8thLife Panama EcoVillage / Collaborative Work-Life Initiative

Mission: We promote the values and ideals of community, respect, peace, and living an “on-purpose” life and help these to be rediscovered by people who decide to join us. The Eco-Community will provide a socio-cultural support structure as well as a healthy atmosphere for living and working. For community members, fair work, cooperation, and an abundance mentality replace the materialism, competition and scarcity mentality prevalent in today's world.

From www.ic.org/directory/8thlife-panama-ecovillage-collaborative-work-life-initiative/:

*SEEKING CO-FOUNDERS*
A collaborative work-life initiative forming an intentional community in rural Panama based on permaculture ethics, respect, peace & living an “on-purpose” life.

THE PROJECT – Come create community. 8th Life Panama is a permaculture-based Eco-village Project in the early stages of formation. We’re designing our intentional community to provide a social support structure and a low impact lifestyle for our members, residents, volunteers and guests. We envision an intentional rural community where the values and ideals of community, respect, peace, and living an “on-purpose” life will be rediscovered by the diverse, multigenerational group of people who’ve joined us. We are currently seeking founding members and experienced permaculture volunteers.

THE REASONS – We can live more lightly. As human beings we weren’t designed to live disconnected from nature and each other. As a society we’ve gone astray and as a result we’re damaging our mother earth and soon she won’t be able to sustain human life. We seem to have also lost the ability to relate with one another as human beings. It’s time to transition from a destructive society to a sustainable world. We need to stop the destruction, build soil, restore ecosystems, heal our addictions, change organizational structures of the global economy, & learn to live in community.

THE LAND – Be a steward and protector. Our Eco-village land, Finca Astoria, is 21Ha of grasslands and forests bordered by a river and stream. When we bought the land, it was in its natural state apart from 1Ha that’s been farmed on occasion. The finca is located 11 km from the town of Antón Panama, where we have our operations center. Villa Astoria is our co-working, co-living center in the town of Antón. It is an operational guest house, receiving travelers, digital nomads and volunteers and other project participants. We work and live here while designing the Eco-village.

The Initiative has two physical components, Villa Astoria Guest House - the operations center, & Finca Astoria - 21Ha of land for developing the EcoVillage. We envision incorporating a number of elements such as:

*intentional community eco-village based on integral permaculture design principles (on Finca Astoria)
*eco-enterprise incubator, shared workspace for eco-community members & volunteers (at Villa Astoria)
*artisan & craftspeople's incubator, shared workspace, & storefront for eco-community members and local residents
*promoting and strengthening the local economy of our neighborhood and the town through example
*training/workshops in eco-economics, the circular economy, 'buy local', and local economic development
*community gardens and local produce and artisan markets
*permaculture courses and other practical, hands-on learning experiences such as eco-building

A service of the Data Commons Co-op. The project has been supported by Equal Exchange, the Cooperative Charitable Trust, the USDA, and many others - thank you! Tech volunteers over the years include: Benjamin Bradley with support from GAIA Host. Ben Mauer with support from Quilted. Paul Fitzpatrick. Ronin Tech Collective, Brattleboro Tech Collective, Sligo Computer Services. Jason Lemieux. Default map tiles courtesy of MapQuest. Default map data (c) OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA.