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News and Stories Archive

Harvesting from GENOA Metamorph project

March 14, 2023 by Thao Kin

In 2022, we conducted GENOA Metamorph project – a process where we dive deep to talk to network members trying to understand more about network needs, GENOA’s role, and how GENOA should navigate the current context of the world. Through this project, we also have developed proposals on how we think GENOA could move forward in the coming years. 

We are happy to share with you the presentations here with highlights from the Metamorph project.

You can also see the slides or dive in our full GENOA Metamorph report in PDF here (we’re happy to provide you with a word doc link where you can make comments as you read – contact us at genoa@ecovillage.org for this). 

Last but not least, please share with us how you would like to get involved with GENOA this year by answering a few questions here (very short!).

Thank you so much!

From the GENOA Metamorph team,
Luvian, Kin, Benjamin, Lila

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Financial Literacy for Communities Webinar: Exploring Needs and co-creating Resources 

March 3, 2023 by Luvian Iskandar

Have you and your community been experiencing challenges when it comes to financing fundamentals and good financial management?

We at GENOA share this nervousness and recognise this gap in financial education in our system. We aspire to find a way to support regenerative communities and projects to be stronger in the economic dimension, starting with building financial acumen and creating financial literacy for all in our network. 

Join us to have a stimulating conversation around finance with the vision of creating Financially Intelligent Ecovillages and Regenerative Communities.  We want to hear from you, your needs, your strengths and your experience with finance to explore creating learning resources that could meet the needs of communities to become enterprising, prosperous, and abundant.

Accompanying us in this call is Anil Lamba – a renowned speaker and trainer in Finance Management with his mission of bringing financial intelligence for free to at least a billion people. Dr. Lamba has written several books and over 1500 articles. His books, Romancing the Balance Sheet, Flirting with Stocks, Eye on the Bottom Line, and Financial Affairs of the Common Man are making waves. You can read more about Anil here: https://anillamba.com/about-us/ 

This is an invitation to collaborate with Dr.Lamba to train 1 billion people, with 1 million volunteers to co-create a Financially Intelligent World. Join the movement of making money flow where it is needed the most. 

This is not a talk, it is a sharing space where we hear from each other and explore patterns, commonalities, and leverage points in this seemingly hard and difficult topic of financial literacy. 

Regardless of your background, if you have had some experience working with finance in a project or in your community, join us with an open mind and willingness to share.

Details of the call:

  • Time: 9.30AM – 11.30AM IST | UTC+5.5 – Thursday March 30th 2023 (check your local time)
  • Link to zoom registration: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwtcO6vrDMiGNMrXJGsVdyLUgOFPqBPBaRa 

Filed Under: education, events, partners, Uncategorized Tagged With: Economy, finance, literacy, money, resources

Embodying Unity and Finding Community at DUP Camp Thailand 2022

December 28, 2022 by Luvian Iskandar

On December 12th – 14th, a group of us came together in the Dances of Universal Peace Camp Thailand 2022 at Gaia Ashram – a learning center and community for ecological lifestyle. This camp is the final event that concludes a series of DUP workshops in multiple countries in Asia and also the first regional camp with participants attending from different countries in Asia. We stayed together for a few days to immerse ourselves deeply in the practice of Dances of Universal Peace, connecting with ourselves, each other, and the universe.

Participants came from Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, Maldives, Philippines, Malaysia, Hong Kong, South Korea, India, Indonesia, USA, UK, Slovenia, Netherlands & Colombia

The diversity of the camp participants was striking. It was a privilege to be a part of this camp along with the presence of 30 people from 15 different countries in Asia and beyond. Each of us enriched the camp with unique culture, stories, and energy making the camp very colorful and interesting. We all engage in this collective dance exploration under the guidance of Arjun Calero from Colombia, our senior mentor of the Dances of Universal Peace, who has been traveling to India, Vietnam, Indonesia, The Maldives, and finally Thailand in the past 3 months to share the Dances of Universal Peace in Asia.

The two-day camp started with us getting to know each other, knowing each other’s names and where we come from. A lot of us knew each other already as we have been together participating in another preceding activity hosted by the center called Gaia Calling. However, there are some friends who came especially for the DUP Camp, so we warmly welcomed them to the group and made them feel at home. And from then, the dances began!

Over the course of two days, we had dance sessions in the morning, afternoon, and evening. By the end of the workshop, we have experienced more than 35 songs and dances from different wisdom traditions of the world including the teachings of indigenous tribes like the Mapuche people of South America and Zulu people of Africa, and various religions of the world including Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and more.

In some of the sessions, we had specific themes such as Zikr night where we focused on songs from the Islamic tradition of the Middle East. We also had one session where a representative from the four countries Arjun visited to share the dances (India, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Maldives) to lead one dance each. This session symbolically represents the seeds of DUP growing in Asia, as people who participated in the workshops in those countries have started to practice leading dances.

In between sessions we ate, sang, and did home chores together. This was also time for folks who need time to space out from the group to process the experiences that they have had. The space between sessions is just as valuable to us as the dance sessions themselves. It was where we got to talk with each other, exchange stories, and connect on a personal level.

The Dances of Universal Peace Camp provided us with a safe space to open up our hearts, let our sense of individuality dissolve, and learn to integrate ourselves to be a part of a larger entity and the universe. Through singing songs and body movement, we are invited to be in the present, concentrate and co-create beautiful life-affirming vibrations. All throughout the camp we bathe in the energy of love, forgiveness, peace, and the harmonic relationship between all beings.

By the end of the camp, we bonded deeply to the point that we really feel like we are a family that genuinely wishes each other to be well and live wholesome lives, ready to support each other in whichever way we can, whenever needed. It is powerful to be a part of and witness people representing different parts of Asia (and the bigger world) coming together, blending, and moving together in harmony. We each brought home this embodied realization that despite all differences we have between us, we share a common denominator – that we are all human and we are all interconnected with each other.

The camp was a really rich experience for all involved indeed. We’d like to express our deep gratitude to everyone who contributed to making this camp possible. We thank Arjun and the Beyond Initiative Project for the energy and resources they have poured in to share the Dances of Universal Peace in Asia; Gaia Ashram community for providing us with a beautiful, natural, and loving space that allows magical things to happen; and all participants for coming to Thailand and heartfully co-creating a safe and loving atmosphere throughout the camp.

May all beings be well and happy,

may all beings be free from strife.

May all beings return to love,

peace be with you forevermore…


The sense in deeper into the camp experience by looking at reflection pieces from participants:

Reflection of 2022 – Peace a reflection article by Joanne Chua

Filed Under: events, GENOA Inc. Tagged With: celebration, culture dimension, dance, dances of universal peace

How do you reply to Gaia’s calling?

December 26, 2022 by Thao Kin

The energy of year-end seems to be calling us back to the root of our beings – why are we here? what matters to us most? are we living up to our values and potential? Echoing this calling, 60 of us – the seekers, the learners, the caretakers of Mother Earth – have gathered for a two-day gathering called Gaia Calling at Gaia Ashram in the Northeast of Thailand.

The majority of us are from Thailand – with others pouring in from many different countries such as Laos, Indonesia, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, India, Maldives, and all the way from the US and Colombia. What connects us are the love for nature, the yearning to contribute to healing the wounds of the Earth, the longing to connect with like-minded folks; and of course the affection for the host – Gaia Ashram – to which many people have kept returning.

Within this gathering, Luvian and Kin from the GENOA Operations Team, together with two ecovillage founders (Om from Gaia Ashram, Thailand, and Arjun from Atlantida Ecovillage, Colombia), hosted a sharing session on ecovillages as the incubators for a new radical way of living addressing the multifaceted crisis we are facing in the world. The story of how Gaia Ashram and Atlantida came into existence brought rich insights into why the founders chose communities as their way of dealing with planetary collapse, the ups and downs they have gone through, and the powerful impact ecovillages are creating. The GENOA team then shared about the ecovillage network and how anyone either as individuals or part of a community project can join the ecovillage movement through connection, contribution and practice.

In celebration of the journey in life that led us to where we are, we enjoyed connecting the dots of the major events through The Flow of Life – this is also an opportunity for deep listening and mutual understanding as we had moments of pair-sharing and circle sensing. The whole circle was deeply moved by a 15-year-old Steiner student sharing one of his precious milestones in life via a window through the present moment – a great reminder for us all to live mindfully and wholeheartedly.

In deepening our connection to nature, we spent quality time with nature, listened to the sound of the land in Gaia Ashram, and write messages from our hearts to other beings. Everyone, later on, can roam around the garden and meet with these lovely messages reminding us of the magic of life on this land and anywhere else on Earth.

The Gaia Calling gathering offered spaces for everyone to share their gifts with the community by holding a clubhouse (a form of open-space). People went to the space of their choice among Kundalini Mantra, Massage as a bodily connection, Council of all beings, Eco-school construction, and Sound bath during the whole afternoon – enjoying a new experiences, new learning, and new connection.

Below are some photos from the Council of all beings hosted by GENOA – in which participants spent some time in nature listening to the call of a being, and then made a mask to embody this being in the council of sharing. We help space for what wanted to be spoken, for the whispering of the land and other more-than-human beings. It is also a space for humility and understanding to take place, as we deeply realize that humans are not the only inhabitant of the Earth and that we can learn so much from other brothers and sisters of different species.

How else have we listened and replied to the calling of Gaia? Rituals are a sacred way of honoring our interdependence and paying our respect to the land, nature, and our ancestors. The Gaia Calling gathering closed with the traditional blessing ceremony of Isan people of Thailand, and a Latin American land blessing ritual led by Arjun & Jessie (Colombia). With music and love filling the air, we bowed to the wisdom of Earth – Fire – Water – Air and the 6 directions (North, South, East, West, Above, Below) and asked for their blessings.

Through circle activities, heart-to-heart connections, story-telling, rituals, and ceremonies, we have come together to honor Mother Gaia, to celebrate the work dedicated to her healing, and emphasize our commitment to the regeneration of the Earth.

Cheers to the beautiful work that is being done by all members of ecovillages and eco-communities around Asia & Oceania! May our work benefit all beings, human and more-than-human!

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Dances of Universal Peace in Vietnam and Indonesia

December 1, 2022 by Luvian Iskandar

We have wrapped up the journey to bring the Dances of Universal Peace to Vietnam and Indonesia for the first time!

Through singing and moving together with meaningful music and lyrics, participants were guided through many levels of emotions, and depths of consciousness together. Community healing happens as naturally as flowers bloom when everything is in sync.

This experience has probably been summed up as the name of this practice: Dances of Universal Peace. Peace, in an intimate way, is about connecting deeply with yourself, and in harmony with those around you.

The Dances in Vietnam

Within 2 weeks from Oct 29 to Nov 6, Three Workshops were held in Hanoi, Hue, and Ho Chi Minh City with the participation of nearly 100 young people from all over the country.

Ms. M – A participant in Hanoi shared that this was a magical and memorable experience for herself, like opening a new door to connect deeply with herself, seeing people around with tolerant eyes, and lots of love.

“Now I understand (not only in reasoning) what it is like to connect with myself and connect with everything through this song. I feel like I can love more”

T in HCM

After Arjun and Jessie left Vietnam, the team in Vietnam continues to maintain 2 practice hubs in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

The Dances in Indonesia

In Indonesia, we held three workshops in Jakarta that happened over the course of three days from 18th-20th November. The dances were shared with around 40 new people.

Like in Vietnam, the dances are also very well received in Indonesia. After the workshop sessions, participants shared that they really enjoyed the dances, and how it help them connect with themselves and each other.

This is something I really need in my life. In my daily life, I spent a lot of time in front of my computer to do my work and get my entertainment. Meeting people, dancing and singing together like this makes me really happy

R, Jakarta

I appreciate how [the dances] makes me feel more connected and engaged with myself, other fellow human beings and my surroundings.. totally keeping the practice”

E, Jakarta

Acknowledgements

We are deeply moved with how the dances have touched people’s lives during the workshop. This experience is only possible through the collaboration of different people involved. Our sincere gratitude goes to:

🍂 Arjun and Jessie for coming to Asia to share and spread this practice in the spirit of gift for the community here.

🍂The organizers in Vietnam: Kin, Phuong, Ly as well as the team of volunteers in Hanoi, Saigon, and Hue for drawing a beautiful experience.

🍂 Thank you to the organizers in Indonesia: Friends from Rasasastra Community and Semesta’s Gallery: Elghandiva, Andra; and the team at Anindhaloka: Agung, Welin, Eileen, Cokorda Dewi, and Ariel for co-creating these workshops and prepared a wonderful atmosphere for the sessions.

Up next: Thailand

We will be having our final workshop series in Thailand. It will start with a introduction workshop in Chiang Mai on December 8th and followed with the two-day camp at Gaia Ashram from 12-14th. If you’re in Thailand around this time, be sure to join us!

Filed Under: events, GENOA Inc., updates Tagged With: celebration, culture dimension, dances of universal peace, spirituality

REGEN-Nations 2022: New Projects Incubated

December 1, 2022 by Luvian Iskandar

REGEN-Nations – the programme of whole systems design for regeneration curated by Global Ecovillage Network Oceania & Asia – has recently ended its 2nd live cohort of 2022. This cohort was brewed in August 2021 and has gone through a rich journey full of learnings, especially with the 6-month live cohort.

The programme offers dedicated facilitation throughout five areas of regeneration (social, cultural, ecology, economic and whole systems design). Participants receive feedback on learning activities and coaching with real-world change makers to help projects develop solid foundations and resilience. In this second cohort, REGEN-Nations collaborates with Earth Regenerators to provide a platform of connection with a dedicated community space for changemakers to activate, catalyze, and nurture relationships between their social and ecological ecosystems, as well as other projects in the region. 

Hosted on the GEN Learning Platform, REGEN-Nations is designed to be a regenerative design thinking lab to grow innovative solutions and address systemic challenges through not only videos and reading lessons but also different activities, action-oriented assignments and live exchange sessions. 

REGEN-Nations Course Calls

Twelve participants of this second cohort went through 6 months with 84 hours of learning from 27 speakers, accompanied by 3 coaches and 4 facilitators. Five projects were presented in the last module and one of which was awarded the seed grant to aid the implementation of its whole systems design. The final projects are diverse in focus and approach, ranging from anthropology research; island ecosystem regeneration, to green spaces for youth education, community eco-labs and SMEs empowerment. The project “Green Innovation & Empowerment community for the SME Family Businesses” from China has received the final seed grant. 

Participants Project Presentation

As the host of the programme, GEN Oceania & Asia sends our warmest gratitude to all the trainers, speakers, facilitators, partners and dedicated participants that have shared their part to make this course possible. We are looking forward to exploring different ways of integrating REGEN-Nations into different languages and topics and collaborating with educational institutions and schools to bring REGEN-Nations to a wider audience. Please reach out to us at regen.nations@ecovillage.org if you are keen to collaborate with us.

Filed Under: education, GENOA Inc., Regen-nations Tagged With: education, GENOA, ReGEN Nations, regeneration

Call for Volunteers – GEN Australia

November 30, 2022 by Luvian Iskandar

Would you like to contribute to regenerative actions with the global ecovillage network that includes Australia & Oceania?

Are you interested in ecovillages, intentional communities & transition towns?

Are you interested in contributing to the positive impact that ecovillages and intentional communities are making?

Do you have good organization and communication skills?

If this excites you, then this volunteer position might be just for you!

GEN Australia is looking for 2 (two) volunteers to support with building an Australian/Oceania Ecovillage Gathering in person next year 2023!

Description of volunteer positions:

  • • Together with the members of GEN Australia, create a plan, calling for resources and organize the gathering – including partnerships, funding, sponsorships.
  • • Support with either planning and operational tasks or communications and social media
  • • Other flexible tasks as agreed upon within the team later

Commitment Request:

  • • This is a remote role where you will work from your own location with a computer/laptop and stable internet connection
  • • Estimated volunteer hours: 4+ hours/week including attending meetings
  • • Period of volunteering: From Jan 2023 weekly + attendance at the event – month to be confirmed – probably Sept/Oct with warmer weather.

Skills & competencies requested:

  • • Fluent with online communication tools – (Google Drive, Zoom)
  • • Clear, open & compassionate communication
  • • Teamwork skills and ability to work independently with flexibility & adaptability
  • • Strong sense of responsibility
  • • Adapt at managing tasks, planning, and balancing priorities
  • • Experience in Ecovillage design education or any ecovillage-related activity is a plus

Benefits of being a Volunteer for this campaign:

  • • Learn more about and be a part of GEN Australia and the Global Ecovillage Network
  • • Free training and event attendance & camping accommodation (min) at Narara Ecovillage
  • • Build meaningful relationships, which have led to further opportunities
  • • Gain experience and knowledge on event management
  • • Work with passionate members of the team and work with other like-minded volunteers

If you are interested in volunteering with us, please fill in this form by Friday February 10th 2023

For further questions, contact us at enquiry@genaustralia.org.au


About GEN Australia

Welcome to GEN AU – the Australian National Network comprising ecovillages, intentional communities, cohousing and transition towns.

GEN Australia educates, networks and supports regenerative living solutions that includes co-housing, urban eco-neighbourhoods, ecovillages and indigenous communities. We aim to expand on the initiatives of our network by collaborating with individuals, communities and organisations, both indigenous and non-Indigenous, across Australia in creating regenerative cultures and lifestyles.

We are a part of GENOA – The Global Ecovillage Network in Oceania and Asia.

GENOA is the regional body of the Global Ecovillage Network in Oceania and Asia. GENOA is a network of people, ecovillages and organisations working to promote ecovillage living where people live together in a sustainable way, with dignity, in harmony with each other and with nature. 

You can find out more about GEN AU via our Website, Facebook page and Instagram

You can find out more about GENOA via their  Website , Facebook page and Instagram. 

We invite you to join us to support the ecovillage movement in Australia.

Filed Under: National Ecovillage Network Tagged With: GENAustralia, volunteers

Let’s Map and Weave Local Safety Nets Ahead of Disasters

November 29, 2022 by Luvian Iskandar

Before the pandemic started in 2020, we had to run a Permaculture Design Course for grassroots leaders in disasters that we knew we could not help out during the Taal volcano relief. Thus, we gathered together different changemakers working for community kitchens, breast milk donations, mental health support, and humanitarian coordination to rapidly prototype scalable collaborations. Before we could implement them, a global pandemic started. Thankfully, the people of Taal were finally able to go home after alert levels were reduced. This experience made us realize our niche and identify, we are neither informal aid nor formal aid since we aim to go beyond aid by designing for resilience and regeneration. We are also not a humanitarian organization, but we are ecosystem enablers and weavers to support collaborations for impact through awareness-based systems change. 

In the last two years, we thought about how we could scale this experience for future disasters in the Philippines, where we face intensifying severe weather and even a rise in sea levels 3x faster than the global average due to climate emergencies. 

We are now giving birth to a mapping and matchmaking platform that weaves needs and offers across informal or mutual aid actors to bridge the gap that formal aid providers can’t meet. After repeated cycles and intensifying levels of response needed over the years, we aim to uplift the spirit of Bayanihan in the Philippines that fosters community-led and inclusive efforts to respond to emergencies. 

RELEAF.COMMUNITY is an online ecosystem that maps and weaves regenerative initiatives and communities fostering mutual aid collaborations as local safety nets in times of disruption. It is an online Mapping and Matchmaking Platform that weaves needs and offers across mutual (informal) aid actors to bridge the gap that formal aid providers can’t meet. It is a Design Lab for Resilience and Regeneration that brings together formal and informal humanitarian innovators addressing regenerative aid solutions as disaster response and preparedness to scale for systemic impact. It is an Ecosystem for Regeneration in the absence of emergencies, we wish to map regenerative efforts across the country to localize solutions and promote the shift from sustainable to regenerative development. Aside from serving as a database, it is a community of practice for regeneration in the country.

Here’s how you can collaborate:

If you have a NEED for assistance and support for communities affected. 

We request that you:

  1. 1. Are an SEC/CDA- Registered organization (or with business permits for social enterprises) in the Philippines
  2. 2. Have a landing page for direct donations to be channeled to your registered bank accounts or donation channels
  3. 3. Have partners or initiatives doing mutual aid on the ground 
  4. 4. Can receive and deliver donations on their behalf
  5. 5. Can report donations made within the next 3-6 months. 
  6. 6. Help us promote the platform through your network. 
  7. 7. Work with our team of volunteers who will be your support system to help map and match

Green Releaf Initiative, The Philippines

Green Releaf Initiative’s mission is to transform the narrative of disaster risk reduction (DRR) by “designing for resilience and regeneration”. We promote place-based learning by developing learning sites for ecosystem restoration using regenerative design. We weave ecosystems of collaborations across sectors and stakeholders in a landscape to lead together in designing and implementing their regeneration goals. We strive to restore and regenerate natural and human habitats through nature-based solutions that heal our relationship with the earth. We at Green Releaf believe that a whole-systems approach can bring about healing and transformation on the personal, collective, and planetary levels.

Cover picture credit: Jilson Tiu

Filed Under: articles, partners, Uncategorized Tagged With: disaster relief, emergency, philippines, regeneration, Typhoon

Living in Anthropocene: Ethnographical Study of an Eco-Community in Rural Hong Kong

October 29, 2022 by Luvian Iskandar

Kootyin Chow lives in Nam Chung community, an eco-community in the northeastern part of Hong Kong. For her master’s studies, she did an ethnographic study in her community exploring the notion of sustainability using a multi-species perspective including villagers, plants, and animals.

Aerial view of Nam Chung Community

In the excerpt below, drawn from Kootyin’s recently finished thesis on the eco-community project, Kootyin writes about her encounter with a wild boar who accidentally broke into the territories of house-kept dogs in the village and got killed in this pig-dogging incident, and how this allowed her to reflect on her relationship with the animals, plants and other more-than-human beings in the neighborhood.

Loud roaring noises from my neighbour’s pack of twenty-five dogs woke me up on a late summer morning in Nam Chung. I scurried downstairs and went outdoors to see what was happening. On a grassy pitch outside my neighbours’ house, a small female wild boar was caught in a scuffle with four dogs; they launched themselves at the boar and bit its hind legs, whilst the rest of the dogs barked incessantly with excitement. The boar – not much bigger than an ordinary mongrel dog – was already badly hurt with open cuts all over its body and bleeding heavily when I got to the scene. This intruder had left the forests to find food around the village and was desperately caught in the fight. Gasping, whining, charging in all directions in an attempt to escape, the boar couldn’t outcompete the dogs. It was completely at the dogs’ mercy.

Wild boars around Nam Chung

As this happened, Al –who worked for my neighbour’s family – rushed out with a pickaxe. Surrounded by dogs, the boar could only run around in circles. Al grabbed every chance he could to approach the boar and struck heavy blows on its head with the pickaxe. With each blow, the boar whimpered; its squeals provoked the dogs to strike and attack even more. The boar collapsed finally with one last hit on the head; Al pressed his pickaxe against the boar’s head as it lay on the ground panting. Catching his breath, Al did not spare a moment and skilfully tied up the boar’s hoofs. It was then dragged across the grass pitch and the concrete floor of the front yard then tied down and settled on the kennel floor at the back of the house. The dogs followed, leaping enthusiastically, taking advantage of the now badly injured boar, still trying to attack it. Al shouted and the dogs backed off.

The boar was a young female barely one-year-old, Al said to me while deftly tying the ropes. ‘It is really unfortunate, yet it benefits the whole family, including the dogs!’ Upon saying this, Al went away; I continued to stand there and stare at the pig. I reached out to stroke its legs; its bristles were sharp and rough. There were more grunts from the boar: it was still alive, but it had stopped struggling. I knew the boar would soon become food for the family.

Thesis Abstract

Living in this Anthropocene, deepening ecological crises and associated political, social, cultural and economic problems are manifest across the globe. In the face of a doomed world, various forms of community-based, bottom-up social-ecological experiments emerge as a response to present-time environmental challenges. One of these attempts is the building of ecovillages (or eco-communities) as experimental sites for environmental regeneration and sustainable transitions.

Through an ethnographic study of an emerging eco-community in Hong Kong’s north-eastern New Territories, this thesis explores what sustainability entails within the context of this community and its many implications. Based on participant observation, in-depth interviews and oral history, I explore the perspectives of different co-inhabitants – including indigenous and non-indigenous villagers, as well as plants and animals – and seek to understand how they interact and coalesce to inform us of a complex understanding of sustainability. For members of this eco-community, sustainability is situated in their everyday practices – it continuously comes into being through their engagement with the environment and their entanglements with other humans and the more-than-human.

This study provides a glimpse into the process of creation of an ecovillage in the Hong Kong context, albeit it is still in its incipient stage. More importantly, I hope that these multispecies stories will remind us of the inherent responsibility of humans for the continued survival of the Earth and provide us with an alternative paradigm of how we can live with/in/beyond these Anthropocene times.

If you’d like to know more about this eco-community project in Hong Kong or read more of her writing, please contact Kootyin at kootyinchow@gmail.com.


Kootyin Chow. Nam Chung Community, Hong Kong

Kootyin Chow lives and works in an eco-community in Nam Chung, a small Hakka village located in Hong Kong’s far northeast New Territories neighbouring Shenzhen, China. Kootyin is involved in the PEACE (Partnership for Eco-Agriculture and Conservation of Earth) project in Nam Chung, Hong Kong. She’s currently a Mphil student in the Chinese University of Hong Kong anthropology department. She does gardening, cooking, stream walking, wild swimming and spotting insects all the time.

Filed Under: articles, ecovillages Tagged With: anthropocene, hong kong, research, sustainability

Dances of Universal Peace is Coming to Asia!

October 6, 2022 by Luvian Iskandar

Only if we are united, do we stand a chance to overcome the global problems we face as humanity. It’s time to heal the fragmentations of society and use our differences as an enrichment rather than an impediment to our harmonic presence on Earth.

The Dances of Universal Peace (DUP) is a very simple practice, suitable for all people and at the same time very special, because in circles we relate and harmonize intimately: we shake hands, we share looks, we listen and we sing. The dances set scriptures and sacred phrases from various spiritual traditions to music and movement of the world.

It can be a powerful and transformative practice, dissolving our illusion of separation, and invoking an embodied sense of unity, presence, and compassion. Offered in an atmosphere of safety, authenticity, and mindfulness, the Dances help us to open ourselves to qualities that emerge and remember the interconnectedness and harmony of life.

Our Communications Coordinator, Luvian, has recently joined one of the International DUP Camps in Turkey. He shared his experience joining the camp which you can read in this article.

You can also earn more about DUP here: Dances of Universal Peace.

The Dances in Asia

Having mostly been practiced in the West, we are excited to announce that the Dances of Universal Peace is coming to Asia. We will be collaborating with DUP International to hold several workshops and camps to share this beautiful and transformative tool in different countries listed below.

Arjun Calero, Senior Dance Mentor from Colombia

This series of dances in Asia will be led by a very experienced facilitator, Arjun Calero from Colombia, who has more than 20 years of experience holding dance circles in different countries of the world. Arjun lives in Atlantida Ecovillage, in the Andes of Colombia, a place he co-founded in 2003 with friends and family in order to fully embody the search for an alternative and restorative way of life on the planet.

He has worked for years with local native communities, youth groups, movements, and networks to build a better future. He is a senior mentor in the Dances of Universal Peace (DUP) International Network and Sufi Guide in the S.R.I., and is very much involved in the native ceremonies and ancient wisdom of the Americas, serving as a medicine man and ceremonies conductor since 2003.

Details of the events

  • • Vietnam | Hanoi, Oct 29 & 30 | Saigon, Nov 5 & 6
  • • Indonesia | Jakarta, Nov 19 & 20 | Bekasi, Nov 21 (contact: luvian.iskandar@ecovillage.org)
  • • Thailand | Dec 12-14, 2022 at Gaia Ashram – link to register
Register for DUP Camp Thailand 2022

If you’re interested to join the events in Indonesia and Maldives, please mark your calendar and fill in the interest form below, we will inform you of updates and the registration link to your email as soon as it’s ready.

See you at the in-person workshops!🌺❤️

Filed Under: events, GENOA Inc., partners Tagged With: community building, Culture, dance, tools

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Who we are

  • Our Purpose
  • How We Work
  • Partners
  • Our Team
  • Wisdom Keepers
  • FAQ

What we do

  • Education
  • REGEN-Nations
  • Gatherings
  • Ecovillage Transition
  • Advocacy
  • Hildur Jackson Award

NextGENOA

  • About NextGENOA
  • NextGENOA Team
  • Our projects
  • Looking ahead

Our Vision

We envision a committed, cooperative community and network of concerned individuals and organisations, who share knowledge, experience and wisdom in the creation of communities that use wisdom from all over Oceania and Asia; communities where people live sustainably with dignity, in harmony with each other, with nature and in the belief of evolutionary process.

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