Hello Eco bloggers.
I read the Gaia Education PDF www.gaiaeducation.org/docs/Beyond%20You%20&%20Me%20Ebook.pdf online from the link listed here. The article was interesting and informed about several institutions that are involved with Eco villages. Gaia Education is a project of the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN), which consists of a international team of teachers developing curriculum and education courses on the Sustainable Development of Urban and Rural Settlements in the US currently.
The Ecovillage Design Curriculum or (EDE) is also indorsed by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) and is an official contribution to the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD). I did not know or had even heard of these groups until this reading. Hildur Jackson of the Gaia Institute is the main coordinator and organizer. She has been involved with this project since 1987 with her husband and actively involved with GAIA since 1993 and has also been serving the Danish Ecovillage Network also. She originally designed GAIA for healing and then later changed toward Ecovillage direction in drive for change after living and building a permaculture organic farm. Here's the link where her bio is listed http://www.gaia.org/gaia/gaiatrust/hildurjackson/ . Co-Housing is another new thing I learned about in the reading and found it interesting that it is less expensive and more effective in dealing with community social problems and also teaches conflict resolution and community interdependency with raising children. This amazed me that children with more than one person helping raise them resulted in better problems solving skills then their single household counterparts. I also learned about other cultures that have always embraced the idea of group living and Ecovillage mindset. Trust was also an amazing surprise to me because I figured with more people around would create less trust like NYC for example, but I read that this style of living creates more intrapersonal interaction between community members allowing for a relational bond to develop leading towards more trust between its members. This whole article was an eye opener for me and has changed my perspective on living closely among other people and sharing most everything within the community. I see the huge amount of work and struggle Mrs. Jackson has endured over the decades to get where she is today. The world is lucky we have such people out there that sacrifice for our benefit to learn for a better tomorrow.
Thanks for Reading Jon M Ellison
