Who are we? What are the story of our ecovillages? Where are we from? What is close to our hearts? Take a moment to introduce yourself and the ecovillage you come from!
Hiya from Australia.
Iām Tanya, a member of Narara Ecovillage and also Global Ecovillage Network Australia.
Iāve written 2 articles about my involvement with GEN:
- How I got involved - My Journey into ecovillage-ism | GEN AU
- Doing the first EDE online (totally awesome) - Experiencing the EDE Online | GEN AU
Now Iām involved with the Education business at Narara, building an accessible house at Narara and the early days of a national gathering in Australia around Resilient Communities.
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Greetings everyone!
My name is Laulin, pronounced āLau-leen.ā
I grew up in the Huehuecoyotl Ecovillage in Tepoztlan, an hour-and-a-half South of Mexico City, since I was 4 years old. I was born at home in Berkeley, California, USA on July 10, 1986. My mother is a US born art therapist, videographer, ecologist, and environmental activist. My father was a civil engineer, a curandero healer, and a Zapotec indigenous leader. These roots gave me a strong multicultural and bilingual foundation.
Iām a second generation eco-villager and the NEXT-GEN representative of my community in this group. Beatrice Briggs and Giovanni Ciarlo are the other 2 representatives of Huehuecoyotl in this Ecovillage Resilience Project. In these times we recognize the urgent need to activate and inspire people, especially youth, to co-create the tools and skills needed to face the future challenges together.
Iām a passionate multidisciplinary entrepreneur, specializing in sustainable and regenerative education. Iām a certified yoga instructor and teach English and Spanish as a second language. As a promoter of culture, I also participate in the direction, organization, and production of national and international events that foster self-knowledge and harmonious living.
Iāve lived in different regions of Mexico, the USA, and Uruguay, where regenerative movements originated and converged, promoting the development of human consciousness through art, ecology, environmental activism, ritual, and culture. This year I launched a slow fashion clothing company, as well as an organic wellness and beauty line called Botanical Alchemy, and feel inspired to continue my communityās lifework dedicated to Earth regeneration, social change, and transformation.
At the beginning of this year I had an epiphany. A pivotal intergenerational alliance was forged that has led to the development of a compelling and exciting vision: The Huehue Eco-Center - TepoztlĆ”n Bioregional Alliance, at Huehuecoyotl Ecovillage. The Huehue Eco-Center builds upon Huehuecoyotlās 40 year foundation to preserve, restore, and celebrate the ecosystems that support life on Earth and mobilize the human population in this bioregion to become stewards of the mountains, forests, and watersheds that define our home. Iām thrilled to be collaborating on this very beautiful, and of course, challenging project to bring forth the next chapter of our ecovillageās re-evolution and regeneration in service to our Earth Community.
Thank you to all the people involved in developing and facilitating this project and to those of you who have had the courage to commit to embarking on this journey together. I am really excited to be part of the GEN Ecovillage Resilience Project to connect with other Next GEN youth and GEN elders from other ecovillages so we can strengthen our alliances today and help each other develop, practice, and implement tools and skills for a resilient and vibrant regenerative future.
With love,
Laulin
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I am Dr Aditi and I stay in Govardhan ecovillage, 90 kms away from Mumbai, India. I have 21+ yrs of diverse experience, but felt most meaningfully engaged recently when as family we shifted to Govardhan our ecovillage 2.5 yrs back. Indebted with gratitude we held sacrosanct the gift of Mother Nature and contribute to ecosystem with several of our regenrative initiatives like 300 Kw solar energy, 90 mn ltrs RWH pond, 100% sustainable solid and liquid waste mgt, 100 cow family members, horses, sheeps, goats, donkeys, butterflies and birds. We have spotted migratory birds who fly from Sri Lanka to Himalyas chose to stop at our ecovillage. I also represent our ecovillage at policy dialogues in UN bodies like UNEP, UNECOSCO, CBD etc. Really excited to embark on this collaborative learning journey together.
Every day spent meaningfully in service of Mother Nature, Lord and all souls his/her children not just human beings is mission of my life. An opportunity to express gratitude everyday is what I CHERISH A LOT. And as we know gratitude is not just saying thank you but taking action which conveys gratitude we feel in heart.
I am grateful to GEN to extend to us this opportunity to take meaningful action.
Hi friends,
Iām Rob Wheeler and I am representing The Farm on this project, an intentional community with around 200 residents, in Summertown, Tennessee in the United States that was founded 50 years ago when a bunch of spiritually minded hippies from San Francisco drove across the country in vans and buses looking for a place to call home as a part of the back to the land movement. I am living at the Ecovillage Training Center here and I have only been at The Farm for 4 months now; but I have represented the Global Ecovillage Network at the United Nations and have participated actively in the UNās sustainable development and climate processes for some 20 years now; and I lived in another smaller ecovillage for some years a while back.
I think that it is essential that changes be made at both the local and on up to the global levels at the same time; and I am thus happy to focus on what we can do in our own ecovillage communities, while also demonstrating what can and must be done elsewhere, and supporting all of humanity in making these same types of changes concurrently.
I have given two presentations on this Climate Resiliency project at community meetings here since applying to be a part of it and there is a great deal of interest at the Farm; and we now have a coordinating committee with 7 members that has been meeting weekly ever since. I also serve on GENās Network Stewards Circle and am on the Elderās Council; and I represent GEN on the Ecosystem Restoration Camps advisory council. I also took the GAIA Education course and training for trainers in Sustainable Design Education in 2018 and am thus certified.
I am especially concerned about the extent of damage that humanity has done to the natural environment and our one planet home, how we are living beyond the carrying capacity of the earth, and how humanity is under-mining our very existence and well-being and destroying the incredible gift that we have been given by āthe Creatorā.
I do not believe that we will be able to create real resiliency and well-being unless we are also able to bring most of the rest of humanity along with us at the same time, because too much damage, degradation and instability is already being done to allow that. However, I still believe that if we can make a rapid transition to fully regenerative and sustainable development that we can make the changes and transformation needed and live lives of abundance and grace. But it will have to be a major transition as almost nothing that humanity does today is done in anywhere close to a fully sustainable manner - so we have to change almost everything.
With that in mind I have been working on the development of a web portal called Sustainably Wise, which you can see at www.SustainablyWise.org. I or we are still working on the prototype but I have much of the information and material downloaded already that will demonstrate how and to help all interested people in being able to make the needed transition.
I also pulled together the web content, and with GENās webmaster at the time, put together a section on the GEN website showing examples of best practices being carried out in ecovillages for addressing climate change for the Paris Climate Summit Conference COP21 in 2015 see: www.ecovillage.org/climatesolutions.
Though it is probably in serious need of being updated, I believe it still includes today many examples of the types of Nature Based Solutions that will have to be addressed and implemented if we are going to make the required transformation. I also think that this Climate Solutions web section could be upgraded by adding what we will all be focusing on and doing either independently or as a part of this project; and that this could then become a good means and vehicle for sharing this with the rest of the world as we strive together to create a more resilient and regenerative future.
GEN has also developed an initial or preliminary set of Regenerative Development Aims or Goals, which Anna and to some extent I have worked on, which could be further modified or added to and would provide a good addition and a more ambitious but much needed upgrade to the UNās Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). If we want to work on something like this, I could help considerably to introduce it to the international community as I am on the International Facilitating Group for Action for Sustainable Development which helps to organize and promote the Global Week of Action on the SDGs with the UN and follows government efforts on implementing them as well.
I think that this is particularly important because so far our governments and the UN are much better at making agreements and commitments than at implementing them; and the ones they have made so far are nowhere near what will be needed if humanity is going to be able to get out of the quagmire and mess that we have been and are still creating; and now find ourselves stuck in.
So, it will likely take a major change in consciousness, awareness, and action by most of the worldās people in a very short period of time if humanity is going to make the changes needed and survive as a species.
So what are these changes that are going to have to be made? Well, that is one thing that I expect we will spend a good deal of time discussing as a part of this project. But we will probably have to transition to close to 100% sources of renewable energy, totally regenerative agricultural practices, eat a mostly plant based diet, consume no more natural resources than can be regenerated and sustained through creating a circular economy, greatly reduce and then phase out the use of toxic chemicals, restore as much of the natural environment as possible, and so on. Fortunately many more people are realizing that we are going to have to make these changes; and there are now initiatives and efforts in almost every sector that are moving in the right direction.
The main question facing us I believe is whether we will be able to make the transition needed in the time required or not. It would help if those blocking such a transition would just get out of the way; but so far we are far from seeing that happen as their continued profits seem to be of more concern to them than the shared fate of humanity. So that is part of the reason why it will take a concerted effort by so many to help wake up humanity and to recognize that it is essential that these changes are made and that we develop a much deeper understanding as to what it will take to create a truly resilient future.
Ok, that is probably more than enough for now. I recognize that this initiative is meant to principally address the need for establishing resiliency at a community based level so I will keep that in mind as we go forward; but still I am also aware that the same type of changes will probably be needed at both the local and on up to the global levels if we are going to achieve true resiliency. I am looking forward to working with all of you on this at both the community level and as a part of a global effort and movement - if there is interest and support for this as well.
Rob Wheeler
RobWheeler22@gmail.com
Skype: robineagle333
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Hello all! My name is Kayla Smolik. I Love Goddess, People, and the World in which we Live. My focus for some years has been Opening to the Goodness of All, and Allowing myself to Co-Create within it. This is currently taking form in creating a home base here on The Farm in Tennessee, USA. I am so excited to have traveled to a Community with such history and wisdom. This project with GEN is especially exciting because it will help me dig into this history and wisdom, while also gifting the opportunity for us to Vision together a future in which we work together, with Momma Earth, AND share with others who are interested?! Very exciting times.
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