Gaia Association and Ecovillage
Gaia Association is a non profit association, founded in December 1992. Its founding mission is the promotion of sustainable societies, mainly by creating human settlements based on the practice of Permaculture systems and methods.
The origin of this project comes from the voice of Gaia (name given to mother earth by the ancient Greeks). It is our own voice and impels us to wake up from the dream in which the system has submerged us. We have proposed to develop small human settlements based on communitarian, ecological and spiritual principles, or Ecovillages. Residents and transitory inhabitants live in an environment that is in total harmony with nature and the evolutionary process of life. This does not deny reality, on the contrary, it connects us with a huge network of people who are also working to lead the world.
The project encourages work as a communal ritual. It is a space to contact our innerself, to create and collaborate with Gaia's process. Our deep aim at the EcoVillage is service, oriented to generate real solutions for the global crisis and for an impoverished society as Argentina's. This is why these Ecovillages will not be either places to run away from society or set up small Edens. They will be places that will function as living laboratories (lavore et ore). An attempt to transform the links with each other, with work and with life itself.
The supporting pillars
of the Ecovillage follows these principles: coexistence, harmony, participation,
democracy and tolerance. The Ecovillage aspires to be a
center of integration
with the bio-region in which it is settled. Each Ecovillage will be open to
interchange with each other, so that we can help one another in different
aspects, as food, service, construction, alternative energy, etc.
Ecovillages do not intend to be a closed and self sufficient system. For example, we are co-dependant on material elements and scientific, technical and cultural knowledge. Each Ecovillage will be autonomous in its decisions regarding the organization of tasks. The local administration of houses, productive activities and common spaces will be organised and administrated by the inhabitants themselves. At the same time, there will be a co-operating spirit linking the different Ecovillages. Special emphasis will be laid on the development of habits, minimising the existence of rules, since these narrow our minds.
Our intention is to
provide a basis for group security based on solidarity, as opposed to the
competition that destroys human bonds.
Gaia Ecovillage
Since 1996, the first
Ecovillage is being developed on a 20 hectares' site in a
rural area near Buenos Aires city.
The buildings on the land had been used for a milk processing plant, until they were abandoned 30 years ago. So, as you can imagine, the first steps were to restore part of these buildings in order to settle down, and start to define the complete restoration of the big buildings and the general design of the village, and an integrated energy system.
We are also reforesting with autochthonous trees, starting an organic vegetable garden and generating economic resources with some micro-enterprises and creating new ones.
There are a small group
already establish
ed,
and we have a growing group of collaborators that visit us every week. In
addition, we receive many visitors and interested parties whose input
and recognition has helped us to clarify our vision and re-enforce the
importance and need for this sustainable living model. We are introducing ideas
and concepts which are new to this part of the world, and as there are very few
other places, it is a great challenge to pioneer this project which is only
understood and accepted (up to the moment) by a handful of people.
We have founded the
Permaculture Institute of Argentina and are curre
ntly
involved in a world- wide Living and Learning Center
project. Through these
entities we carry out our main educational programs. We are also very focussed
on networking. For this reason, we have participated in the creation of the
G.E.N. (Global Ecovillage Network) in 1995 and we have been very active members
since then. We are the South American node of the network.
We see Permaculture as
an innovative tool to achieve the creation of permanent societies based on
sustainable principles. We believe that Lati
n America is a fertile land to
develop new techniques for sustainable life style and the challenge is to learn
and spread them, always making local adaptations. Out of this vision arose
the initiative of convoking the 1st Latin American Permaculture Congress
(march
2000), to strengthen the bonds among regional permaculturists, to offer a forum
for the exchange of information and to organize mutual support within the
Southern region.
To learn more, see the article, Changing Society at Gaia Ecovillage: A Model for Argentina's Recovery.