Daira Elsa Quiñones is a beautiful Afro-Columbian woman who has experienced great bereavement in her life. She is a great singer, a dreamer, and a wave of hope. Margarita O. Zethelius, from CASA, shares her story. In the 5th gathering of Call of the Mountain (the ecovillages gathering of Colombia), Daira came to tell us the story of a dream and a project, and surprised all with her great charisma. She is an ambassador of Afro-Colombian culture, of hope and strength. She brings to the CASA … Read more
urban ecovillages
Place & Space Australia's National Housing Conference
Increasingly in what could be termed community engagement vernacular we’re hearing the words well being, walkability and liveability used. From my perspective this is a very positive trend because it acknowledges the effects the built environment can have on people. My particular focus in this talk is place making and medium density city living. I thought in talking about place that I should first talk about non-place. Marc Auge a French anthropologist coined the term non-place to refer to … Read more
Healing of Colonization in Australia Self-Build as a Healing of Colonization in Australia
The Original Sovereign peoples of Australia are traditionally highly-skilled designers and builders of both permanent and temporary living and working structures and spaces. Remains of homes, middens, sacred ritual spaces, and technologies such as fish traps, have been scientifically dated to at least sixty thousand years ago, revealing a highly developed continuous society and culture. As a role model for sustainable living, traditional Original society demonstrates a highly complex and … Read more
2nd Festival of Eco-practices in Russia
The 2nd Festival of Eco-practices took place on August 9 -12 on the Festival Field of the Union of Kin-domains Blagodat , Yaroslavl oblast, Russia. This festival was initiated by Russian Ecovillages and Eco-initiative Network (www.gen-russia.ru), where also the first festival had taken place in the last year. The event is conceived by the organizers as a platform for exchange of practical experience in the field of environmentally friendly technologies and practices relating to all aspects of … Read more
Fall and Rise in Scotland The Fall and Rise of the Scottish Community
Ecovillages and community based organisations have a different history, but they can lead to a similar effect - the economical and ecological revitalization of regions. The example of Scotland shows how this can happen and why also the government has joined in to support this process. After a decline in the 20th century, communities in Scotland are thriving again. At the ICSA conference in Findhorn, Alex Walter described the rise of Scottish communities, and some of the opportunities that … Read more
Thailand towards sustainable living Ecovillage Festival Chiang Mai as a Venue for New Co-operative Initiatives towards Sustainable Living in South East Asia
In Thailand, another exciting cooperative initiative between government - or stakeholders - of the South with the Global Ecovillage Network has commenced. GEN representatives join hands with ETA (Ecovillage Transition Asia), to support ecovillage strategies for sustainable development in South East Asia. Jane Rasbash and Kosha Joubert report. Bicycle water pumps, meals served in banana leaves, and beautiful hand woven cloth were just some of the attractions at a recent Ecovillage Festival at … Read more
Network Meeting in Europe Network Meeting for Communities from Germany, Switzerland and Austria
Communities are models of sustainable living in both cities and rural areas. The Global Ecovillage Network offers a network meeting as a platform to get to know each other, to exchange knowledge and to connect. The next meeting will take place from the 8th -10th of November, 2013, in the ecovillage Schloss Tempelhof. All over the planet, more and more ecovillages and communities are emerging. In times of climate change, economical crisis, and isolation in cities and in rural areas they are … Read more
GEN Conference, 7-12 July, 2013: Celebrating a Worldwide Movement
Three hundred participants from fifty-one countries came together for five days at Schweibenalp Centre of Unity, Switzerland, to celebrate and share, present projects and ideas, and explore new strategies of collaboration. It was a remarkable meeting of minds and hearts that revealed, in many ways, the new level that the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) has reached in its eighteenth year of existence. Never have the international connections, mutual support, and love between the ecovillages of … Read more
What Makes an Ecovillage? A Perspective from the Yarrow Ecovillage
Yarrow is the name of a wild flower found growing in many places and very useful for medicinal healing. Yarrow is also the name of an ecovillage that was created 11 years ago in the British Columbia, Canada and has 65 inhabitants. As such, Yarrow belongs to the 5% of ecovillages which survive the first ten years, according to statistics. Michael Hale from Yarrow Ecovillage writes about the art of sustainability. Thinking back a decade and more in the history of the Yarrow Ecovillage, one may … Read more
Permaculture Works in Chile Together with the Ecovillage Movement
Chile has always been a hotbed of revolution, starting from the Mapuche resisting Spanish occupation for some 400 years. Today we see a young generation with fire in their bellies and dreams of a sustainable future, waking from decades of repression, a generation taking on the powers that be in subversive acts of peace, love and a solutions-based response. Permaculture and ecovillages are two practices that they are taking into the future, says Grifen Hope. The Permaculture community of Chile … Read more
