What If? Ecovillage Solutions for Extraordinary Times

What if we connected with our neighbours? What if we listened more deeply to each others’ needs? What if we had more community gardens? What if all our daily actions were guided by healing intentions? What if we re-learned what it means to live better together, with one another and the planet?

What If? Ecovillage Solutions for Extraordinary Times is a two-day online gathering that seeks to explore the answers to the questions that define our ‘new normal’.

We are living in extraordinary times. The future is uncertain. What comes next is up to us. What if we write a new story?

This two-day online gathering will harness the spirit of the ecovillage movement to catalyse regenerative solutions that we can implement in our own lives, wherever we are.

Join the Online European Ecovillage Gathering this 7-8 November to explore how ecovillages and intentional communities are awakening to opportunities through the Covid crisis and how together we can transform this moment to create a culture of regeneration and resilience for all.

Click here to view the full programme and timings

Arising from our hearts, creating with our hands, and solving with our heads, our programme will balance workshops and activities that serve our need to co-create transformative solutions. Our four core focus areas will respond to four vital themes in this moment over two full days, from 10:00 – 21:15 CET.

You can expect discussion, observation, intimacy, inspiration and heart. Our programme will bring panel discussions, interactive workshops, sharing and reflective exercises, connective dance and meditation, so together we can explore intentional reactions to the unfolding crisis. Through Meet the Ecovillages, you will have the opportunity to deepen your connection and knowledge of specific communities within the European ecovillage movement. Together, we will develop our interconnectedness as like-minded changemakers and communities.

What if… we can build the world our hearts so yearn for? Let us discover the possibilities, in community.

Sacred Activism Panel

Working the Edge: How Ecovillages are Pioneering Solutions in Extraordinary Times

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Roger Doudna

Community and sustainability expert

Robert has lived in Findhorn for over 45 years, and is Chair and Carbon Strategist for its Park Ecovillage Trust. He also built the first permanent home at Findhorn, and superintends the Heavenly Hot Tub Club there.

Lucilla Borio

Founder, Torre Superiori Ecovillage

Ecovillage founder Lucilla is also a former president of GEN International, mother, artisan and trainer in ecovillage incubation.

Heike Pourian

Researcher, teacher and author

Heike is co-initiator of the sacred activism practice “Standing with the Earth” and the project “Sensing the Change”,

Inclusion & Representation Panel

Challenges of Diversity and Inclusion – Voices from our Communities

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Nonty Sebide

Speaker, shaman and advocate for climate and social justice

Nonty is a South African workshop leader and speaker with a goal to send a message of empowerment, service, indigenous wisdom, sustainable living and the importance of building community and ecovillages in modern society.

Aida Shibli

Peace activist and founder, Global Campus Palestine

A leading figure in the non-violent resistance movement in Palestine, Aida is a co-worker of the community of Tamera in south Portugal and serves as a bridge between cultures.

Meera Ghani

Facilitator, Chaplin and community builder

Meera grew up in Pakistan where she worked on issues of human rights, and has been providing facilitation, and training services for the past 6 years on anti racism, anti-oppression, strategic visioning, culture change and transformative justice.

Martin Winiecki

Leader, Institute for Global Peacework, Writer, Activist

Martin Winiecki was born in Germany in 1990 and has lived at Tamera since 2006. He’s led Tamera’s Institute for Global Peacework since 2013, networking and campaigning, organizing international events and writing for various online outlets. Martin is one of the initiators of the Defend the Sacred Alliance.

Community Incubation Panel

Resourcing the Transition: Regenerative Income Streams and Network Building

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Robert Hall

Ecovillage co-founder, ECOLISE Deputy Director

Active in GEN since 2009 including as Managing Director and President, Robert cofounded Suderbyn ecovillage and loves the combination of working hands-on with practical eco-technologies and the bigger picture issues of influencing governments and international organisations.

Dicte Frost

Researcher and Ecovillage Co-Creator

Dicte has been researching and training in ecovillages since 2016 and recently coordinated the Sustainability and Resilience festival. She works in several GEN projects and is currently co-creating an ecovillage in Denmark.

Low-Impact Technology Panel

Hands in the Soil: Purpose, Empowerment and Bioregional Resilience

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Sonita Mbah

Award-winning activist

Sonita is a facilitator/trainer with Better World Cameroon and has dedicated the last 6 years reconnecting young people to the land and carrying out “Youth For Peace” campaigns and cross-culture education programs through youth camps, and other community initiatives related to climate change adaptation.

Achim Ecker

Landscape designer, Forum trainer, co-founder of GEN

Among many other roles, Achim is chief landscape designer at ZEGG, creating fertile soil using Terra Preta technologies and instigated an edible landscape on glacial sand using intuition and Permaculture knowledge.

John Liu

Founder, Ecosystem Restoration Camps

ERC founder John Liu has devoted his life to understanding and communicating about the potential and responsibility to restore degraded landscapes on a planetary scale.

Community Incubation Workshops

How can we start new ecovillages and strengthen existing ones throughout Europe?

Taisa Mattos & Dr. Katy Fox

Ecovillage Transition in Action project

GEN Education Coordinator Taisa and social anthropologist Katy are passionate about education and regeneration, and bring their expertise to the Ecovillage Transition in Action Project

Genny Carraro

Facilitator, co-founder of the Italian Processwork School

Genny is former Managing Director of GEN Europe, lives in an ecovillage and is a highly experienced trainer in facilitation, sociocracy and deep democracy.

Mauge Cañada

Ecovillage Founder and Expert Facilitator

Founding member of the Iberian Ecovillage Network and Arterra Bizimodu ecovillage, Mauge has a PhD in social psychology as well as a postgraduate degree in Mediation, has lived in community since 1980 and has been facilitating groups since 2008.

CLIPS Team

International team of expert community-building facilitators

The CLIPS team is made up of ecovillage founders and expert facilitators who work together with new and existing communities to help them thrive.

Inclusion & Representation Workshops

How can we create more equitable and inclusive networks and communities?

Viva Bailón

Psychodramatist and Process Facilitator

Viva’s approach is based on embodied practices, learning circles, futures thinking and elements of emerging social technologies like U Theory. Her mission is to encourage individuals and communities to project visions of desirable futures that put life at the center.

John Paul Patton

Environmental educator, community founder, writer and musician

Founder of Enriched Earth community in Ireland, John-Paul has also spent 30+ years exploring comparative religion and mythology with a particular interest in reconstructing Indigenous Irish spirituality and culture.

Nonty Sedibe

Speaker, shaman and advocate for climate and social justice

Anne-Chloé Destremau and Clinton Callahan

Possibility Management Trainers

Clinton and Chloe are trainers, edgeworkers and initatiors of the transformational gameworld of Possibility Management

Sacred Activism Workshops

What actions can we take to realise our personal and collective potential and accelerate global transformation?

Anne Bretschneider, Aida Shibli

Peaceworkers and activists

Aida and Anne are members of Tamera community, and activists for peace, healing, and the sanctity of all life

Nadine Jensen

Unschooler and community founder

Nadine’s challenging path through conventional education didn’t stop her from finding her passion, which led her to found Nature Community with her partner, where she unschools her three children.

Heike Pourian

Researcher, teacher and author

Heike is co-initiator of the sacred activism practice “Standing with the Earth” and the project “Sensing the Change”

Vera Franco

Possibility Management Trainer

Vera began exploring alternatives to the mainstream in her 20s and is moved to awaken human potential and create an abundant, creative and thriving life with others and the world.

Low-Impact Technology Workshops

What tools can we access now that reduce our footprint and support regenerative culture change?

Ethan Hirsch-Tauber

Water protector and sustainability educator

Ethan has lived in communities around the world since 2009 and now works with a global network of water protectors who are restoring ecosystems for climate restoration by bringing water back to earth’s desertifying landscapes.

Sonita Mbah

Award-winning activist

John D. Liu

Founder, Ecosystem Restoration Camps

ERC founder John Liu has devoted his life to understanding and communicating about the potential and responsibility to restore degraded landscapes on a planetary scale.

Anastasia Oprea

Multidisciplinary researcher

Anastasia Oprea is a Phd candidate in International Relations at the University of Coimbra in Portugal. She was involved in the Community Biogas project in Moldova in 2019, as a social scientist from GEN Europe. Since 2018 she collaborates with the Center for the Study of Modernity and Rural World.

Movement, Meditation and Healing

Sonja – Brahma Kumaris

Yoga and meditation teacher and advocate

Sonja Ohlsson is the director of Brahma Kumaris (BK) in Denmark and has practised raja yoga meditation since 1986. She is a meditation teacher with the Prison service in Copenhagen.

Marietta Schürholz

Curator, journalist, trainer

Marietta is a Possibility Management trainer for adult responsibility and in organizational development, and co-founder of the nonprofit “Workshop for Responsibility and Leadership”.

Meet the Ecovillages

Join our Meet the Ecovillage spaces on Saturday evening as we create a series of intimate spaces to hear from ecovillage communities who are geographically spread throughout the European continent. We will also have the opportunity to connect with the NextGEN youth network as we learn how they are activating in these extraordinary times and how you can get involved! Come participate, explore and discuss a diverse collection of approaches to intentional community life, and who knows, perhaps ignite inspiration for your next steps too!

Open Space

We are excited to bring a dedicated space for participant-led workshops. In addition to our main workshop programme, on Saturday night we offer this slot based on Open Space Technology as an invitation to co-creation and participation: to align with the fires and experiences in us now, and to ensure a forum to share these passions with each other. Attend if you are curious. Come if you are bursting to share and inspire. If you feel called to deeper participation and connection, this space is for you.

REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED

Register for the gathering here! We are offering these two full days of workshop for a minimum donation of €20, to ensure a balance of accessibility and economic sustainability. 10% of all donations will go to a fund to support workshop leaders and facilitators from underrepresented groups – you can read our full statement here.

Press and media: if you would like to request a press pass please contact fran@gen-europe.org

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