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.