Giardino della Gioia

Our organization is an ecovillage located in an ancient olive grove on the Adriatic coast, part of the National Park of Gargano. Our fundamental aim is the care for the environment and for people. It is important for us that they both grow simultaneously. For the growth of the individual we constantly work on community building, trying to create the space so that each one can follow his/her own inner work; for the growth of the environment we follow the principles of permaculture, we are working on, is food, water and energy self sufficiency. We have built this ecovillage using only natural materials available locally, with the exception of 3 mongolian yurts that allowed us to get established at the very beginning of our project. Our target groups include all those who feel the need to find different answers to the issues that modern life presents to them and are motivated to live and work in a challenging environment. In our regular activities we try to work on the right balance between ancient practical knowledge and modern technologies, between comunitarian and personal needs. On the level of personal growth we practice daily meditation and yoga and at least twice a week we hold a sharing circle. Weekly we practice "beingfullness", a method to develop human relationships through music and movement as a nourishing experience. As for the care of the environment, we cultivate our vegetable gardens and we are creating a food forest according to permaculture principles. We build new structures according to green architecture, we work on seasonal food transformation and we like to experience new techniques. On a regular basis we clean the beach nearby.