We’re all in this together, ecovillage design in Switzerland

In January 2018 I was honoured to assist for one month on the Ecovillage Design Education gathering at the Glarisegg community. For a visual impression see this beautiful video made at the EDE 2019.

This transformational education program for change makers of all nationalities and walks of life, also known as EDE, is rooted in the ecovillage movement and offered worldwide.  The EDE curriculum by Gaia Education, offers a framework with four dimensions: social, worldview, ecology and economy, providing us with a holistic perspective to explore how to ‘be the change you want to see in the world’. In my role as a assistant I supported the daily production of the program, facilitated a Design Thinking workshop, an introduction into the Business Model Canvas, and supported the Design Studio sessions in which participants worked on their own projects throughout the month.

Social Design

At Glarisegg the EDE was structured with Sociocracy 3.0, allowing participants to self-organise and make decisions with all voices heard. Other highlights on the learning journey were Possibility Management, Deep Ecology, Dragon Dreaming, Deep Democracy, Forum and Transparent Communication. Sessions were facilitated by community members and external facilitators who brought specialised topics.

A Global Family

We welcomed a total number of 35 participants from 16 different countries; Spain, Germany, Romania, Canadian-Russian, Sweden, Norway, France, Switzerland, USA, Austria, Greece, Hungarian, Netherlands, Romania, Egypt and Brasil. With this beautiful diversity in age, nationality and background this experience was truly transformational, creating a global family to support us for our future explorations, community initiatives and life projects.