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What's News
Ecovillage Design Education
Gains Popularity in North and South May 2007
As Spring arrives in the North and Autumn in the South a new season
of Ecovillage Design Education (EDE) training sessions is inaugurated.
Following a series of successful pilots in 2006 this year will
see Gaia Education EDE programmes widely spread. They will be
held as far afield as Auroville in India and
Wongsanit Ashram in Thailand in the East to Asociación
Gaia in Argentina and El Poncho Ecocentro in Bolivia in the South.
EDE courses are sparking great interest of future sustainability
designers from both rural and urban settings. With the pressing
agendas of climate change and peak oil, there is an increasing
readiness for Gaia Education trainings, where an objective assessment
of the state of the planet is followed by regional, community,
and place-based solutions. The response to the 2007 programme
has already been way above expectations.
Kibbutz Lotan, Israel - The 10-week programmes
that are based on permaculture and practical eco-building projects
in a desert environment are already oversubscribed. Lotan EDE
courses empower individuals and communities with the knowledge
for shaping their worlds and becoming more self-reliant
Sao Paulo, Brazil - The urban EDE starting on
the 14 April in the heart of Sao Paulo is proving extremely popular
with over 400 applicants! It took a well discussed and defined
selection criteria and a huge group effort to identify the 101
highly qualified participants, among them, architects, planners,
public park carers, social workers, educators, engineers and peri-urban
horticulturalists. The EDE curriculum has been adapted into Latin
America urban context to suit their immediate city environment.
Whilst the principles are the same, the context is different,
for example, the Bioregionalism Module has become Sustainable
Neighborhood focusing on how existent neighborhoods can be sustainably
retrofitted.
Crystal Waters, the Australian Ecovillage, where
renowned permaculture teacher Max Lindeggar is based. Max and
team sent out basic information about a Four Month EDE Internship
in 2008 and within 36 hours they had 16 e-mail enquiries, two
phone calls (US and Japan) and a request to consider teaching
the course in Thailand.Gaia Education programmes provide cutting
edge high quality sustainability education with a transdisciplinary
approach, equipping the students with the practical skills, analytic
abilities and philosophical depth for the redesign of our human
presence in the world.
The EDE curriculum has four core facets of World View, Economic
Design, Social Design and Ecological Design that are woven together
in rapport with the local environment. The curriculum is relevant
to peoples of both developed and developing countries, rural and
urban regions and the host sites are a diverse selection of well
established ecovillages and occasionally urban sustainability
centres. EDE is a Gaia Education programme and since 2005 is an
official contribution to the United Nations Decade of Education
for Sustainable Development.
Gaia Education Meeting Wongsanit
Ashram, Thailand February 2007
The GEESE are a think tank of sustainability educators from 13
nationalities building on a common stock of wisdom and best practice
from Ecovillages around the world. They have been meeting since
1998 through information technology as well as face to face to
conceive and give birth to the EDE programmes that are spreading
the message of low impact and carbon neutral activities across
the globe. The EDE has been piloted in settings as varied as urban
Sao Paulo, Lotan a desert Kibbutz in Israel and Findhorn, a spiritual
eco community in Northeast Scotland. The 26 participants were
representatives from these and other pilot EDE centres and Ecovillages
as well as the Gaia Education Board and other interested parties.
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Front row left: Jane Rasbash-
Wongsanit/Findhorn, Maddy Harland- Permaculture Magazine/UK,
Hwayoung Jeon-Wongsanit/Korea, Marti Mueller- Auroville/India.
Second row left: Frank Siciliano- Ecovila
Sao Paulo/Brazil, Giovanni Ciarlo- Huehuecoyotl/Mexico, Iliana
Toussieh-Oaxaca, Mexico, Silke Paulich-Tamera, Portugal, Daniel
Wahl-Scotland, Ina Meyer-Stoll- Zegg/Germany, Liz Walker-
Ecovillage at Ithaca/USA , May East- Findhorn/Brazil, Mark
Nevah- Kibbutz Lotan/Israel, Pracha Hutanuwatr- Wongsanit
Ashram/Thailand, Hide Enomoto- Findhorn/Japan, Somboom Chungprampree
Moo- Wongsanit Ashram/Thailand.
Back row: Ross Jackson- Gaia Trust/Denmark,
Chris Mare- Ecovillage Design/USA, Helena Norberg-Hodge- ISEC
Ladakh/Australia, Charlie Ehrenpreis- Tamera/Portugal, Kosha
Joubert- Sieben Linden/Germany, Jonathan Dawson- Findhorn/UK,
Daniel Greenberg- Living Routes/USA, Max Lindegger- Crystal
Waters/Australia,
Ismael Diallo- GEN Senegal.
Picture by Hildur Jackson- Gaia Trust/Denmark |
During the meeting the above mentioned
centres as well as Tamera Ecovillage in Portugal, Ithaca in upstate
New York, Instituto Tonantzin Tlalli in Mexico and Sarvodaya in
Sri Lanka gave presentations of their versions of the EDE pilot
activities that had taken place the previous year. It was inspiring
to see how the four faceted EDE curriculum of World View, Economic
Design, Social Design and Ecological Design were woven together
in such diverse environments. Several EDE courses were based on
a strong foundation of permaculture with Max Lindegger contributing
his resourceful skills to the Tamera, Sri Lanka and Mexico programmes.
In Sri Lanka the course was based on a real design for an Ecovillage.
In Tamera permaculture was balanced with a very experiential social
component with activities in visioning, theatre work, sharing
circles and discussions on love and sexuality. Lotan used their
extended experience of permaculture and ecological living to sustain
their very practical 10 week programme where planting and harvesting
crops, creating recycling waste systems and building mud houses
were a hands on part of the curriculum. Findhorn offered a packed
one month training that combined the unique social and spiritual
practices that have been developed at the Findhorn Foundation
with hands-on experience of local right livelihood initiatives
and ecological design projects. In addition, the programme was
offered as a training of trainers using an experiential empowering
approach and daily meditation sessions to explore a shift in the
culturally dominant worldview, as well as participatory teaching
methodologies. In Sao Paulo the EDE took the form of weekends
and evenings over a longer period of time allowing 100 city dwellers
working in or interested in the complex challenges of urban sustainability.
Many participants were in a position to take what they learned
and to directly apply it in their place of work in and around
the city such as the group of Public Parks Caretakers that joined
the training. Next Steps in Sao Paulo include working with teenagers,
involving public administration and creating a distance learning
programme and university courses.
Most of the EDE courses had challenges with participants from
diverse backgrounds having different expectations and where possible
the flexible participant-centred approach of the programme tried
to adapt activities to respond to this. Finding a creative way
to meet different needs and exprectaions is clearly an important
issue in the curriculum design and certification of such an inter-disciplinary
course attracting people as diverse as highly skilled technicians,
experienced group process workers and visionaries and dreamers
from many different backgrounds. In the case of the Findhorn course,
for example, this diversity included an educator who built labyrinths
in New York City parks and an Iraqi architect inspired to rebuild
peace villages in his devastated country.
This year several more centres have been certified to run EDE
programmes including two Asian courses at Auroville in India and
our hosts Wongsanit; El Poncho, Hue Hue, UMAPAZ and Associacion
Gaia in Latin America and two in Europe. In conjunction with the
ongoing EDE courses a series of Four Keys text books are being
compiled in the four core areas that will serve all future EDE
hosts. This has been a huge amount of work for diligent Geese
and is on the final run with publication of the first two books
expected later this year. It was decided that a fifth key on process
and how to deliver the EDE in an appropriate empowering and creative
way will be added to this wealth of educational materials.
Issues of being carbon neutral
were a huge challenge both as a meeting and as educators of sustainability.
How can we really walk our talk? In an effort to offset the carbon
of the flights to Thailand as well as supporting Wongsanit Ashram
to be more sustainable the group calculated their emissions and
in response planted trees and, under the guidance of Max Lindegger,
contributed a grey water cleaning plant to the ashram. The heated
and continuing debate in this area ensured that all participants
left with real food for thought and creative impulse about how
to offset the carbon of our own lifestyles as well as the footprint
of the upcoming EDE programmes.
The meeting flowered under the skilled and graceful facilitation
of May East, the programme director and Hide Enomoto, a Japanese
friend. The participants came full of experiences to share, responsibilities
to report on and left with new inspiration and plans to continue
this evolving work for the planet. As part of the activities of
the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development
the Gaia Education EDE pilot projects and emerging curriculum
are truly a leading light and inspiring prototype for future similar.
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