We are proud to release the Global Ecovillage Network Annual Report 2018. Our staff, partners, and members are diverse, creative, and driven by passion and commitment. We strive to ensure our projects and programmes are engaging, impactful, and contextually relevant.When we reflect back on our accomplishments of 2018, we hope to ignite these qualities in our readers as well. Our annual report provides metrics, as we measure and track our progress and set new targets for the coming year. It … Read more
traditional communities
Finding Consensus Through Storytelling A Reflection from GEN's Talanoa Dialogue for the European Day of Sustainable Communities
A night of storytelling to share thoughts, knowledge and experiences related to climate change. The aim of the Talanoa Dialogue organised by the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) and the Findhorn Foundation, held in coordination with the European Day of Sustainable Communities, was to build consensus and unfold the complexity of a global situation that requires absolute openness and cannot be avoided. As highlighted in a recent speech by the UN Secretary General António Guterres, when thinking … Read more
Guede Chantier, ecovillage principles in partnership Center of West African REDES ecovillage network practices sustainability in collaboration
A lot has taken place in and around the eco-community of Guede lately, including at least three partnership programmes made possible with the financial and technical support of Damanhur and coordinated with REDES (French acronym for Network for Ecovillage Emergence and Development in the Sahel). Some of the work includes planting an orchard with a women's association in Madina Fresbe village (a community of herders), training over a hundred women from 15 villages in food processing, and … Read more
Cloughjordan models sustainability Irish Showcase Ecovillage measures its climate impact in four dimensions of sustainability
Cloughjordan ecovillage measured its ecological footprint in 2014. The ecological footprint of the average ecovillager was found to be 2 gha (the "gha" or global hectare is a measurement unit for the ecological footprint of people or activities related to the biocapacity of the earth), compared to an average of 4.7 gha for the average Irish person. This gives evidence that the ecovillage is modeling the transition to a low-carbon society through developing its own unique ecosystem of innovation … Read more
Celebrating our Annual Report 2017 How we Innovate, Catalyse, Educate and Advocate in Global Partnership
Celebrating our Annual ReportGEN just completed several months of hard work co-creating our 2017 Annual Report! It is a beautiful and many-faceted document and so we will take this opportunity to share some highlights from our programmes and partnerships over the last year that continue today! Since our mission is "to innovate, catalyze, educate and advocate in global partnership with ecovillages and all those dedicated to the shift to a regenerative world," we offer the following examples … Read more
Report from Talanoa Dialogue #GENTalanoa: Addressing climate change through empowered communities pursuing their own pathways of development
Yvette Dzakpasu, GEN Advocacy Director, attended the Talanoa Dialogue on behalf of the GEN Advocacy Working Group, which also includes Executive Director Kosha Joubert and Main UN Representative Rob Wheeler. Yvette filed this report for the event:The Talanoa Dialogue took place in Bonn, Germany on 6 May 2018, bringing the traditional Fijian storytelling tool to the UN Climate Change policy process. As described by the UN, “the purpose of Talanoa is to share stories, build empathy and to … Read more
Memory, Fire and Hope Five Lessons from Standing Rock
The North Dakota camp may have been evicted but the movement hasn’t lost. Here are five lessons activists around the world can learn from the water protectors."The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." —Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and ForgettingOn February 22, 2017, water protectors at the Oceti Sakowin camp, the primary camp of Standing Rock, were evicted by the Army Corps of Engineers in a military style takeover. A peaceful resistance … Read more
Ecosystem Restoration Eco-communities as Sacred Activism
To Gaia, life is sacred, because evolving life forms is what Gaia does.To life, diversity is sacred, because diversity leads to stability in the delicately interwoven ecosystems upon which life depends.To one particular life form on Earth, the humans, perceiving sacredness depends on each individual’s personal level of consciousness. Without authentic adulthood initiations what many humans hold sacred is mere survival in the widely adopted culture of capitalistic patriarchal empire. … Read more
Among Humans and Nature Peace is Respect for the Rights of Mother Earth
We humans are the only species living on the surface, under and above the skin of Mother Earth that have had the ignorance, arrogance, senselessness to pretend that Her nurturing elements: soil, water, wind, fire, mountains, rivers, oceans, insects, animals of all sorts, can be subjected to appropriation, abuse, domination, exploitation, and turned into resources, merchandised, destroyed, extinguished for our own benefit, greed and foolishness.Once upon a time we were grateful for Her power, … Read more
A Twin Journey between the Ecovillages Guedé Chantier and Damanhur A mutual learning and support experiment between two large ecovillages - one from Africa and one from Europe - show how North-South collaboration can look.
Brief introductions to Guedé Chantier and Damanhur communitiesGuedé Chantier is located in the north of Senegal, 480 km from Dakar, on the bank of Doué river and about 12 km close to the Senegalese border with Mauritania. It is an oasis in a semi-arid region with a short rainy season between August and October with less than 400 millimeters. The dry season is the rest of the year. Peak heat is May, and June can reach 45-47° C during the day.Guedé has a population of around 7,000 … Read more
