About ECOLISE... ECOLISE’s purpose is to engage in, support and facilitate accelerated learning and collaboration among community-led initiatives, their networks and partners in order to catalyse systemic transformation within and across society.ECOLISE, the European network for community-led initiatives on climate change and sustainability, recognises the unprecedented ecological, social, economic and political threats to dignified life on planet earth. These threats have been provoked by centuries of ongoing extractive and exploitative institutional systems and practices, a structural dependence on unconstrained economic growth, and the unfettered spread of unsustainable lifestyles. At the same time, ECOLISE sees hope in the rich seam of solutions that are being continuously developed by community-led initiatives across Europe and the world, including those that encompass inner growth, inclusive approaches to collaboration and to the governance of commons and stewardship of ecosystems. Furthermore ECOLISE is inspired and motivated by the growing interest in these life-affirming approaches.ECOLISEECLS_6d1c18dc-7ba6-11ea-8d2e-42542d83ea00ECOLISE was founded in 2014 and is registered as an international non-profit association under Belgian law (AISBL). As of 2019 it has 46 member organisations, registered as legal entities in 18 different EU member states, plus Macedonia and Switzerland. The activities of the members extend to all EU member states, as well as internationally.ECOLISE MembersMembers include international networks of community-based initiatives such as the Transition Network (representing over 1200 Transition initiatives), the Global Ecovillage Network (15,000 ecovillages), the Permaculture movement (3 million practitioners globally) and ICLEI, the association of local governments for sustainability; national and regional networks; and other specialist bodies engaged in European-level research, training and communications to support community-led action on climate change and sustainability.ECOLISE General AssemblyThe organisation comprises a general assembly, which meets annually and sets overall strategy; a council (currently 11 members) and presidency, which are elected for a two year term and oversee the implementation of the ECOLISE strategy; an executive board, comprising the president, vice president and executive director; and a secretariat, which includes the executive director, four thematic coordinators and research advisers.ECOLISE Working GroupsThe work of the council and secretariat is also supported by a number of working groups, focusing on: policy and advocacy; communications; knowledge and learning, and resource mobilisation and outreach. The working groups include council members, representatives of other member organisations and, where relevant, experts drawn from outside the network.ECOLISE Councilelected April 2019Francesca WhitlockCo-president -- Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) Europe, (Spain/UK) -- Fran is communications manager for GEN-Europe. Prior to taking up this position she worked in London as a campaigns and communications officer and consultant to various climate change and environmental NGOs including the UK Climate Coalition and Global Witness. She is increasingly involved in GEN Europe’s advocacy work and led its presence at COP24. Since 2015 she has lived and worked communally – from an urban co-housing in London, to the deserts of Almería, via an agricultural community in New Zealand – and now is a happy resident of Arterra Bizimodu, where GEN Europe has its offices. When she’s not working, she can usually be found somewhere up the nearest mountain.Davie PhilipCo-president -- Cultivate (Ireland) -- Davie has been an advocate for sustainable communities in Ireland since 1996. In 1998, he was a founding member of FEASTA, the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability, and in 1999 a co-founder of Cloughjordan ecovillage, Co. Tipperary. His main work now is with Cultivate Living and Learning, the coop that he co-founded in 2000, designing and delivering events and courses and facilitating groups working on collaborative approaches to help their localities flourish. In 2005, he was one of the original catalysts of the Transition Towns process, and has created and delivered many learning programmes on community resilience. From 2009 to 2011, Davie sat on the board of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland. From 2014 to 2016 he developed and piloted an education project for teenagers called Schools for Resilience (SfR) with five European partners. Since 2017 Davie also works on engagement and communications for GROW, a 3-year European citizen’s observatory project on soil.Alisa DendroBaltic Ecovillage Network (Sweden) -- Alisa is a passionate catalyst for community-building, transformative learning and cross-border cooperation. Her operational base is Suderbyn Permaculture Ecovillage – a small but strong multicultural community of activists on the island of Gotland in the Baltic sea. However, her work stretches around Europe and outside. Alisa grew up in Kazakhstan, studied and worked in Russia and finished her Masters degree in Sustainable Development in Sweden, where she stayed and dedicated herself to working with international grass-root initiatives and networks of local action. She is a driving force and council member of NGO Relearn focused on pro-change education, the chairperson of Baltic Ecovillage Network (BEN) and the council member of Suderbyn People-care Cooperative. She works with initiatives supported by, among others, Swedish Institute, Baltic Sea Conservation Foundation, European Commission, Erasmus+ and LEADER. Her focus is environmental and social justice, freedom of speech, communities and change that is decentralised yet united by networks.Alexandru TudosePermaculture Research Institute (Romania) -- Alexandru Tudose has been a member of the Permaculture Research Institute Romania since 2017, where he works as Manager for Implementation and Maintenance within the Grădinescu Urban Garden Network. He represented the Institute at the Bio&Co organic farm where he was responsible for coordinating farm operations, assessments and weekly visits. In 2018, under the guidance of the Institute, he founded Yellow Electric Sun, a company that provides design, implementation and maintenance services for gardens and natural, aesthetic, functional, resilient and self-sufficient spaces.Amelie KrugBaltic Ecovillage Network (Germany) -- As a student of cultural anthropology and social sciences at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Amelie is passionate about answering the question of how to transform the food system. She is intimately involved with the GEN Germany project “Living in sustainable villages” in which five German ecovillages are inspiring sustainable transitions in their regions, by supporting the development of sustainability plans and action in collaborative partnerships with local villages. She brings a wealth of knowledge of the food sovereignty movement that unites within Nyéléni, including actors such as the food policy councils and community supported agriculture initiatives, to ECOLISE. She is an ambitious activist and contributes to various social movements that are striving for ecological and social justice.Ellen Bermann(Transition Network) -- Ellen defines herself as a passionate quester and seeker of paradigm shift towards a whole and connected human culture in symbiosis with Planet Earth. Born and based in northern Italy but living on the cusp of different cultures and languages (Ellen is fluent in Italian, German, English, French and Spanish), she loves to navigate beyond horizons and boundaries with boldness and curiosity. After a degree in geology and 15-years experience in sustainability and corporate social responsibility in tourism, in 2005 she discovered permaculture. Through it she became engaged in the Transition movement and, in 2007, co-founded Transition Italia and catalysed and facilitated several local transition initiatives. Within the Transition movement she’s involved internationally in the Hubs group and served on the Transition Network board for 5 years until January 2019.Genny CarraroRIVE, GEN-EU (Italy) -- Genny is managing director at Global Ecovillage Network Europe. With a professional background in international relations and humanitarian assistance, Genny is experienced in managing international philanthropic NGOs and has been professionally active in raising awareness of environmental and social issues for many years. An experienced facilitator and educator, she has organised and runs a number of courses and workshops related to facilitation, sociocracy, deep democracy, societal change and environment. She is currently involved in several European educational projects for social and environmental sustainability, including Bridgedale360 on youth and sustainability, and Sociocracy3.0 on governance and decision-making.Gil Penha-LopesFFCUL (Portugal) -- Gil is an action-researcher and lecturer, dedicated to better understanding how can we re-design regenerative communities that build local resilience and global sustainability. He coordinates research on the topics of Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation, Sustainability, and Community-Led Initiatives and is anchored in participatory action-research methods with an integral, holistic and systemic perspective. He is a senior research coordinator and PhD program lecturer at the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Lisbon. Gil co-authored The First Status Report on Community-led Action on Sustainability and Climate Change in Europe, published by ECOLISE in May 2019.Nara PetrovičSunny Hill (Slovenia) -- Nara is a writer of six books and hundreds of articles, a lecturer, translator and an internationally active facilitator of group processes, practicing luxurious simplicity and barefooting everywhere he goes. He was one of the key initiators and coordinators of the one-day-cleanup of Slovenia, which mobilised 13.5 percent of the population in cleaning up illegally dumped waste in 2010 and 2012. He trained national teams and supported the global coordination of the Let’s do it! World Cleanup 2018 campaign, which united 17.8 million people in 157 countries. Nara is the president of Sunny Hill Association, which cooperates closely with permaculture and ecovillage networks.Riccardo De AmiciRIVE, GEN-EU (Italy) -- Riccardo has worked and lived in intentional communities for a large part of his young life, focusing on themes such as Food Sovereignty and Youth Empowerment. Advocacy and Network Weaving have been his main interests in recent years, being an often active but informal member of highly diverse movements. He has been involved with RIVE on behalf of Comunità di Etica Vivente and is a member of the Council of GEN Europe. As a facilitator and team leader he co-facilitated an Ecovillage Design Education Course in Auroville (India) and hosted and helped to coordinate a PDC course, beside founding and running an Urban Agriculture pilot project. He holds a BA degree in ‘International Development, with Social Anthropology and Politics’, and a MA in ‘Agriculture and Rural development’, both from the University of East Anglia. He recently completed a CLIPS facilitation training and an Applied Sociocracy course.Robert HallGEN-EU (Sweden) -- Originally from California (USA), Robert immigrated to Sweden in the 1980s during his studies in international relations and economics. He later went on to complete an Intl MSc in environmental engineering and sustainable infrastructure. Since the 1980s Robert has worked for the Swedish government, UN, EC and OSCE in a number of countries mainly in international development cooperation, internationalisation of education and strengthening democratic institutions. He is also currently an elected member of the regional ‘parliament’ on Gotland. Robert has been active in the ecovillage movement since 2008 when Suderbyn Permaculture Ecovillage, which he co-founded, joined Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) Europe. He has served two terms on its Council and in 2015 was elected president of GEN-Europe. From 2014-2015 he served as GEN-Europe managing director and since 2015 has served on the GEN international board. Robert was involved in the foundation of ECOLISE from 2013-15 and served as president from 2017-2019.ECOLISE TeamEamon O’HaraExecutive Director -- Eamon initiated and co-founded ECOLISE. He has been managing EU projects and initiatives on local development and the environment since 1994, both in Ireland and in Brussels where he worked with AEIDL and the European LEADER Observatory. In 2007 he lead the external communications team for the EU LIFE programme, with responsibility for coordinating the activities of 15 experts in communications and the environment. Eamon holds a bachelors degree in environmental science, a masters degree in climate change and sustainable development and post-graduate qualifications in business administration, project management and rural development. He now lives in France. eamon.ohara@ecolise.euIva PocockCommunications Coordinator -- Iva has been deeply involved in communicating on sustainability both professionally and as a volunteer since the early 1990s. She has worked for a number of environmental, development and justice NGOs, both national and international, based in Ireland and Sri Lanka. As a journalist she has written extensively for the Irish Times, among other media, covering social and environmental stories. She lived for six years in Brussels, Belgium, where she is proud to have instigated a small community garden. She is a founder member, in 1999, of Ireland’s first ecovillage, where she and her family now live. Iva holds a bachelors degree in geography and a masters degree in journalism. iva.pocock@ecolise.euJuan del RíoNetwork and Outreach Coordinator -- Juan is an international facilitator of community transformation and social an ecological innovation processes. He has worked for 15 years designing and implementing projects and trainings on local resilience, systemic change and sustainability in Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. He has been involved in several social movements and transnational networks, developing skills as a network weaver and outreach expert. He is co-founder of Transition Spain and member of the project Municipalities in Transition. He is also the author of “Guía del movimiento de Transición”, and codirector of the film ALTER NATIVES. Juan holds a BSc in Biology and a MSc in Sustainability. He lives in Cardedeu, Spain, where he has a permaculture garden. Juan.delrio@ecolise.euMarkus MolzBLAST Coordinator -- Markus has more than twenty years of experience working on transnational and transdisciplinary challenges in higher education institutions, EU projects, and civil society initiatives. As researcher, trainer, facilitator, consultant, coordinator and activist, he is devoted to synergising transformative research, transformative learning and transformative action to spur local sustainability transitions. His main concerns are system (re)design, paradigm change, knowledge integration, and co-creation of vision-to-action cycles. He has a masters degree in psychology with a concentration in intercultural relations, and a doctorate in education. Markus lives in Luxembourg with his family. He is also engaged in Transition Luxembourg. markus.molz@ecolise.euMeera GhaniPolicy Coordinator -- Meera earned an MSc in Environmental Economics from the University of York, UK. Prior to joining ECOLISE she worked for over a decade with various NGOs on climate justice and human rights, including WWF and Climate Action Network Europe. She advised the Government of Pakistan on its climate policy and was a part of its delegation to the UN climate negotiations for five years. She has authored many research and policy papers in her field. She also writes about politics, feminism and culture and has been published by many newspapers, particularly in Pakistan. In her free time she’s focused on cultivating a #cultureofcare and centring well-being at work and within the communities she belongs to. She lives with her family in Brussels. meera.ghani@ecolise.euTom HenfreyResearch Coordinator -- Tom Henfrey works at the interface of research and practice in community-led initiatives, including previous academic appointments at Kent, Durham and Lisbon Universities and the Schumacher Institute. He co-founded an ecovillage in southern Spain, has been a core member of several Transition initiatives, and holds a permaculture design certificate. His role in ECOLISE builds on previous and ongoing collaborations with Transition Network, leading to the establishment of the Transition Research Network, and the Permaculture Association (Britain). He currently lives on a canal boat at a community growing project in the South Pennines, Northern England. ECOLISE Contributing PartnersECOLISE is grateful for the support of the following partners, which contribute financially or in other ways to our ongoing activities.FFCULGaia EducationECOLISE Membership PartnersAs of October 2017 ECOLISE is proud to be a member of Climate Action Network Europe and Sustainable Development Goal Watch Europe. Climate Action Network EuropeSustainable Development Goal Watch EuropeECOLISE MembersECOLISE has 46 member organisations registered as legal entities in 17 different EU Member States – Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK – and Macedonia and Switzerland. The activities of ECOLISE members extend to all EU member states, as well as internationally. ECOLISE members include international, national and regional networks of community-based initiatives, as well as other bodies engaged in European-level research, training, communications and other activities to support community-based action on climate change and sustainability. The ECOLISE members are:EUROPEAN NETWORKSBaltic Ecovillage NetworkBENGlobal Ecovillage NetworkEuropeICLEILocal Governments for SustainabilityTransition NetworkNATIONAL NETWORKSCentre for Ecological Learning LuxembourgCELL (Luxembourg)Community Development Institute(Macedonia)Croatian Permaculture Association(Croatia)Danish Ecovillage Network(Denmark)Estonian Ecovillage NetworkMTU (Estonia)GEN-SwitzerlandZMAGGreen Network of Activist Groups (Croatia)Institutul de Cercetare în Permacultură din România(Romania)NNLAGNational Network of Local Action Groups in the Czech Republic (Czech)Permaculture Association(Britain)Permaculture Institut e.V.(Germany)Permaculture DenmarkPermaculture SwedenRed de Transición España(Spain)Red Iberica de Ecoaldeas(Spain)Réseau des initiatives de transition Wallonie-Bruxelles(Belgium)Rete Italiana villaggi ecologici(Italy)Romania in tranzitie(Romania)Scottish Communities Climate Action Network(UK)Stödföreningen för omställningsinitiativ(Sweden)Sunny Hill(Slovenia)Transition Italia(Italy)LOCAL INITIATIVESLiberta Care Foundation(Netherlands)Omställning Järna(Sweden)Ria d’Etel en TransitionLes Lucioles (France)Salies en Transition(France)SPECIALIST ORGANISATIONSCaixa de Mitos(Portugal)Carraig Dulra(Ireland)CESnet(Croatia, Italy, Slovenia)CULTIVATE Living and Learning(Ireland)DRIFT(Netherlands)FCiências.IDAssociação para a Investigação e Desenvolvimento de Ciências (Portugal)Gaia Education(Scotland)Global Ecovillage Network(Scotland, UK)Hivemind Institute(Portugal)Institute of Global Studies(Romania)Resilience Earth(Spain)Schumacher Institute for Sustainable Systems(England)Solutions21(Belgium)Sustainability Park Istra Institute(Slovenia)Terra Livre(Romania)UPPUniversité Populaire de Permaculture (France)Systemic transformation within and across society_6d1c19f4-7ba6-11ea-8d2e-42542d83ea00To facilitate accelerated learning and collaboration among community-led initiatives_6d1c1af8-7ba6-11ea-8d2e-42542d83ea00Co-CreationSocial JusticeEcological IntegrityCompassionThe work of ECOLISE is inspired by the vision of a compassionate, equitable and regenerative society of empowered and resilient communities that thrive on diversity and inclusion and live within planetary boundaries.FairnessRegenerationEmpowermentResiliencyCommunityDiversityInclusionSustainabilityNetworkCultivate a cohesive, integrated network of change-making networks, organisations, groups and people that co-create and inspire a holistic culture of regeneration._6d1c1c24-7ba6-11ea-8d2e-42542d83ea001_6d1c1e22-7ba6-11ea-8d2e-42542d83ea00AwarenessExpand public and political awareness of the potential of empowered communities to positively transform societies and to help reach ambitious local to global level policy goals._6d1c1f62-7ba6-11ea-8d2e-42542d83ea002_6d1c2066-7ba6-11ea-8d2e-42542d83ea00FrameworkDevelop a dynamic and inclusive framework for collaboration, sharing of knowledge, research, learning and capacity-building to support communities to engage in and spread transformative action on the ground._6d1c2156-7ba6-11ea-8d2e-42542d83ea003_6d1c223c-7ba6-11ea-8d2e-42542d83ea002019-04-112020-04-11https://www.ecolise.eu/about-ecolise/OwenAmburOwen.Ambur@verizon.net