Glocal Learning Centre in Lahel for a Thriving Senegal River Valley

The Senegal River Valley lies on the borders of the Sahel Region and the Sahara desert. It is at the front line when it comes to dealing with the entangled challenges of desertification, climate change, mass impoverishment and immigration. The drastic and rapid degradation of its ecosystems is one of the main causes of the increase of tensions between farmers and herders in the region. The armed conflict and terrorism in Northern Mali results mainly from fierce competition to gain a control over scarce resources.

REDES (Network for Ecovillage Emergence and Development in the Sahel, in French) believes that it is possible to reverse the current ecological and socio economic trends if the right community dynamics are established. One way to implement those community transformative processes and changes is through a vigorous comprehensive educational programme aiming at establishing a fecund partnership within and between local communities.

In order to shift cultural paradigms, regenerate ecosystems and create abundance in a highly affected region, REDES educational programme is supporting the emergence of enchanting social dynamics by weaving together the talents, wisdom and efforts of indigenous farmers, traditional healers, spiritual leaders, artists, griots (traditional historians and storytellers), comedians, teachers and journalists. Local and international students and volunteers as well as “glocal” ecovillage designers are playing an active part in reconnecting people with their land and values.

In these multidimensional regenerative processes, REDES in partnership with Gaia Education, Context Institute, GEN, Soutenir l’Enseignement en Afrique, CAPE Damanhur, national universities, international academic institutions intend to work with and for the local communities to design a better future.

In exchange, communities from thirty-five villages around Lahel will be generously sharing their knowledge, learning from their challenges and celebrating their successes. They will be planting the seeds of happiness in their children’s hearts while rediscovering together the secrets of the cultural legacies, ancestral values and the joys of rebirth and of a more harmonious existence.

Organisations, families and individuals wishing to take part in this exciting universal rendez-vous of giving and receiving, can contact us at redes-ecovillages@gmail.com