Living and Learning in Asia and Oceania
Sarvodaya, Sri Lanka
Sarvodaya is a network of more than 13,000 villages working on becoming self-sustaining. It focuses on participatory self-help community development based on a vision of a society without poverty or affluence. Its mainstays are food security, micro-banking, livelihood training, small enterprise promotion, cross cultural-meditation, and pre-school development. The Tanamalwila Living and Learning Centre, located near two national parks in southeast Sri Lanka, focuses on permaculture, biological diversity, human rights, and peace initiatives. The Centre offers courses to villagers throughout Sri Lanka and to people elsewhere in Asia.
Auroville, South India
Auroville is a multicultural ecocity that has been endorsed by UNESCO as a universal city of the future. It has a wide variety of programmes and receives visiting researchers, university students, and international volunteers. Programmes exist in low cost building technology and sustainable living, food security and organic farming, training in architectural applications and town planning. There is also emphasis on environmental education, creating seed banks and medicinal plant gardens, and doing research on traditional botanical knowledge, experiential education methods, philosophy, medicine, and healing. Auroville’s Forestry group works on land restoration and serves as a training centre for environmental restoration outreach programmes.
Crystal Waters, Australia
Crystal Waters offers courses in permaculture design, environmental restoration, and community work. The UN Habitat Award-winning ecovillage features housing models in rammed earth, pole structures, mud brick, domes, and straw bale. Demonstration sites exist for water harvesting, waste water use, rainwater collection, swales, dams, and constructed wetlands. Research on biolytic treatment, compost toilets, stand-alone and grid-connected solar power systems, heat pumps, and cell grazing is also available. Programmes also exist in land restoration, reforestation, orchard culture, wildlife corridor and rainforest applications. Crystal Waters has an excellent range of ecosystems, and abundant and diverse wildlife, which live in harmony and close proximity with humans. The Eco Centre is an ideal place for a genuine immersion experience and is linked to credit-earning university programmes.
Bija Vidyapeeth Centre, North India
Bija Vidyapeeth Centre is a training institute aimed at conserving rights for small-scale farmers, seed-saving, and creating locally-based organic low-impact development models. The Centre and wider Navdanya movement are integrally linked to an extensive network of Indian indigenous villages. The Centre focuses on ethical values that every species has a future, that all farms should be free of toxins, and that every person should be free from hunger. Bija Vidyapeeth is devoted to protecting bio-diversity, resisting bio-piracy, and defending people’s food rights in the face of adverse globalisation. This Centre offers a unique opportunity to both Indian villagers and foreign visitors to explore and practice the art of sustainability in a peaceful setting in Doon Valley.

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