ECOVILLAGE NETWORK OF THE AMERICAS: Growing Our Grassroots Network Sustainably

Abstract

We committed in our charter document to organizational and interpersonal innovations. Our Steering Committee seeded ENA's first Council with volunteers willing to serve as place-holding representatives of their regions until increasing numbers of participants in each chose their own Council representatives. Building a grassroots foundation in the various regions is progressing, each at its own pace. This year the East US region became the first to conduct a region-wide effort to select two new representatives to the ENA Council. Since ENA's birth three years ago, Jeff Clearwater, formerly of Sirius Community in Massachusetts, and Corinna Bloom, who lives in Burlington, Vermont, have served us well as the place-holder representatives for the East US. Recently Jeff and Corinna stepped down, providing the opportunity for this region to select its new representatives. Although uncharted territory when we began, the process was inspiring, rewarding, and fun. With support from core ENA activists in both the West and East US, we conducted a Call for Candidates. Four excellent candidates came forward, and we are grateful for their enthusiasm and all the good work they are already doing to help create a sustainable world.

Linda Joseph is Coordinator of ENA's central office and lives at EarthArt Village in Moffat, Colorado. [email protected]; www.ecovillage.org.

Manda Gillespie: [email protected]; EcoCity Cleveland; www.ecocitycleveland.org.

Daniel Greenberg: [email protected]; Living Routes, www.LivingRoutes.org.

The Ecovillage Network of the Americas (ENA) is a network of networks--people in South, Central, and North America acting locally, regionally. and globally to help create a truly sustainable world.

In the mid-1990s our organization was just a concept held by a handful of people throughout the Americas. We shared a common vision of connecting individuals, communities, and organizations to leave a healthy environmental, social, and spiritual legacy for future generations. In early encounters with one another, that concept was ignited to a spark by our shared ideals and activism.

By 1997, we had convened a Steering Committee, and over the next two years learned how to build the connections between grassroots folks interested in creating ecovillages, to aid their separate interests and for their mutual benefit. In 1999 we launched a healthy international network. Our ENA Council had participants from nine regions encompassing all of the Americas: Southern South America, Northern South America, Brazil, Mesoamerica, the Caribbean, West United States, East United States, Canada, and a "mobile ecovillage" region--activists traveling in the Americas, sharing ecovillage principles and practices wherever they go.

Meant to incorporate anyone with the ecovillage calling, and with ever-increasing participation from Canada to Argentina, our form and identity have emerged--today ENA is a thriving entity coming into its own.

We committed in our charter document to organizational and interpersonal innovations. Our Steering Committee seeded ENA's first Council with volunteers willing to serve as place-holding representatives of their regions until increasing numbers of participants in each chose their own Council representatives. Building a grassroots foundation in the various regions is progressing, each at its own pace. This year the East US region became the first to conduct a region-wide effort to select two new representatives to the ENA Council. Since ENA's birth three years ago, Jeff Clearwater, formerly of Sirius Community in Massachusetts, and Corinna Bloom, who lives in Burlington, Vermont, have served us well as the place-holder representatives for the East US. Recently Jeff and Corinna stepped down, providing the opportunity for this region to select its new representatives. Although uncharted territory when we began, the process was inspiring, rewarding, and fun. With support from core ENA activists in both the West and East US, we conducted a Call for Candidates. Four excellent candidates came forward, and we are grateful for their enthusiasm and all the good work they are already doing to help create a sustainable world.

We are happy to announce the new ENA East US Council representatives chosen by ENA members in the region: Manda Gillespie and Daniel Greenberg.

Manda is Project Manager of EcoCity Cleveland in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, managing that organization's involvement with the Cleveland EcoVillage, an urban redevelopment project on Cleveland's west side. The project brings together principles of green building, transit-oriented development, and the best of the New Urbanism movement. Manda writes and assists in the production of the EcoCity Cleveland Journal and educational resources, and manages development, membership, intern programs, and volunteers.

Daniel has studied and directed community-based educational programs for over 12 years. He wrote his doctoral thesis on "Education within Contemporary Intentional Communities," and has visited and corresponded with over 200 intentional communities in the United States. He is experienced in directing college-level semester programs, and has developed curricula on sustainable community development, deep ecology, ecological auditing, and systems thinking. Today he's executive director of Living Routes, an organization that creates college-level programs in ecovillages worldwide. Daniel is a member of Sirius Community in Massachusetts.

All of us at ENA congratulate Manda and Daniel. We are so pleased to have them, not only as the newest representatives on the ENA Council, but also as pioneers in our process of growing our grassroots organization sustainably, and helping strengthen the network of ecovillage activists in the Americas.