This blog is continued from Susanna's first post, here. Susanne Ratka is a GEN Ambassador, seeker and community researcher who has recently spent 2 weeks supporting the GEN team in the Findhorn office. Simultaneously, she has embarked upon a journey to connect and inspire with her Community Research Project. Here, in the second part of Susanna's article, she generously shares her path to community research and some of her learnings along the way. Community Research Project - Inspiring a … Read more
Kibbutz
ICSA Conference 2016 in Tamera “Community Approaches Towards Inner and Outer Peace”
ICSA Conference 2016 in Tamera Ecovillage (Portugal) July 1st-3rd, 2016 From July 1st-3rd, 2016, the International Communal Studies Association (ICSA) Conference will take place in the peace research community center in the Tamera Healing Biotope Ecovillage in southern Portugal. This year’s theme is “Community approaches towards inner and outer peace.” ICSA was formed in 1985 during an international conference held at Yad Tabenkin, the Research and Documentation Centre of the Kibbutz … Read more
Kibbutz Lotan: Mud and Straw Homes Possible Answers for Earthquake Regions
Nepalese villagers are now faced with massive rebuilding projects following the April 25 earthquake. They could benefit from the lessons learned by eco-minded builders in Israel’s Arava desert. Marlene Dodinval reports. In preparation for future anticipated tremors, an Israeli ecovillage is taking a unique approach to safe and environmentally sound construction rather than the more common, but expensive and less effective, reinforced concrete method often relied on to withstand … Read more
GEN History The History of the Global Ecovillage Network: 1991-2015
Ross and Hildur Jackson from Denmark were the driving forces in creating the GEN network twenty years ago. For the first time they share the full story from their perspective. All there experience and information is a great gift especially to the young people who now take over the responsibility for the network. The Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) has now existed for 20 years and Gaia Education, which began as a GEN project, is celebrating its 10th year in teaching the principles of living … Read more
Inaugural GEN Israel Conference The Network of Eco-Villages and Eclogical Projects in Israel Gives Birth to GEN-Israel
The first public event of GEN-Israel, an all-day conference, was held on November 23 at Kibbutz Gezer. Participants included Kosha Joubert, president of GEN-International, Aida Shibli, coordinator of GEN-Palestine, and around 200 people from different ecological projects, communities and communities-networks. It was a new step which not only strengthens the existing network, but also stretches it further to local traditional Bedouin communities, some communes and networks coming from a socialist … Read more
What is an Ecovillage? – by EarthDeeds Models of Living Well Together in a Post-Oil World
Ecovillages, by definition, are communities striving towards high quality lifestyles that have low ecological impacts. As such, they are modeling how we can live well and lightly together in a post-oil future. But even with their focus on renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, and voluntary simplicity, ecovillages will never be able to reduce their impact to zero. In addition to reducing their ecological and carbon footprints, ecovillages also need to consider how to account for … Read more
Matthew Slater from Community Forge Self sufficiency, Exchange, and Economic Development
Matthew Slater is co-founder of Community Forge (http://communityforge.net/), and has been building LETS and Timebanking software systems for five years. In this article he explores how ecovillages might benefit from improved economic cooperation. To many ecovillagers, self sufficiency is an obvious principle - but what do we really mean by that? Would not a truly self sufficient being be able to subsist indefinitely in the vacuum of space? Do we mean that communities should not sell their … Read more
Sex and the Comunity Todo lo que querías saber sobre el sexo en las comunidades y no te atrevías a preguntar...
Sex and the Community. Uno de los típicos tópicos a los que nos enfrentamos en las comunidades es, cómo no, el del sexo. Por ejemplo, cuando llega alguien la jornada de Puertas Abiertas y, en medio de una conversación, baja el tono de repente y te pregunta: _ Oye, y aquí lo del sexo…¿cómo lo lleváis?. Tú le estabas explicando cómo autogestionamos las aguas grises y negras en la eco aldea y te suelta eso; no creo que haga falta saber mucho de psicología como para no entender que, … Read more
Community Experiment in Israel and Palestine
The Peace Research Village Middle East team (PRV-ME), a member of GEN Middle East, is starting a community experiment in March, in which the project invites friends and supporters to live and work together toward the manifestation of the Village. During March the group is volunteering in the kibbutz, Neot Semadar, in the Negev, deepening the contact between communities and checking possibilities for future cooperation. In April the group will be living, working, and learning Arabic in Eilaboun, … Read more
