News from GEN South Africa Initiative

By: Sarah Thobi Motha

Umphakatsi Peace Ecovillage in South Africa has been actively involved in raising awareness about the ecovillages after the EDE in 2011.

Umphakatsi Peace Ecovillage in Mpumalanga Province of South Africa has been actively involved in raising awareness about the ecovillages in Africa especially after the Ecovillage Design Education training of trainers in Sieben Linden Germany in 2011 (August to September)

One member of the Umphakatsi Peace Ecovillage was selected to attend the training, which was followed by attending  an ecovillage conference at Sekem in Egypt and another 1 month hands on course of ecovillages in Senegal in November - December 2011. 

Subsequent to the above process Ms Tobhi Sarah Motha, who has stepped in as an ambassador for the Global Ecovillage Network in Africa has met with traditional healers, traditional community leaders, headsmen, youth leaders, school governing body members and homebased care groups to share experience and learning gained from the ecovillage design education.

Community dialogues have been held on the 5th, 10th, 19th , 20 and 22 of January 2012 which lasted from 1 to 4 hours. Most of rural villages are becoming ghost villages due to rural urban migration as people are looking for jobs and better services. The information sharing dialogues present opportunity to enlighten grassroot community leaders about the  available resources at disposal and how  they can be used to transform the 'becoming ghost villages' into sustainable ecovillages using land, human resource and other natural resources such as rivers and energy. This process has also seen some individuals considered elite in the social land scape of South Africa becoming interested in joining the Umphakatsi Peace ecovillage or the existing rural villages where Ms Motha has been working to initiate the transition of the villages into ecovillages. There is a great interest and stir.

Currently, Oude Molen Ecovillage in Cape Town has requested through GEN International that a process of dialogue be facilitated to consolidate a common vision of revitalising the vision of being an ecovillage. Ms Motha is facilitating a social process for this dynamic. This process started on the 26 of January and envisaged to end by the 7th of February 2012.

The overall aim of all the above is to create a network of ecovillages in South Africa as we now know that Senegal has a network of 45 ecovillages and the government has established a full Ministry of Ecovillage. 

There is a great protential for South Africa to heal and transform towards making current social ills of  poverty, inequality and violence history. The Senegalese experience is a testimony to this effect.