Info, news & debate

Intentional communities


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Thinking of starting a community enterprise? Win a free place on a three-day workshop

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Our friend Jonathan at Stir to Action (incorporating STIR Magazine) is hosting a three-day workshop for people who are interested in starting a community enterprise, rather than joining the corporate rat-race. He’s offering one place on this workshop for free

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Review of Ralph Ibbott’s book ‘Ujamaa: the hidden story of Tanzania’s socialist villages’ and how I was lied to in Tanzania

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I have a special interest in this book. As a young man in the 1980s I’d read Julius Nyerere’s Ujamaa (Swahili for “togetherness”, “unity” or “familyhood”). I was inspired by his vision of a co-operative, non-hierarchical society based on sustainable villages

Read more about Review of Ralph Ibbott’s book ‘Ujamaa: the hidden story of Tanzania’s socialist villages’ and how I was lied to in Tanzania

mutualism

Mutualism: a philosophy for changing society with a difference – it’s implementable

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There are lots of ideas for changing the world – from voting to demonstrations, petitions, lifestyle change, incremental change, revolutionary change, or more of the same, only harder. The problem with many of them is that they are either ineffective or not implementable.

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Could this be the home of a new community and eco-centre?

Would you like to be involved in the setting up of a new community and eco-centre in the English Midlands?

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Not far from Worcester is a stunning Grade II mansion house, 50+ rooms, stable blocks, 2-bed detatched gatehouse, 21 acres of woodland plus huge walled garden. Lowimpact.org, plus other like-minded organisations, would like to secure it as an intentional community

Read more about Would you like to be involved in the setting up of a new community and eco-centre in the English Midlands?

Diggers and Dreamers Communities Directory is back with a 25th anniversary edition

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This is the publication that inspired me to visit intentional communities, eventually join one – Redfield Community in Buckinghamshire, where Lowimpact.org was founded. It’s a handy directory of communities / communes / co-operative living in the UK and elsewhere

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Review: Julius Nyerere’s ‘Ujamaa’, why a beautiful idea went wrong and how it can be adapted for the 21st century

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This is a book that I discovered in my twenties, and it impressed me so much that I ended up making my way to Tanzania in 1991, and staying for a couple of months on two ujamaa villages. Ujamaa means ‘familyhood’, a concept that Nyerere wanted to extend to encompass the whole of humanity,

Read more about Review: Julius Nyerere’s ‘Ujamaa’, why a beautiful idea went wrong and how it can be adapted for the 21st century

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The Yamagishi Association: successful, moneyless, leaderless network of communes in Japan and elsewhere

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In the 1990s I visited the headquarters of the Yamagishi Association in Mie-ken in Japan. It’s a federation of intentional communities that is still going strong – but even then it comprised 3000 people in 30 villages all over Japan

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Wanted: new members for a co-operative farm – you are invited to an exploratory weekend

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You are invited to Ffynnon Teilo Farm Activity Weekend, to explore creating a co-operative farm – Saturday 26th & Sunday 27th of September. Activities will include: pond clearing, footpath and step renovation, fire making, campsite cooking and farm tour. Camping space available Saturday night.

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More details of the ujamaa collective village system in Tanzania (from first-hand experience)

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This is an account of my visit to two ujamaa villages in Tanzania in the early 1990s, plus a lot more background information on the system itself. The ujamaa system has since been dismantled after pressure from the World Bank, but at its height, 20 million people out of a total population of 24 million

Read more about More details of the ujamaa collective village system in Tanzania (from first-hand experience)



ecological land co-op

I’ve joined the board of the Ecological Land Co-operative because I want to change the way land is owned and farmed

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On Wednesday evening I attended the AGM of the Ecological Land Co-op at Freightliners City Farm in London. I was standing for election to the board after being invited to apply by Shaun Chamberlin of Dark Optimism

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Want to see land shared more equally, and managed ecologically? If so, here’s what to do

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We used to get people on our straw-bale building courses who were amazed at how simple and quick a technique it is. They’d sometimes say ‘wow, I’m going to get a few acres and build my own home!’ and we’d have to inform them that they might have to do it in another country.

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How Julius Nyerere’s Ujamaa idea could form the basis of a new global political system

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In 1991, I spent a couple of months in two Ujamaa villages in Tanzania. The Ujamaa system was introduced by Julius Nyerere in the early 1960s, and the World Bank effectively killed it as a system in the late 80s, although a few independent Ujamaa villages survived into the 90s. I’m going to briefly describe

Read more about How Julius Nyerere’s Ujamaa idea could form the basis of a new global political system