning of our conversation as an outcome of this project in this podcast.
Alfusainey: There are ways of improving the resources that we already have we need to find and motivate people that are willing to stay back in their own countries and actually also kind of support them to establish some of the ideas that are there within their own community we need to do that in a major way and for me the focus needs to be on that and so that’s therefore I think every young person that is on the journey towards implementing ideas need to be supported and be actually used as a sample as a measuring tool as an inspiration for other communities outside I think that is majorly that is what what is lacking and therefore projects or organizations struggle and struggle and struggle and then kind of have a breakthrough but it’s not really a breakthrough because the support is not enough and I actually think now that’s what we need and the support will be financial but I actually think it’s just not the finances it should be more on the intellectual point of view we need more education we need to really educate people the young person what sustainable development is so them ideas that they can actually be able to implement within their own communities have positive impact within their own communities and also into their own life for me that is the way forward for anybody that is really considering of taking the sustainable development goals further.
Eva: Thank you so much. Are you open to being a contact for people that want to get in touch and support with education, with implementing some of these practices in their communities? Would you mind if I listed your contact in our show notes?
Alfusainey: Yeah. I’m really open to to getting people to know about us we also want people to contact us work together with us there’s a way forward for us I believe we need to form a network of organizations within Africa and outside of Africa within the whole global level and so we will want to share our contact with everybody and you know everybody can contact us we have a lot of things we have women cooperatives that are happening around we have uh we have composting we have community gardens that are running around we also have Ecovillage Networks that are coming up and there are so many other excellent things to do within the People’s Coast Ecovillage now and we are really open to work with people.
Eva: Thank you so much for joining us and sharing a bit more of your story. It’s been an honor talking with you.
Alfusainey: Thank you very much, Eva.
Outroduction
Join us again next week, as we continue the conversation over what it means to be resilient in our time of deepening polycrisis. While you wait for the next episode of Community Resilience, we invite you to explore more about the Ecovillage Resilience 2.5 degree project by visiting us online at ecovillage.org/resilience.
GEN Staff
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