Deniz Dincel (vice president of GEN-Europe, Turkey): I’m a biologist. While I was working in Bugday Society for Supporting Ecological Livelihood in Istanbul, I decided to learn more about ecological living and went to Findhorn Ecovillage in Scotland. I stayed in Findhorn Ecovillage for about two years and participated in many trainings. I worked in Ecological Footprint Analysis Project of Findhorn Ecovillage and Community in 2005. I have visited many ecovillages in Europe and have been organizing International Workshops on Sustainable Living for the last four years in Turkey.

I’m is one of the trainers of Ecovillage Design Education. Currently, I’m in the council of Global Ecovillage Network-Europe and live in Turkey.

Robert Hall (new member of GEN council, Sunderbyn Ecovillage, Sweden) I have had an interest in ecovillages at least since 1990 when Ingrid and I started visiting ecovillages. By 1993 we had seen Svanholm, Denmark; Nimbin, Australia, Longo Mai, France and Auroville, India. But I did not discover GEN until 2005 when I really wanted to find the right ecovillage to move to and started to use the website regularly. In the end we opted not to move to an ecovillage in France but to start one in Sweden. GEN membership was an expressed goal of our Swedish project from the start - to become a real ecovillage. So our first NGO established to gather people and seek land was set up in 2007 with “gaining GEN membership” as a goal written into the statutes. As soon as we bought and moved to the land and established our democratic cooperative in mid 2008, Suderbyn Permaculture Ecovillage applied for supportive membership in GEN. And as soon as we could, we came to the GEN General Assembly in Keuruu, Finland in 2009 as a new supportive member ecovillage. We left Keuruu as a proud full member. Being the only full member in Sweden we felt a responsibility to get the national network functioning and get others to join GEN. Thus Njord, the Swedish Ecovillage Network was revived in 2009 specifically to become GEN Sweden.This year we came to Damanhur as a new full member and returned home with a representative in the GEN Council. This was a surprise that I had not expected, but it is definately an honour to be able to contribute to GEN’s and the ecovillage movement’s development. I think I can add diversity to the already diverse council and I hope that this diversity of skills and experience can be used to mobilise members and allow GEN Europe- Middle East-Africa to make a big step up as a known agent for global change during the next 2 years.

This year we came to Damanhur as a new full member and returned home with a representative in the GEN Council. This was a surprise that I had not expected, but it is definately an honour to be able to contribute to GEN’s and the ecovillage movement’s development. I think I can add diversity to the already diverse council and I hope that this diversity of skills and experience can be used to mobilise members and allow GEN Europe-Middle East-Africa to make a big step up as a known agent for global change during the next 2 years.