Together with Gaia Trust, GEN developed the Hildur Jackson Award, a €3,000 annual prize that supports and honors projects around the world that demonstrate regenerative best practices in all dimensions of sustainability.
The prize is awarded to projects bringing the most impactful inspiration about ecovillages/ecovillage lifestyles to a broad audience.
Up to this day, we are delighted to have two ecovillage projects that was awarded with the Hildur Jackson Award. Please find the awarded projects below.
2020 Awardee: TI Ecovillage, India
The TI Ecovillage is a unique enclave originally on the outskirts of Bangalore, Karnataka, India started in 1995 as an experiment in eco-friendly development. They practice a modified version of permaculture to grow organic vegetable and herbs.
In 2019 they stabilized their permaculture practice and won over some skeptics, their ground water regeneration program with rainwater harvesting got initiated with several recharge wells, they have had about 25% of our residents installed solar electric power and rapidly increasing and 100% of them continue to use solar hot water. Their land is at a higher ground level and though water conservation in the last 20+ years by planting trees, making trenches, and collecting surface runoff water during rains they have improved groundwater benefiting neighboring areas well.Watch the interview with a team from TI Ecovillage here.
2015 Awardee: Pushkar House, India
Pushkar House is a model for sustainable, locally sourced, and affordable housing in rural contexts. Zero waste thinking was crucial in the planning! By transforming our perception of waste from garbage to a usable resource—everything from construction site waste to household kitchen waste—we not only cut down the amount of material going to landfills/burning, but we also decrease the need to buy new materials, thus increasing affordability and sustainability. The walls are made of glass bottles and bricks and finished with traditional mudding. The mudding is a mix of local mud, cow dung, and hay husks to bind the material, mixed by feet and thrown and smoothed by hand. The roof is made of hand-woven grasses laid on a bamboo and wood-beam frame mounted on a central metal pole. Both roof and walls can be maintained by hand on an ongoing process, and all the skills and materials to do so are available in the village in which we have done this build.
