Eotopia, a vegan and nearly moneyless ecovillage, in the land of storks in France
Only 250 kilometers away from Paris in the centre of France, 6 residents are living in Eotopia : a vegan ecovillage of 3 hectares founded nearly one year ago by Benjamin Lesage. He is known for his pennyless trip, now he achieves his dream at the age of 32 by developing his concrete utopia : an almost moneyless, vegan community, in perfect harmony with its environment and living in the most ecological way possible. He reached his goal. Let’s discover his story.
His journey from washing dishes at Quick’s to being on the road, and then building a moneyless ecovillage
It was 7 years ago now. In 2010, after he worked at Quick along with his studies, Benjamin leaves to Mexico with two of his friends from Holland to experience a pennyless trip, which is shared here. For almost a year, they prove that solidarity still exists everywhere.
Welcomed, sheltered, often feeded throughout 17 countries, they discover lots of cultures and lost the bound to money which seems so necessary in nowadays society.
Through barter which is a gift economy, Benjamin is now trying to create his own ecovillage and building awareness on a less materialistic life with a minimal ecological print, a way of life he can show to his visitors.
Freedom and solidarity
A new life, free style, with a completely selfless purpose, is organized according to visitors coming in Eotopia. The project attracted more than 140 visitors from almost 10 different nationalities since the beginning. Benjamin willingly explain how to become vegan, how to create a biological garden inspired by the moon calendar or even how to do permaculture.
Several activities are developed by the residents who are aged from 1 year old to 62 years old : building a Tiny House with Roman, the experience of the zero waste life or even workshops to repair old items in order to give them a new use with Lucie.
No schedule or order is imposed, everything is done with complete freedom and independence. Meetings for expressing feelings or group medidation are organized each evening to bring the community together. During these meetings, Sandrine one of the residents, explain there the principles of non violent communication.
Alternative education for their daughter
Yazmin who is 31 years old, is the partner of Benjamin and wishes to home-school her daughter Ada who is 2 years old, here in the village. She would like to create a network with others out-of-school children from the neighbourhood. According to Osho the philosopher and other personalities, children who are raised in communities, who are in constant touch with multiple cultures, languages and different ways of thinking would be a lot more stimulated and resourceful than most of the children who are raised in a classical pattern, with a father and a mother in an individual house.
« The school teach the children to conform. They learn violence and harassment. This is not what I want for my daughter. Here, she will learn tolerance, solidarity and sharing with others. We wish to give her more than the school does. Then, being a mother is a full time job. Inspired by the documentary « Etre et Devenir (Being and Become) » and by testimonies of people who had this experience, I wish to dedicate myself to school her until she is old enough to go to highschool. Afterward she will be free to choose if she wants to go to highschool or not. »
A Vegan way of life
In Eotopia, residents all aim at a vegan diet (or complete vegan lifestyle). That is to say that they don’t consume products that come from the animal industry. Dairy products, cheese, eggs, honey or even medicine that has been tested on animals are banned. Animal protection is central. They also favour natural products, for the most part made locally. Lucie, a 24 years old resident says :
« I decided to ban all products coming from the animal industry in order not to finance those who are responsible for animal abuse. Nowaday, with the ecological crisis, it is necessary to go toward veganism. Deforestation and land grabbing for farming produce more than a third of greenhouse gas emissions. This has a greater ecological impact than all transportation means’ carbon footprint together. »
A garden surrounding the houses is growing each day more, it is inspired from permaculture and grows according to the moon calendar. With a broadfork and a hoe more than 40 different vegetables are grown in the garden thanks to the mild and humid climate. Summer and winter alike, the garden is still productive. Old seeds given by the Kokopelli association enable the residents to have vegetables with better preserved properties with more vitamins and minerals. Combinations that work the best together here are strawberries with leeks and spinachs, or even squash with green beens and corn.
For the future, Eotopia wishes to expand, have more residents and develop barter with neighboors having projects such as producing organic food that is not produced within the community. When there will be more people living there, they will build new ecological housings such as circular mud huts. French legislation that protects rural areas can empeach them but they remain confident about the future. Benjamin says :
Building ecological housings here is illegal while building a mall is not. This seems unfair to us, so we will pursue our project and try to discuss with the city council in order to find a solution.
First of all, a Tiny house will be build with a legal authorisation. You can discover this project in an interview of Sandrine and Roman, two residents of Eotopia who committed to build it.
Views of Eotopia
