On Sunday September 30th again thousands of protesters and supporters joined the walk in Hambach Forest. Again thousands broke away from the official demonstration route and went into the forest. Many re-errected barricades and dug ditches to make it more difficult for the machines to evict the remaining tree houses Paragraph11 and GhostTown. Possibly more […]
Tag: co-creation
Sunday Walks in Hambach Forest
During the last Sunday Walk in Hambacher Forst I saw a transformed forest and civil society. It was sunny and the activists in the tree houses were extremely happy to see hundreds of citizens who had entered the forest despite the police prohibiting it. They came with Michael Zobel’s Sunday Walks which have now become […]
7 Ways to Create the More Beautiful World
“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” I love this quote by Arundathi Roy, Indian author and political activist. It reflects the experience I made during the past two years when I travelled the world to find future-proof solutions for tomorrow. And […]
Lobbying for Planet Earth at Bundestag
Power to the people! In Germany you can talk to your representatives in the Bundestag. Even as a normal citizen. With the volunteers from the citizens’ climate lobby we do exactly that: We lobby for the needs of the one whose lobby is far too small: Gaia – our planet earth. The Lobby Goal […]
Economy for the Good of All Beings
“All economic activity caters to the common welfare.” This phrase sounds like a utopian ideal. Too good to be true. Yet this is article 151 of the Bavarian constitution which legally took effect in 1946 (and is now obsolete in large parts due to the German Constitution). But there are economic alternatives. Last weekend some […]
Sharing Economy – Sharing Future
Can you imagine a place where exchanging business cards, using compost toilets, pitching start-ups, doing meditation and covering face and hair with colorful glitter in preparation for a wild dance don’t contradict but complement each other? That is OuiShareFest! The Meditating Eco Manager Geek What really astonished me about OuiShareFest was this: eco folks, business […]
Hybrid Business Model: How to Finance Your Own Non-Profit Work
Eco Femme is a social enterprise for female hygiene products. The hybrid business model combines both for-profit interests and non-profit social work: With the commercial gains from selling re-usable cloth pads the all-female team based in the intentional township of Auroville, South-India, finances their non-profit activities in education and research. When I met Jessamijn Miedema , […]
Designing Tomorrow’s World
In Design week participants were encouraged to voice their dream projects they want to work on after the Ecovillage Design Education Course. Out of around 50 dreams, we collectively chose four that teams worked on with the method of Dragon Dreaming, a visionary process for planning, implementation and evaluation. It builds upon three principles: Inner […]
Heros’ Day in Slum
The air carried a stinging smell of rotting vegetable and animal droppings. I made my way through the dusty roads following Millicent and Lucy, my two new African friends. Sometimes we needed to jump over small canals, half filled with a dark liquid garbage mixture that I did not want my foot to slip into. […]
One Day in the Nieklitz Summer Camp
In August, the project “Wir bauen Zukunft” in Northern German Nieklitz invited for a summer work camp. For two weeks, volunteers helped in the 10 hectares biotope, planting, tidying, constructing, repairing… The camp was organized in an open space format. In the morning, after a hearty breakfast in the outdoor kitchen and dining area, the […]
Collaboration for Social Businesses
Next year, the first Kenyan Impact Hub, a co-working and encounter space for social businesses will open in Nairobi. Tonight, the co-founders invited anybody who is interested in joining the Hub community to find out about expectations and needs. Around 40 national and international people attended. A feeling of community, collaboration and mutual trust started […]
Silicon Savannah Goes Social
In the past couple of years, Nairobi earned itself the nick name of Silicon Savannah due to a mushrooming start-up scene. Last year, Bloomberg Media estimated Nairobi’s tech scene could be worth as much as $1 billion by 2018. At the same time, social entrepreneurs are gaining ground with the first Impact Hub opening next […]
Gathering of the Rainbow Family in Bavaria
I did it! I went to a gathering of the Rainbow Gathering! For over a year I had been looking for opportunities to join one of these “family reunions”. Now it became true. Getting to the secret spot only vaguely communicated through offline channels was easier than I thought. Friends in Munich knew a friend […]
Working with a Smile: Summer Work Camp in Nieklitz
I felt like I entered into the enchanted remains of a long forgotten world when I opened the great wooden gates of the biotope park in Nieklitz, 70 km east of Hamburg in Northern Germany. Behind those gates, nature had reclaimed its space in the past three years without any touch of a human hand. […]
Video interview with Ceylan, co-founder of “Wir bauen Zukunft” in Nieklitz
Ceylan Rohrbeck, co-founder of “Wir bauen Zukunft” (we build future) gives insights into this new project in Northern-Germany. The group will not only construct sustainable buildings but use the former biotope as a place for co-working, co-living and as an educational center. In German. (English subtitle will follow)