EPALE is a European, multilingual, open membership community of adult learning professionals, including adult educators and trainers, guidance and support staff, researchers and academics, and policymakers.

EPALE is funded by the Erasmus+ programme. It is part of the European Union’s strategy to promote more and better learning opportunities for all adults. Suderbyn was recently featured in the Swedish EPALE website, that we share with you here:

Suderbyns ekoby är en gemenskap av människor från olika länder och kulturer, belägen på Gotland. De beskriver sig själva som en grupp som tillsammans bygger platsen de bor på - inte bara fysiskt utan också socialt. Målet är att leva på ett sätt som skapar en välmående livsmiljö och samtidigt minimera miljöavtrycket. Ekobyn strävar efter att leva nära naturen och uppnå en mer hållbar livsstil. De strävar också efter självförsörjning inom livsmedelsproduktion och förnybar energi genom att prioritera ekologiska och lokala material. De experimenterar på olika områden med innovation och traditionell kunskap med ett försök att skapa en modell för ett hälsosamt och lyckligt liv. De arbetar för att uppnå detta med olika utbildningsprojekt både på lokal och internationell nivå. 

Suderbyn består av tre olika delar: stiftelsen, kooperativet och NGO RELEARN. Stiftelsen äger fastigheten och byggnaderna, kooperativet fokuserar på invånarnas basbehov och välbefinnande medan RELEARN arbetar med utbildningsprojekt, utbildning och internationella nätverk.

De som bor på Suderbyn arbetar också där och skapar på så sätt sitt hem tillsammans. De odlar en del av sin mat i den egna trädgården, som är designad enligt permakultur-principerna. Med permakultur menas ett långsiktigt hållbart förhållningssätt mellan människa och natur och att denna kultur ska genomsyra vardagen inom alla områden. Permakultur myntades av Bill Mollison och David Holmgren i Australien 1978. Under årens lopp har permakultur börjat användas i många länder och inom olika samhällssektorer. Målet för permakultur är ett hållbart samhälle, vilket skapar meningsfullt arbete, bättre miljö, hälsa, solidaritet och säkerhet.

Suderbyn utvecklar också olika miljöfrämjande  projekt. Exempelvis tillhandahåller de bil- och cykelpooler och utvecklar sin egen energiproduktion. På så sätt kombinerar de enkelt landsbygdsliv med ekologiska innovationer och experimentella idéer.

Majoriteten av Suderbyns olika projekt genomförs tillsammans med andra organisationer, framförallt andra ekobyar i olika regionala och internationella nätverk. Projekten har finansierats med hjälp av internationella volontärprogram som Europeiska solidaritetskåren (ESC), franska statens Service Civique och Service Civil International (SCI), liksom utbildningsprojekt med fokus på hållbarhet och miljö inom Erasmus+ och Nordplus vuxen. Stort fokus inom ekobyn ligger på icke-formellt lärande där volontärer och de boende på ekobyn tillsammans lär och utvecklar ekobyns verksamhet och aktiviteter genom praktiskt deltagande.
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Läs mer om Erasmus+ strategiska partnerskap, vuxenutbildning:
https://www.utbyten.se/program/erasmus-strategiska-partnerskap-vuxenutbildning/
Läs mer om Erasmus+ mobilitet vuxenutbildning:
https://www.utbyten.se/program/erasmus-mobilitet-vuxenutbildning/
Läs mer om Nordplus vuxen: https://www.nordplusonline.org/Who-can-apply/Nordplus-Adult (på engelska)

To offer an escape from the confinement and share our vision, we organized the Webinar series Our Renewable Future 🤗. Special thanks to Antoine Arquié, Symon Gob, Abdul Otman, Jingwen Yao Art and every community member for this intense and connected week. 

• More than a hundred lovely souls visited us virtually
• More than 300 students of life attended our webinars
• The replays combined have been watched 1600 times

We hope you enjoyed attending our webinars, it was with great pleasure to host our panelists and connect with each and every one of you.

This initiative is now finished, let us know if you have suggestions for new initiatives 👏. Because we want to do more. And we will do more 🐾

All videos are available on our Youtube and our Facebook Page

​These times of confinement leaves us with quite some time to reflect on what really matters. As we Suderbynians exchange with friends and family stuck in apartments in the city, we realize that we are not equal when it comes to this situation. Living in community and living with the land, a situation easily perceived as a burden and a sacrifice through mainstream lenses, appears now as a privilege and a luxury - but a very basic and necessary one.
Our daily lives barely changed, even though many of our planned interactions with the outer world, such as translocal projects, meetings, events etc. got canceled, postponed or disturbed, thus creating a lot of uncertainty for our future.
Yet, we still have the sea, a few kilometers away, the forest and our own garden, allowing us to be with Nature, to be Nature. This is a precious source of psychological, social and practical resilience of which many are deprived on a daily basis, even without lockdown. And we have each other: being surrounded by 20ish people with whom you can meet, play, work, talk, cook, live and love brings a lot of necessary magic and power in the everyday life.
These are not just ''nice things''. These two core aspects of ecovillage life, natural life and community life, can now shine in their truth, as many people start to wonder, sitting on their castle of toilet paper: ''Maybe this hippie stuff is not that dumb after all...''
 
Being in Nature and access to community - whatever forms they take - are more than universal human rights. They are the basic requirements for the proper functioning of our physical, emotional and societal bodies. It's the very stuff we were brought to live for: meaningful lives with and for each other, celebrating the nurturing life force of trees, elements, animals and lands that hold us alive.
By doing so, just living this simple, magical, imperfect way, we can naturally respect the boundaries of our Mothership, without forcing and sacrificing anything.
 
Maybe, instead of talking about climate change as an external event that we need to fight against, we could start to respect ourselves as a species and think about serving our true deep basic needs?
 
#SuderbynEcovillage #Permaculture #AllYouNeedIsLife

As the international borders are closing under the virus hustle, we are rejoicing on one hand over our life in an intercultural community rich with experiences and learnings, and on another hand over recent memories of a beautiful event with people from different counties (before moving between the countries became a luxury.)
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In the end of February some of us #SuderbynEcovillage, together with other ecovillages, was a part of bringing together 30 change-makers from ecovillagers of 12 countries – from Armenia to Spain, from Denmark to Kosovo, from Romania to Estonia – for the training on how to apply for and run ESC volunteering programs in ecovllages. Yet it was more than that!...

Apparently a part of the participants had expected the training's content to circle around the application forms and EU strategy. But there was more to do! The training became a warm space to meet, exchange, learn and relearn, create projects and find new friends. Working with this inspiring group was a good bridge between conventional administrative work (funding, applications, report) and building models of a new world – supporting dedicated communities willing to change the society and welcoming young volunteers to come and learn and create together. We from #SuderbynEcovillage were happy to join some of our experience with volunteering program "Green Skills" which we run since 10 years, and to learn from others.

We all met in Ängsbacka course centre, which welcomed us warmly (what a different vibe of the family here when you come in winter!) and mixed walks in its rich forest with learning sessions and work. A dozen of projects ave been developed: some were born, some worked on accreditations ("quality labels") to host/sent volunteers, some gained new parts of design of volunteering programs, some were reshaped. Good work, good connections, good co-creation and sealing together working challenges during the days and celebrations in the evenings. Grateful and looking forward to see what grows from the seeds planted.

#ecovillages #erasmusplus #ESC #europeansolidaritycorps