GEN-Europe is the European ecovillage association promoting environmental protection and restoration of nature through the concept of ecovillages as models for sustainable human settlements. We actively support the development of ecovillages and networks in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
a) Activities
GEN-Europe promotes the development of the ecovillage movement through:
• generating and disseminating information on ecovillage initiatives: ecovillage stories are published through a network of partner publications that reach over 150,000 readers in nine languages
• providing financing and bursaries to support the networking and educational
• activities of its member ecovillages
• working with universities and other educational bodies in the design and delivery of accredited ecovillage-based courses and programmes
• participating in summits, conferences, exhibitions and other events to communicate the ecovillage concept and experience to policy-makers, planners, professionals and the general public.

On our website we also provide two Internet databases
• with events from the Ecovillage world
• with resources related to the Ecovillage world.

b) Program/Education
The purpose is to create an education, which gives sufficient practical and theoretical knowledge to build and teach the building of sustainable settlements as well as the restoration of nature everywhere on this planet. The first step is to have the dedication, persistence and knowledge to be a pioneer in this (Hildur Jackson, Denmark).

Ecovillages are ideally suited to serve as educational centres for the wider society. For years ecovillages have been developing educational initiatives (workshops, seminars and semester programmes) open to all interested people. They are creating a process, which gives practical and theoretical knowledge to build sustainable settlements and implement Earth restoration everywhere on this planet.

Many European ecovillages offer such education in the form of courses, seminars, conferences and more.
You can find events by some of them in our events database on our website, or you can contact our members directly from the Ecovillage directory on our website.

GEN calls places where such education takes place "Living and Learning centres".
If you are interested to learn more what they are go to our website and either download the Living and Learning brochure as PDF or go to http://gen.ecovillage.org for online information.