Volunteering in Eco-Communities

One of the core functions of an ecovillage network is to act as a bridge between communities, enabling ecovillages to connect with one another, share experiences, build relationships and collaborate for constant learning. Here Ulrike Schimmel from Sieben Linden describes how four communities recently came together to do just that – in the process creating valuable resources for ecovillages across the network and beyond.

So many ecovillages host volunteers these days – and so many of us are re-inventing the wheel when trying to figure out how exactly to go about it. In a recently ended project, four communities with big volunteering projects connected to discuss exactly this, down to the tiniest details. During the process, we got to meet four times and see with our own eyes how our partners do their volunteering projects: Ängsbacka (Sweden), Cloughjordan Ecovillage (Ireland), Ananda Gaori Eco-Ashram (Denmark) and Sieben Linden Ecovillage (Germany). Drawing inspiration from each other, we improved our own practices a lot and collected detailed descriptions of practices that we think are valuable not just for us but also for others. We share them on our website – come and check them out!

This project was co-funded by the European Union Erasmus+ programme.