S.S. Guneskoy Cevre Kultur ve Isletme Kooperatifi

Guneskoy was founded in 2000 as a non-profit cooperative, Turkey's first environmental cooperative. This ecovillage initiative owns 65-decar of land in Kırıkkale, on the border with Ankara, next to a traditional village - Hisarkoy. Guneskoy practices many aspects of sustainability, aiming to be a good model for Turkey. From the start, it has worked on ecological projects. The first two years were spent on improving the soil quality, removing stones and increasing organic content. Organic agriculture is one of the major activities of Guneskoy; since 2006 this has been in the form of Community Supported Agriculture. In previous years, farmers from Hisarköy worked at Guneskoy and learned organic agriculture, which they now practise themselves. Furthermore, Guneskoy has organized various educational and training activities, such as Ecovillage Design Education (developed by Gaia Education), Planning for Sustainability and various permaculture courses. With volunteers we have built a mud brick adobe building and a straw bale meeting hall. Other buildings include a stone built store and two greenhouses, on being a major prototype glass house with accommodation and living facilities. Guneskoy has been a member of Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) Europe for more than 10 years; some of our members have worked in the GEN Council. Guneskoy completed a UN Small Grants funded project cooperating withTurk Traktor, one of Turkey's leading tractor factories, to modify a tractor run with biofuel. We have a thriving vermicompost project and around 80 chickens provide eggs. In 2014, construction of a viaduct for the Ankara to Sivas high speed train track began. The building of the vertical supports is nearly finished. Nonviolent Communication is practiced by the group members to resolve conflict and improve effectiveness of communication.