Ecovillage Network of the Americas (ENA)

The history of GEN in the Americas begins not with the Findhorn meeting in October 1995, but more than a year earlier, when Albert Bates began making fundraising calls, developing a newsletter and website, and writing grant proposals to create an ecovillage network in North America. In the summer and fall of 1994, Albert and his son, Will, travelled across North America, stopping at ecological settlements in a variety of locations, photo-graphing and videotaping model communities, and soliciting early members to found a network. The first newsletter of ENNA - for "Ecovillage Network of North America" appeared in the Spring of 1995.


ENA steering committee in Mexico, anticlockwise from left: Bea Briggs, USA; Kailash, USA; Linda Joseph, USA; Nathaniel White, USA; Giovanni Ciarlo, México; Jeff Clearwater, USA; Michael Lee, USA; Joan Thomas, USA; Laura Casteneda, Mexico; Francisco Sanchez, Mexico; Gustavo Ramirez, Argentina; Alberto Ruz Buenfil, Venezuela; Silvia Balado, Argentina; Corinna Bloom, USA; Liora Adler, Venezuela.


Following the successful Findhorn conference, ENNA became the Ecovillage Network of the Americas (ENA) and held its first organisational meetings. The quarterly journal and website became the Design Exchange. The GEN-Americas secretariat which is the link to ENA participated in the PrepCom meetings for Habitat II at the United Nations in New York and promoted the idea of ENA on college campuses, to various civic groups, and at meetings of the Communal Studies Association, the National Association of Student Co-ops, the Bioregional Congress of the Americas, the Society for Utopian Studies and the Fellowship for Intentional Communities. Relevant articles were published in journals such as Communities Magazine, the Permaculture Activist, and the Permaculture International Journal.

In 1996, the GEN-Americas office hosted GEN's board meeting at The Farm in Tennessee and participated with the other regions in hosting a major exhibit at Habitat II in Istanbul. Albert Bates extended his trip to Turkey by going on to the Middle East, visiting green kibbutz and eco-settlements in Israel, Egypt, and the Palestinian Territory. GEN-Americas participated in the GEN meeting at Crystal Waters, Australia and the Sixth International Permaculture Conference in Perth. In all, the secretariat staff travelled more than 100,000 miles for GEN in 1996, and the television footage taken on the road has since been turned into a number of useful productions, used not only by GEN but also provided to commercial broadcasters such as CNN. The three-minute GEN videotape produced for Habitat II is now available in eight languages.

There are many ENA regional projects that commend themselves for immediate funding and GEN-Americas has worked to locate sponsors for the free hospital at Gesundheit!; the Bimini Hot Springs at LA EcoVillage; the Gaia Asociación community farm; and the Sirius Conference Center to name a few. We have also made grant proposals to support the green kibbutz programme in Israel and projects in Russia on behalf of GEN. In 1997 we assisted in winning small grants for La Perla del Golfo in México and Sarvodaya in Sri Lanka. We nominated Luna Nueva, a women's development cooperative in México, for a share of the $150,000 Right Livelihood Award and worked with the Huehuecoyotl ecoaldea on a $75,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. We are also concentrating on foundation support for building ENA as an organisation.

Through the fall and winter of 1996, ENA node offices were springing up in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Ontario, and Central and South America. At three meet-ings in 1997, the GEN-Americas secretariat brought together an ENA core committee to draft mission and vision statements, to agree on an organisational structure, and to devise the means to sustain ENA as a corporation. ENA is now centred around a great council, the Consejo de las Americas, made up of representatives of national networks like the Ecovillage Network of Canada, Rede Global de Ecovilas Brasil, Gaia Asociación Argentina, and the Red de Ecoaldeas de México. The ENA committee met most recently in México in January 1998. Albert and others in the GEN-Americas office travelled more than 200,000 miles in 1997, visiting and documenting many more communities in North America and representing GEN and ENA at meetings and events in México, Belize, Russia, Iceland, Korea, Scotland, Brazil, England and South Africa.

- Albert Bates secretary GEN Americas (ecovillage@thefarm.org)

Huehuecoyotl A.C., Mexico
Huehuecoyotl Eco-village A.C. was founded in 1982 by a group of people of various nationalities, many of whom had been working in a travelling theatre company "The Illuminated Elephants Travelling Gypsy Company". The project now numbers 20 permanent residents and many more who stay for longer durations, who provide education and training workshops, retreats and events to people who wish to explore sustainable lifestyles, healing methods and spiritual practice. The village has a special relationship with the nearby community of traditional Nahuatl indians who live in extreme poverty and is a focussing centre for local arts and crafts, the use of appropriate technology, consensus decision making and permaculture. Visitors are usually welcome and are expected to take part in the daily work routine of Huehuecoyotl for between 2-4 hours a day.
Contact: Huehuecoyotl A.C., Apartado 111,
Tepoztlan, Morelos 62520, Mexico
email: huehue@laneta.apc.org
http://members.aol.com/Huecoyotl/Huehuepages.html