Dear Community,

As we arrive at the Winter Solstice—the longest night of the year—we pause in the deep stillness to honor both the darkness and the light we carry together. In this moment of profound turning, we hold gratitude for all who have stood with our network and communities throughout this year, for those who have opened their doors to share their knowledge and experience, and for everyone who continues to stay with the trouble of our world in crisis.

As we gather in this liminal space between letting go and beginning anew, we recognize that transformation requires both: the courage to face what is difficult and the imagination to see what might emerge. This newsletter reflects on the year's journey while nurturing the seeds of possibility for 2026—new opportunities to learn, connect, contribute, and grow together.

The light is already returning. May we meet the year ahead with roots deepened by all we've shared, hearts warmed by community and open to the new growth waiting to unfold.

With gratitude,

Maja and the GEN Europe team

Once again, a dear friend of our network nominated GEN Europe for the WBS Herzensprojekte campaign, and thanks to your incredible support, we've been selected to receive €2,000 for our network-building mission to Ukraine in 2026. Your votes will help us bring together people from across our European network for workshops and connection-building with GEN Ukraine after years of isolation and resilience work. Every single vote mattered—thank you for building bridges with us!

✨ To Dare to Trust ✨ 
📅 July 13-18, 2026
📍 Nature Community, Germany

Join us for the next European Ecovillage Gathering! In times of uncertainty, choosing to trust in each other and our collective capacity is the most radical act. Ecovillages are laboratories of trust—proof that another way of living is not only imaginable but already tangible.
Registration and program details coming January/February 2026.

🎉 Missed this year's gathering? Relive our 30th anniversary celebration in Hungary! Representatives from 40+ countries came together to honor our roots, celebrate our global branches, and plant seeds for the future. From founder stories and the magical butterfly moment to NextGEN voices and powerful testimonies from Ukraine—read the full report.

The COM4LGD project emphasizes that real sustainability must be rooted in local community action and political participation.

Whereas our interactive documentary takes you on a journey to meet the people creating just and regenerative futures, we invite you engage and join our funded events and online meet-ups! Stay connected and subscribe to our newsletter here.

As the year comes to a close, NextGEN EU is excited to announce the launch of their Christmas & New Year Crowdfunding Campaign, running until January 10th!
 This holiday season, give a gift that truly makes an impact: support the next generation of changemakers for a thriving, regenerative future
And yes, you’ll receive a little gift in return!
To thank you for your support, we’ve prepared some rewards:
€5+  Your name will appear on the donors list on our website
€25+ Entry into a raffle for a discount ticket to the 2026 European Ecovillage Gathering
€50+ An official European Ecovillage Gathering 2026 Tote Bag

Every contribution, big or small, helps us empower young people passionate about the ecovillage movement across Europe!

REDES (Réseau pour l'Emergence et le Développement des Ecovillages au Sahel) is building the Great Green Wall through ecovillage practices in Senegal's River Valley region. As REDES' strategic partner in Europe, GEN Europe has helped fund 15 wells providing water access to rural communities, construct 14 classrooms serving 650 children, and establish a community library in Lahel. Recent cross-border workshops on permaculture, organic farming, and ecovillage design have empowered 250 local farmers and youth from both Senegal and Mauritania to strengthen food production and inter-community cooperation.

Are you aged 18-30 and interested in community living? The European Solidarity Corps offers fully funded volunteering opportunities (6 months to 1 year) in ecovillages across our network—covering travel, accommodation, pocket money, mentorship, and even free language training. No need to worry about costs while discovering sustainable living abroad.

Explore available positions with our member communities on our website!

Community Café is a platform for sharing authentic stories about ecovillages, sustainability, and alternative ways of living to inspire change.

Living in ecovillages has been deeply transformative for  Allegra, Anita (our former ESC volunteers!), Ashley and Baldesca opening new ways of seeing the world and sparking personal growth. From this experience, Community Café was born: to connect people with ecovillages, share inspiring stories and tools, and empower them to bring regenerative solutions into their everyday lives.

This article investigates how transnational networks of community-led initiatives (TNCLIs) advance sustainability transitions through strategies of relocalization. Using a comparative qualitative analysis of three European networks – GEN-Europe, Transition Network, and RIPESS-Europe – it identifies three forms of agency: configurative (systemic design of regenerative settlements), catalyzing (activation of latent community capacities), and epistemic (knowledge co-production and advocacy).

June 18 - June 21, 2026
Join an inspirational gathering where two visionary intentional communities – Tamera (Portugal) and ZEGG (Germany) – come together to explore elements of a new, peaceful culture. In a spirit of co-creation, we will inquire into how love, community and trust in life can guide us towards building a culture of inner and outer peace in these challenging times.

This January, activists and facilitators Martin Winiecki and Juliette Baigler are launching an immersive 8-session online course designed to deepen systemic understanding, expand collective imagination and support the emergence of post-capitalist alternatives. Radical Futures: Tools for Moving Beyond Capitalism brings together a global learning community and renowned guest speakers — including Helena Norberg-Hodge, Pat McCabe, Paul Levy and Morena Hanbury Lemos — for a journey that blends intersectional analysis, embodied cognition, animism and practical visioning. The course is offered without a paywall in the spirit of economic solidarity, inviting participants to explore how we can withdraw from domination-based systems and co-create regenerative ones rooted in compassion, justice and interdependence. 

“I LOVED the course. Highly recommended for connecting the personal to the geopolitical and helping us figure out what is ours to do.” – Gail Bradbrook, Extinction Rebellion co-founder

March 4–11, 2026 | Arterra Bizimodu, Spain

Want to learn how to move from "I" to "We"? This course helps youth workers develop tools for personal empowerment and collective collaboration. We'll explore Nonviolent Communication, Sociocracy, Collective Decision-Making, and much more!

Who can participate? Youth workers, educators, and activists from Bulgaria, Estonia, Poland, Slovenia, Sweden, France, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Portugal, Italy, and Spain who want to grow personally and collectively.

Accommodation at Arterra Bizimodu with shared rooms and local organic food.

Applications open until January 11: https://bit.ly/4olxiI3

The Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) brings nearly three decades of proven climate solutions to COP30 in Belém, Brazil. With 6,000+ communities connected across 114 countries, we demonstrate that ecovillages are not experimental alternatives, they are mature, scalable responses to the climate crisis, ready for mainstream policy integration.

In the face of unimaginable hardship, GEN Ukraine, a national eco community network of over 60 ecovillages, is showing how sustainable living can flourish even under fire. Their courage, creativity, and unwavering commitment to regenerative agriculture, renewable energy, and climate change solutions have earned them the 2025 Hildur Jackson Award.

The Third Call for Pathfinder Communities under the Regenerative Communities Fund (RCF) is now open! This is an exciting opportunity for both emerging and well established, small-scale, community-led initiatives (CLIs) locally rooted in Croatia, Finland, France, Portugal, and Spain to access funding and capacity-building support to deepen their impact, inspire others, and contribute to a just and inclusive climate transition across Europe.

Selected Pathfinder Communities will become part of the wider ECOLISE network of diverse members and CLI actors, amplifying the voices of communities led by and/or working for women, young people, people with disabilities, and other marginalised or minority groups, including LGBTQIA+ communities, ethnic, religious, cultural, linguistic, and Indigenous groups. If you are part of a grassroot, transformative community-led initiative working to strengthen climate action through regeneration, environmental justice, and local empowerment, start preparing now. The deadline for applications is 26 January 2026, 23:59 CET.

Are you passionate about climate justice, community-led action, and making funding more accessible to those driving real change? ECOLISE is looking for an intern to support the Regenerative Communities Fund (RCF), one of five funds under the Funding Fairer Futures (FFF) initiative. This initiative works to strengthen the climate movement by ensuring that diverse voices, including those from often marginalized communities, are heard and reflected in climate action.

A valuable new resource for community changemakers is now available: the first-ever self-paced “Transition Launch Training”, created by Transition Network with contributions from 12 experienced trainers across 9 countries and 3 continents, including Juan del Río from Juan del Río and Rubén Gutiérrez Cabrera from Red de Transición.

This free online course offers practical tools, frameworks, and inspiration to start or strengthen community-led initiatives tackling today’s interlinked crises, from climate change to social fragmentation.

2025 was a year of intense work, profound challenges, and collective learning for the Social Solidarity Economy (SSE). In the midst of a global scenario marked by crises, inequalities, and setbacks, the SSE once again showed itself for what it is: a living practice, a political commitment, and a concrete way of caring for life and sustaining the dignity of peoples.

Envisioning and working towards a life sustaining future is a thematic thread running through a number of our recent webinars. This conversation cafe is an opportunity to take a deeper dive into concepts and questions around Seeing with New and Ancient Eyes and Going Forth with greater courage and resolve, no matter how dire things seem right now.
February 7, 2026 @ 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm PST

Thank you for reading the newsletter - we hope you enjoyed it! This, and so much of our work, is only made possible by the support of our members. To receive more exclusive updates and opportunities, as well as discounts on events and our Gathering, you can become a member - find out more here!