Dear Brothers and Sisters !
Some news after a long period of silence to start this beautiful new year !
First, a fresh and changed website to start a new chapter in the Eotopia project. You are always many to write us and register on the website, which gives us hope and push us to keep dreaming !
And sometimes, the dreams which are persistent enough become reality…
After two years of looking for a place, trying our luck in different parts of France, met a lot of people, experimented and learnt a lot, opened ourselves to the idea of buying a land, we finally found a great farm where we can settle as soon as we want !
Finally, Eotopia becomes not only a dream, an idea, but a concrete place !
A wonderful farmer, Antoine, offers us his farm which he called “the farm of the future generations”. This great place is situated in the region called “Pyrénées Atlantiques”, twenty minutes from Pau and thirty minutes from Lourdes. There is a house where we can live, a big barn of 300 m2, 12 hectares, a river and animals we get the chance to save from the slaughterhouse ! A new challenge for Eotopia, there are about 30 cows (ancient race) and sheeps.
It is located in a fertile area and it is very accessible, by bus or by train, an ideal place to organize our events, workshops and other free and vegan camps !
We trust this will be the right place, but since it is not the first time such an opportunity is offered to us, we will “try” the place before to officially launch the project.
For that, we established a small group of five persons to open the place and start the project. Of course, the doors are open to anyone willing to commit with the dream and help us make it real ! If you are interested in, please read on the pillars of the project. If it feels like you’ve written it yourself, please contact us !!!
We plan on installing ourselves from February and start the activities in late spring ! Then, the place will be open as well for visits and events.
But before that, some priorities :
- define a legal structure to secure the project
- install / reinstall the electricity (help welcome !)
- install a heater system and a shower
- plant trees, start the garden
- plan the place according to permaculture.
- Find refuges for some of the animals and how to keep some with us
- find the way to cover some expenses due to the administration of the place and the compulsory taxes/insurances
If you wish to help us with these steps, whether it is to take part seriously in the adventure or just to give a hand, please write us !
The “german” team of Eotopia decided as well to settle but finally in South Germany with a new project which shares similarities with Eotopia. The Fellmer family has relocated to a small town, where the Hughes family together with Jonathan Lamp and Wiebke Aszmutat have been working on the G.A.N.Z. Initiative. Presently they live together as neighbors but as of next spring they will move together into a large, lovely home in downtown Kirchheim Teck (Baden-Württemburg). This will be the official start of the house project and will serve as the G.A.N.Z. headquarters.
G.A.N.Z. (Gemeinsam Aktiv und Nachhaltig in der Zukunft, or “Together Active and Sustainable for the Future”) is an umbrella initiative embodying the same principles at the core of Eotopia but with a different manifestation. Instead of a large eco-village, they will begin as ten people in a big house, living in the most sustainable way possible while organizing events to generate awareness and action in the community. The core message is how to live sustainably by reducing consumption and sharing and saving existing resources.
With this two places, the dream is closer than never and we are so happy to finally start !
Thank you all for your support, kind words and messages all through those years and we hope to see you soon at the farm of the future generations ! And we wish you great adventures and a lot of happiness for this new year !
Be happy and well,
The Eotopia family
“live simply so others can simply live”
