At last and update! Long live Diversity Village!

Hi folks. This comment I made comes from a recent Facebook thread where Diversity Village was mentioned :

On the topic of Diversity Village - We are still of a mind to do this plan, and we are strongly leaning towards seeking premises in Knysna should we ever manage to get our ducks sufficiently in a row to purchase land for the project.

Ultimately, the founding and funding and management of Diversity Village will depend entirely on the willingness of individual parties to personally commit to the work of making the project a reality. While many like myself and my family are quite willing to do what we can, we live on the breadline and cannot independently fund such a project on our own. We also don't think making such a project dependant on NGO donor funding would be in the interest of the people who would live there, as they would forever be at the mercy of the donor organisatio n's values and preferences. Autonomy is crucial to our intention to create a system that serves the interests of our collective.

Instead, I envision one day finding the opportunity (given a change in my circumstances and health) to actively begin drafting a charter, project plan, business model and other such founding documents needed to create Diversity Village and the time so I can begin to hold meetings with members of the community to discuss how they can contribute to the realisation of this project.

It is our estimation that a suitable property with the necessary living facilities to accommodate up to 50 individuals would typically run between R10-30million depending on existing infrastructure, location and the quality of the land for cultivation purposes and the degree to which we would have to seed the project until it becomes self-sufficient. Needless to say this amount is prohibitive, but we do not believe it is impossible to achieve this sum if we operate this project as a collective. After all, paying for assisted living facilities are likely to be equally expensive given a similarly sized group, and they do not even aim to develop the facility until it becomes fully self-sustaining and independant as we intend to do.

We mean to achieve this by using principles such as permaculture and non-grid dependant power generation, localised means of production and radical self-sufficiency to create both a fully culturally and financially independant environment that isinternally self-governed .

By constructing an environment that is for ourselves by ourselves, we can ensure that even those of us who have typically been denied the opportunity to be recognised as "contributing members of society" will have a place and a purpose to their lives that is rewarding and self-directed.

Ultimately, our intention is not to place a limit on what Diversity V illage may become. We do not intend to simply be a typecast as a "Farm of Simpletons" or a "Hippie Commune". Instead we mean to explore a culture where neuronormativity is the exeption rather than the rule, where the techonologies and products of our community is only limited by the innovation and enthusiasm of our members, and inclusion of sustainably growing populations of like minded individuals is part of our long term goals so that in time no non-neurotypical person would be left destitute in their hour of need.

Still here.

It's been a while now since the first blog, and I imagine some of you had begun to wonder if this whole Diversity Village thing was just one of those new exercise bicycles I bought for myself the week after New Year that has been gathering dust ever since.

Not quite.

Truthfully, I've been getting my workout elsewhere (to continue the metaphor)  - right now I'm spending some quality time getting my crazy life in order, and focusing on mastering the skill of survival in a more hands on fashion than reading blogposts about Organic farming on the Internet. Unfortunately this doesn't leave me much time to hammer out motivational posts about the remarkably important idea that is Diversity Village.

I'm still positive that with time this idea will grow, and find the support it needs to become a reality, and with that in mind I would strongly encourage you all to participate in the process by taking some time to engage in a conversation with me or other likeminded people about how you think you would like the village to look, what you think you could contribute, and who else we should be talking to in terms of getting the ball rolling.

The fact is, if you want to see this dream become a reality, you will have to actively take a portion of your week, month or year to help make it happen. This is what I am doing already. If all you can afford to contribute is advice or ideas, realise that this too is valuable and don't feel afraid to speak your mind. However in the end it will require actual people offline that are willing to sacrifice of themselves to do the work on this project to get over the initial hump of getting this thing running, and perhaps you want to begin to think about whether you would be willing to be one of those people.

If you are interested, please comment on the blog below or email me at cbreedt at gmail dot com.

Have a nice day now!

C.

Where it all began

I posted this on my the Ascape facebook group on January 13 2012: "I am having the beginning of a very large, very very awesome idea forming in my head and I want to know if I am the only person thinking about this... What does everyone think of a self-sustaining eco-village for autistic spectrum individuals (and their nearest families) that allows for an alternative solution to institutionalisation, conventional employment and heavy psychiatric intervention. We can grow our own veg, generate our own power, manage our own waste and still have most of the usual digital comforts (I've been reading up on this lately). If needed we could have a village therapy team who lived there full time and formed part of the community and our own school for children with alternative learning needs. I know this will probably take the contribution and cooperation of dozens (if not hundreds of people) and possibly some form of financial backing (grant/gift/beg steal borrow) and many years to plan and execute, but I feel strongly that this is a important idea, and someone should be thinking about it other than just me."


I immediately started gettng responses, and that is how I decided to begin probably the most foolhardy venture of my life so far : The Diversity Eco Village Project for Western Cape.

Lets see how this all goes!

Love

Christel

Welcom to the Diversity Eco Village Blog

This will be the interim home of the Diversity Eco Village Project - A Neurodiverse Ecologically Friendly Intentional Community project which hopes to create a sustainable community for those with Autism spectrum disorders, and their families.

Please let us know if you are interested in contributing to this project in any way whatsoever! We are still in our infancy, and can use all the advice we can get.

Regards

Christel Breedt