Welcoming into our bubble: inviting students at our Ecovillage
This Saturday, on a day that only happens every 4 years, Suderbyn Ecovillage welcomed every student of life into its community. For a real Leap Day!
It was on my mind for months now. I had the chance to take part in several student initiatives since I arrived in Gotland in October, especially by GHOST — Gotland Headquarters of Sustainable Thinkers, the university’s sustainability club.
For instance, there was the Green Christmas fair earlier in December.
Movie projections such as Artifishal:
Or Sundays fill the jar challenges.
And the famous sustainable game nights:
I’m going to stop here about their countless initiatives, otherwise, I’ll have to change the title of this article…The point is they bring so much awareness, so much collective value, and contributed a lot to my experience in Sweden (5 months now!). And I wanted somehow to fully organize something for them.
That’s the birth of our Student day, on 29/02/2020. I love that date. We opened our doors to get students to know us and see how we live in our Community, learn about permaculture, and so much more was planned…
As at every event, different people came at different times, but who am I to blame motivated cyclists…
This complicated things a little, as I wanted to start with a tour, but had to wait for “everyone” to come. Who is everyone? You can never really know. There are so many unshared cancellations that make organizers go crazy…I decided to at least wait for the bikers as they gave the heads-up.
I invited the early birds to visit our workshop, one key asset of our Ecovillage. There’s everything needed for any handiwork. Spoon crafting, shelve building, electronic repair…you name it!
To kill the time we took the boxes of working gloves and started matching pairs together. As a bonus, each participant could keep their favorite pair for the day. As it would be needed at some point. But we’ll come to that ;)
As we were waiting outside, one car was passing by, slowly. So slowly that we taught “Hey, maybe they’re coming for us, but not really sure of the location?”. Then the car continued to drive away…to come back 2 minutes later ^^’. Yet another proof that we need to up our sign.
As the biking crew arrived, we decided to kick things off. I’m not going to share minutes of the tour, you’ll have to visit us to know more ;)
I was accompanied by Robert (Hall), a co-founder of Suderbyn Ecovillage. I was looking forward to making the tour with him this time, as it was an opportunity for me as well to get insights and background about the place. This was especially true for our dome, encompassing several technologies to build a closed-loop system.
We were lucky with the weather, it was snowing just the day before, temperatures starting to get into the negative (maybe we’ll finally have a winter?). That made the morning tour enjoyable and meaningful.
Ecovillage, Students, Great Weather. I guess that call for a practical moment, don’t you think?
At first, I wanted to hold a wood cutting workshop as the one Efe gave to the community on Monday (I’m saving it for another story). The woodcut would then be directly used in the main house, thus having taken part in the Community’s tasks.
I had an unspoken philosophy organizing this day:
Making you feel not like a customer, a client, or a visitor. Today you are a contributing member to our Ecovillage.
But after gathering some feedback I got convinced that it would rather open a security threat than be a teaching moment. Moreover, it would cast out visitors that wouldn’t want to handle an ax, and it was a 1-person activity while the others watch. Fair enough. The Safety lobby got me.
My objective was to genuinely involve our temporary members in a practical way. Then Antoine came to the rescue! Antoine is coordinating the garden work with Laura.
He designed a garden project at the entrance, involving some basic soil set-up and seeds sowing. Here is the detailed plan, quite complete.
We are mixing functionality:
- edible: for humans, birds, and insects, especially bees
- ornamental: the tulips bulb, poppy, sunflower, hollyhock
- medicinal: borage, archangel…
- self-sourcing: most of these will naturally go to seeds, and regrow the next season, not needing extra care
We are also mixing them in time, Tulips will sprout and grow during spring, opening the season of this area, then it will be followed by each other plant.
We are mixing them in space, allowing for the sunflower and hollyhock to be in the back, straight to the wall, not blocking sunlight for the frontline.
A beautiful, self-maintained, cheap, multi-layered in time & space, multi-purpose system. In one word: permaculture. Turning an area of bare soil that just wanted to be alive. One definition of beauty.
It was an opportunity to question and answer our process. Why did we put cardboard? Why didn’t we use leaves? Any need for compost? How did we choose these plants? What about the planting order? Is it the right time? What depth should the seeds be planted?…
I realized I still had a lot to learn as I was missing the answer to more than half of these questions. Learning never ends. Luckily Antoine is here today! And look at us realizing this design:
And what do we do to conclude work? We clean the tools!
After lunch we built the afternoon collectively, deciding what we would want as snacks and beverages. As we do in our community, we shared the tasks of dishwashing, making cakes and cookies, making homemade oat milk…Everyone found their place and contributed.
Again, today you are a contributing member to our Ecovillage.
While cakes and cookies were baking we went for some outdoor activities and games. Then we came back at the main house for a get-together with other community members.
I had other workshops prepared, but they weren’t needed as the afternoon flew by quickly through the discussions. It felt good to keep it informal. As always at event planning: Overprepare and don’t hesitate to cut the fat ;)
We concluded the afternoon with a Fika, the first of our newest (temporary) members!
I’ll soon go for a feedback hunt about this day, both from the visitors and from our Community members. Even as the first open day I organize, I think the program is quite fitting and needs very little modification.
I’m keen on looking for new workshops and outside activities to rythm the day as well as designing a gardening task using Permaculture Principles. That’s also part of the hunt.
We were grateful for having this enthusiast group, bringing some shiny energy with them. Moreover, the number of participants was perfect for our facilities and to allow everyone to have a non-diluted experience.
Spring is starting soon, longer and warmer days, it will allow to organize plenty more of these initiatives and inviting the public into our Ecovillage.
I strongly believe it is one of our responsibilities as an Ecovillage to invite people into our bubble.
- Enabling enthusiasts, curious, or Saturday-bored people to see, hear, taste, and do exactly what and how we do in an Ecovillage
- Sharing the challenges and the vision of our project(s)
- Inspiring others and inviting them to live an alternative life for a day
- Teaching mindful and sustainable techniques, easy to reproduce at home (I mean it takes literally 5 minutes to do homemade oat milk…ok it needs to be soaked overnight…)
The fight for sustainability is also a game of numbers, at least on my scope of capability. Outreach. Awareness. And sharing.
