For the first three days of our trip we were exposed to a lifestyle that I didn’t even know existed. This was what life is like in an ecovillage. This eco village in Cloughjordan contained 55 different families over dozens of acres. This is the only ecovillage in Ireland. This community is structured to be much more sustainable than you would see in a regular town. They focus on farming, helping each other out within their village, and keeping up with sustainable practices such as composting all food and paper waste. This particular village seems like a paradise, but due to the housing crash of 2008, it has been struggling to grow and expand. The crash didn’t just affect the ecovillage, but most of rural ireland, and it still shows today.
When getting taught about the lifestyles of the ecovillage, the woman speaking, Mary, made animportant point regarding their community. She said that when she is asked what her favorite part of living in the community is she replied “the people.” When she was asked what her least favorite part of living in the community replied “the people.” I think this shows that this is not a perfect society and has room for improvements. I hate to critique a progressive community because I strongly agree with what they are doing, but I believe there are a few things that could be tweaked in order to inspire growth from within. First of all it takes five years to make a decision. I’m not sure if that was an exaggeration but that is what I was heard. In order for this community to grow I believe that the people whom it consists of must improve their communal decisions making process. This might require them to establish a more formal board of directors to lead the community. Another way they could improve their community is by developing a marketing strategy to help promote their lifestyle. If they can attract more people then they could become more self sustainable. The more people they have the more skill sets can be utilized to better their community. There are a few smaller things I would change such as adding communal WiFi, but other than that I feel like this could be an amazing growth opportunity
