VIDEO: Nick Joyce on Intentional Community
We met Nick Joyce at the New Story Summit. He spoke briefly and we realized we wanted to hear more from this remarkable young man. Kosmos Project Director, Dot Maver, asked him if he would be willing to meet in the Original Garden at Findhorn Ecovillage and discuss his views on youth, intentional community, and social change.
Nick Joyce, On Intentional Community
Inspired youth from around the globe have been busy connecting young people with the ecovillage movement and empowering them to build the world of the next generation. NextGEN International Representative, Nick Joyce, is helping to construct a locally owned ecovillage and education center in Togo, West Africa.
“”Through engaging visitors and residents in cross-cultural creativity and collaboration,’ Nick says, ‘the ecovillage in Togo will become a thriving model for sustainable community development throughout the Global South.’
As a continent marked by the wounds of colonialism and misguided development aid, Africa – as well as the rest of the world – stands to benefit from this powerful model for change and a better future.
Nick’s project is called InTerraTree. The name was derived from the French word “inter-etre,” or inter-being, signifying the interconnectedness of all phenomena that InTerraTree seeks to help individuals better understand. Nick describes how the project was originally inspired by the model of his Togolese partner organization, Centre Des Hommes, the group that will operate the completed center in order to ensure that needs of the local community are the priority.” -Cynthia Tina, NextGEN Representative
Building new eco-villages is a fantastic idea whose time has not only come but is probably a decade or two too late. Having said that, we really need to look at the environments we already have, the vast urban sprawls around this beautiful planet. That is where the greatest need for creative ecological touches lies. Every fourth floor of an office tower needs to produce clean air and food. In order to shop locally, food must be produced locally. The radicalness of change required to accommodate a future for our species has only been whispered about. Neighbourhoods designed using a combination of geothermal, solar, wind, hydro and whichever other source of non-invasve renewable energy sources to power energy needs, with integrated sewage and waste disposal systems and communal garden plots instead of decorative green spaces would be a place to start. The hardest part of any change to our sad systems right now appears, perhaps only at first glance, to be who and how can a dollar be made? It is up to the young like Nick to take up the challenge and withstand the griping from “bottom-liners”.
Thanks for your comments Catherine! Indeed radical solutions are needed for our cities. It’s up to all of us!