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Growing the future, seed by seed

EOS Projects are local and regional engagements by the EOS, aiming towards improving ecological, social and economic sustainability where it matters, in communities, public spaces and neighborhoods. The projects should aim to improve the conditions for life, improve self-sufficiency and increase the knowledge and resilience of local communities, allowing them to attain a greater degree of autonomy over their local area.

EOS groups

Every local EOS group should aim to establish contacts with their local community, increase interest in sustainability issues locally, form networks and if possible initiate projects. Every EOS member is an ambassador for EOS.

Collaboration

The EOS is open for other groups to collaborate, as long as the group doesn’t promote racism, sexism, homophobia or engages in discrimination, criminal behaviour and violence. 

On the projects

The projects must be in tune with the core aims and values of the EOS. Every project must be approved by the EOS Board, and the group responsible for initiating the project must write A Project Plan detailing how the project will move on. A Halftime report, detailing the progress of the project

A Final report describing the results of the project. The Board cannot tell local groups what to do unless they want guidance and cooperation, but the Board can cut cooperation with groups that are violating the basic norms and goals of the EOS.

Evolutionary development

What characterizes most processes is emergence, namely that the interacting actions from many different actors unintentionally are creating an environment. This is especially true of nature, where complex eco-systems defined by dynamic equilibrium arise from the life desire of organisms trying to survive. 

Human societies are also having emergent properties. Ultimately, the norms, moral values and culture of a society is formed by the conscious and unconscious interactions between individual persons, who organize in families, friend clusters, congregations, clubs, associations, companies and public entities – and a civil society is formed. Our society is not a static entity where we have no choice but to abide to the structures, but rather a meta-organism that perpetuates itself every new morning. If for example everyone decided to stay in bed every morning instead of fulfilling their functions, the public order would soon break down followed by the infrastructure.

Of course, there is also an element of coercion, through the threat of force, and a power dynamic whereas a minority generally exert control over the largest share of resources in a society, supported by intellectual and bureaucratic elites that legitimize the system. There are also societies which are extremely centralized and where the elites are concentrating all wealth and power to themselves, and civil society is either entirely co-opted or erased.

Most societies in the world are however not characterized by totalitarianism, but by interaction between elites on various levels and different actors in the civil society – which is a social ecosystem of varying groups, which help to recreate society every new morning. Various different actors are trying to consciously transform society by trying to influence culture, economics, spirituality and politics in various ways.

Projects

We believe that the most effective and rewarding strategy to transform society towards sustainability is to build up strong local grassroots movements and helping communities to transform their own culture by educating the citizens and engaging with them.

Therefore, a large and important part of what we are doing is that we are initiating or helping local groups to initiate projects aimed to improve the ecological and social sustainability of their communities.

Such projects can deal with permaculture, cybernetics, 3D-printing, construction, energy, water management, local re-terraforming and transport, but also local democracy, participation, equality, autonomy and building bridges between different communities in term of experience-sharing and the improvement of relations.

Sadly, activism is often today associated with wanton vandalism and self-indulgent negativity. We want to transform society by helping individuals and communities develop the strong aspects of their character, personalities and desires for change, into a constructive and creative force that could move us towards sustainability – neighborhood by neighborhood.

The Future City Project: Eco-lab is a project scheduled to take place during 2016 and 2017,and aims to construct a youth centre in Umeå, focused on programming, 3D-printing and design, where youths would attain valuable skills in project leadership and would be able to use printers, computers and other achinery to both aid them in their own collaborative projects as well as help facilitate local sustainability.

EOS Earth Resource Control Software (ERCS) is a current project aiming to create a virtual map of the Earth’s natural resources and human resource usage. ERCS will be a global resource measuring software that measures global resource capacity in real time as well as past information of the same region/globe. Citizens globally will have the opportunity to use the software and in doing so have knowledge of the resource capacity available on Earth or the regions in which they consume.

Umea Biodome is a successfully completed project that aimed to create a place for urban gardeners in the region to grow food, regardless of the temperature.