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The European Ecovillage Network – www.gen-europe.org
"The movement to create ecovillages is perhaps the most comprehensive antidote to dependence on the global economy. Around the world, people are building communities that attempt to get away from the waste, pollution, competition and violence of contemporary life.
The Global Ecovillage Network links several of these communities worldwide."

Helena Norberg-Hodge
Director of the International Society
for Ecology & Culture (ISEC)
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 Announcements:



GEN-Europe Assembly

at Keuruu Ecovillage, Finland
July 2009

Invitation to GEN-Europe's Annual Meeting 2009

The meeting will be hosted by Keuruu Ecovillage in Finland.
There will be some changes: The actual General Assembly of the members is taking place in the morning of July 11 for the financial report and deciding the budget.
The meeting will continue with a course: European Ecovillage Network - Training and Research for Sustainability (July 11-16). It will include presentations of projects, Open Space Sessions, World Café, introduction to Dragon Dreaming by John Croft, practical workshops and more.

For more detailed course information click here...

For more information on Keuruu click here...

There will be a lot of time for presentations of projects and ecovillages.

For last years assembly:..read reports, and see photos.



Dragon Dreaming
 Dragon Dreaming as a participatory planning tool for effective & successful community projects is slowly but surely finding it´s way into the European Ecovillage Movement. More infos here...
Workshops are running this autumn with reductions for GEN-Europe members, possibly even with EU-funding! Check it out here...

ESD

GEN at UNESCO ESD-Conference 2009

Five years into the UN Decade for Education for Sustainability the UNESCO World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development has taken place 31 March - 2 April 2009 in Bonn, Germany with 900 participants from 140 countries.  GEN-Europe president Kosha Anja Joubert was met with a wave of interest in the ecovillage model.

More than ever it has become clear how important it is to combine 'Top-Down' and 'Bottom-Up' strategies.  The NGOs (Gaia Education being one of the 12 main presenters !) that presented their work showed the strong transformational power of grassroots initiatives:

people who care and are ready to take on responsibility for the whole.  Many government officials - especially from the global South - are aware that they cannot solve the problems their countries are facing through policy decisions alone.  Far more interesting is the question how the population can be involved in actively and autonomously transforming their regions towards more sustainability, supported by the government and networking internationally permitting an exchange of experiences about what really works.


Ecovillages in the media

Ecovillages have featured prominently in two recent distinguished publications.
The Worldwatch Institute’s State of the World Report includes a chapter of Sustainable Communities, with a heavy focus on ecovillages.

The current issue of The Ecologist in the UK carries a 6-page feature on ecovillages. ...read more.

Ecovillage online forum

The online forum features a

- General Forum
This is a board for General discussions of GEN-Europe.

- Ecovillage Advertisements
Here you can post any advertisements that have to do with Ecovillages!

- Internal working groups for GEN-Europe members.

forum.gen-europe.org

Schumacher Briefings 12:
Ecovillages - New Frontiers for Sustainability

by Jonathan Dawson
paperback, 10Euro

In recent years, ecovillages - local communities which aim to minimise their eclogical impact but maximise human wellbeing and happiness - have proliferated worldwide. They incorporate a wealth of radical ideas and approaches which can be traced back to Schumacher, Gandhi, eco-feminism, and the alternative education movement. This Briefing describes the history and potential of the ecovillage movement.

You can order the book at our office!
GEN-Europe


News:

Swedish Permaculture Forest Garden
Suderbyn Permacul- ture Ecovillage on the Baltic Sea island of Gotland has began construction of what may be a unique forest garden design inspired by the ideas of Bill Mollison and Robert Hart.

Ecovillage Radio
Ecovillage Radio has been launched. Topics include food security issues and interviews with experts like Ross Jackson PhD and co-founder of GEN, who recently offered his views on the crisis of the world’s economy. The online Archive is always there.

Women Pursue Dream Professions
In Tamera, Portugal, eight women, most of them over 60 years old, are working together to build a new village, the Aldeia da Luz. While most of their contemporaries prepare to retire, these women are creating their own home bases from which they can pursue their dream professions.

Affordable Homes
The third neighbourhood at New York’s Ecovillage at Ithaca (EVI), TREE, has passed a major milestone with the hiring of an architect and development manager. The TREE neighbourhood aspires to build small, affordable, very green homes, suitable for both families and elders.

NextGEN Award
GEN’s youth wing, NextGEN, has been chosen as one of four organisations to receive the Interdependent Project Award of Excellence in recognition of their “inspiration, support and action”. The award grants each organisation a high profile and free advertising space on the project’s main website.



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