Celebrating our Annual Report GEN 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
traditional communities
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
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 communities Guedé 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
Urban Ecovillages in North America These days, you can find ecovillages in more places than ever – including in places like Los Angeles or San Diego.
When you hear the word “ecovillage” you might think of a collection of rustic cabins on a rural farm. Or maybe you imagine a solar-powered suburb like the Ithaca Ecovillage in NY state. You might think living in an ecovillage is too remote or unaffordable. But these days, you can find ecovillages in more places than ever - including the 40-member Los Angeles Ecovillage near downtown LA and the Le Case community in San Diego. For two years, I lived in an urban ecovillage in SE Portland, OR, … Read more
Women Transforming Traditional Villages into Ecovillages in India
Differently from ecovillages in Europe which are intentional communities, in India “Eco Village Development” is about changing existing traditional villages into ecovillages by implementing in, and teaching the community - especially women - climate solutions which are needs based, low carbon and affordable. India has 600,000 traditional villages all over the country. The following example is a model on 6 villages in Uttarakhand. Its aim is to showcase these to the Government and other NGOs, and … Read more
What is an Ecovillage? Reflections from the Network
An ecovillage is an intentional, traditional or urban community that is consciously designed through locally owned, participatory processes in all four dimensions of sustainability (social, culture, ecology and economy) to regenerate their social and natural environments. GEN’s definition of ‘ecovillage’ is broad, allowing for many different kinds of communities and projects to be recognised. Because each ecovillage is designed by the people who live there, according to their vision, … Read more
Community Nature’s secret to evolutionary success
By: Jaime Brown-Hansen and Yael Marantz As we reflect on the current ecological, societal, political, economic and spiritual circumstances in the present day, it is clear that the need for reorganization is upon us. A time of creation, of course, is equally a time of destruction. We breathe life into new models by stepping into them, and old model dissolve as we step out of them, though for a time we may have a foot in each as we shift our weight from one to the other. … Read more
Resilience and Self-Reliance An Update on Regenerative Solutions for Active EmerGENcies Projects
As the call for global climate action strengthens following the COP22 in Marrakech, GEN’s work in climate change adaptation and mitigation through ecovillage development programs is guided by a design based on both prevention and response. One of the pillars of this framework is EmerGENcies, GEN’s emerging humanitarian program. The purpose is to respond to and try to prevent further deleterious effects of climate change (among other forms of crises), in vulnerable communities around the … Read more
