Courses and Events

We are Sunseed’s Sunseed’s Project Manager Ashley and Sustainable Living Coordinator Elisa, and from 12 – 17 August we attended the 2025 European Ecovillage Gathering, which was hosted by Mindenegyüttmegy Association (MEGY), a thriving ecovillage that happens to be one of the largest permaculture projects in Hungary. This year was a special year in the history of the ecovillage movement, as it marked the 30 year anniversary of the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN), and the first year that the annual gathering was happening in eastern Europe. With this long history in mind, the guiding theme for 2025 was “Tending The Roots: Celebrating 30 years of ecovillage impact”.


Over 700 attendees from all over the world gathered in Mana’s Garden for a week of workshops, seminars, trainings, sharing circles, movement, connection and growth. Each day was jam-packed, starting with pre-breakfast morning sessions focused on movement or meditations through art or other types of gentle practices. Then we moved onto a collective morning circle, with each day focused on some aspect of the ecovillage movement, starting with roots on day one, moving on to branches, then seeds, then finally looking forward to the future fruits.


The main part of the day consisted of morning and afternoon blocks for workshops and seminars, separated by lunch. We attended sessions on various topics such as practical activism in communities, an examination of going “from triggers to teachers”, ecovillages as catalysts for just socio-ecological transition, indigenous and traditional community perspectives, regeneration of an ecosystem in an arid and dry region by our neighbours in Los Portales, the use of restoration circles as part of restorative justice in the Auroville project, and more. Choosing which talks to attend was the main source of conflict throughout the week – there was too much to choose from!


We were very proud to host our own workshop on the first day of the Gathering, which we chose to call “Los Cuidados: Exploring Gender Roles in Community Through the Lens of Housework, Food and Community Care”. We were very pleased with the attendance of this workshop on the main stage, and even more proud of the outcome, which facilitated a lot of fruitful conversation and sharing among the participants on tools they use in their own communities to visibilise invisible care work and promote a culture of shared care, beyond gender roles.


Beyond the workshop, we also hosted a table in the “Meet the Ecoprojects” of the Gathering every day for one hour after lunch. It was a beautifully dynamic space, with lots of visitors coming by to learn about Sunseed, sign up for our newsletter, and ask about how to join the project!





A final aspect of the Gathering that we both really enjoyed was the implementation of sharing groups – small groups of 5-6 people who connected on the first evening and met daily to share our feelings, observations, and reflections on the day’s activities. It was a peaceful moment of connection with new people we met in the gathering that served as a much-needed moment of calm in the hectic gathering schedule.







Upon our return to Sunseed we put together an educational activity for the community, sharing first a little introduction to the gathering and what GEN is and does, what we did while there and some of our reflections on the experience, followed by a mini version of the workshop that we presented during the GEN Gathering.


We are very grateful to everyone who made our attendance at GEN possible, and we look forward to more of a Sunseed presence there next year. Here’s to another 30 years of ecovillage life and co-creation of our powerful communities!