Alumna Anna Samwel about her life project, Ecovillage in Georgia, and her commitment to the climate

Wageningen, small scale and idealistic

From when I was little, I always knew I wanted to do something with and for nature, preferably somewhere far away. I studied for my bachelor’s programme in Biology in Groningen. I became an intern at WECF International (Women Engage for a Common Future) in a village in Romania, where I worked on a project to improve drinking water quality. I learned that, if I wanted to improve the environment, I would have to work with and for local residents, and that social change is a prerequisite for sustainability. That is why I chose to take the master’s programme in Management of Agro-Ecological Knowledge and Social Change (now Development and Rural Innovation) at Wageningen University & Research (WUR). It’s a kind of development study for people from a scientific background. It didn’t take me long to decide because WUR is international and small-scale, and has an idealistic bent, and is one of the top international universities. As a do-gooder who is always looking for sustainable and socially fair solutions, WUR’s mission suited me down to the ground.

Fantastic time as a student

I had a great time studying. My room was in the Droevendaal student complex where I came across many like-minded people and grew my vegetables. This taste of things to come gave me a hint of the upsides and downsides of communal living. I lived in several digs, and my experience was that this kind of living and having meals together in a group is fun and efficient. My year group consisted of a small, tight-knit group of international and Dutch students. The international students already had practical experience in development cooperation, and I learned a lot from them. André Boon, the student counsellor, was also very inspiring.

The study was quite relaxed, with time for reflection and group work. I learned important lessons and it gave me a mindset that puts participation, ownership, and local knowledge first, things that I still practice daily. Even if the technological solutions are appropriate, without involving the people concerned, they will not work.

After the practical bachelor degree, it was mainly the sociology subjects of the master’s at WUR that I found vague and I sometimes struggled to understand the essence of it all. From my view of the world, it often seemed obvious and abstract at the same time. Some pieces only fell into place once I was doing the work in practice. My tip for students would be: study what you like and what makes you happy. That way you’ll choose a profession that suits you. Don’t be afraid to be flexible during your studies and take advantage of the wide range on offer, including at faculties other than where you study. I took a course on organic agriculture, for example, just for fun, but it was very useful in my work and my daily life because gardening is my hobby, even though I could not have foreseen it at the time.

You learn a way of thinking at university: how to learn and how to come up with solutions. You apply that in your work and acquire the professional knowledge you need in practice. Also, talk to different students so that you can learn from them. Wageningen is so international, which gives you the opportunity to interact with specialists and idealists from different countries. It broadens your view on life, almost like travel does, but instead from spending time in the canteen.

A job at WECF International after the internship

After my internship at WECF International, I was offered a job there, partly because I had already experienced Romania and loved travelling. My job was to help them launch a major project on sustainable rural development in Eastern Europe. I was made responsible for supporting civil society partner organisations (local NGOs) in Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan during the implementation of the project.

I was given the opportunity to start a course in Russian in Odesa, a beautiful city on the Black Sea in Ukraine. I was then asked to write a project application together with environmental activists from a small provincial town not far from Odesa. No one spoke English there, so writing that project perfectly complemented my course to master Russian technical terms as well. For several years, I also travelled back and forth between the countries where I had projects, and organised training courses and developed new projects with partners and activists. The work focused mainly on implementing the gender equality aspects of the SDGs. I helped local people build urine-diverting dry toilets and solar water heaters based on do-it-yourself courses, and facilitated participation in projects for drinking water and the climate. When I was monitoring these projects, I came across small villages where time had stood still. My degree programme in Wageningen recommended participatory observation as a research method. So, whenever possible, I made sure I lived with local people so I could learn to understand their daily lives, their knowledge and their problems. The impact of our projects benefitted from this.

When I wasn’t travelling, I enjoyed sitting in the offices of one of our partners in Tbilisi, Georgia. I met my husband in Georgia. For him, I moved to Poti, a small town where he is from on the other side of the Black Sea. I set up WECF Georgia to facilitate more projects there. The focus on empowering women and equality became more and more important. I got in touch with local organisations committed to changing stereotypes and promoting women’s participation in politics. Working with these young women is very inspiring. They are capable of permanently changing their communities and are committed to a fairer and equal future. Unfortunately, there are still persistent stereotypes, particularly in rural Georgia, and girls are often not given the same opportunities as boys. Women are not supposed to participate in public life and, if they do, they have to contend with online hatred and stigmatisation. This has changed in recent years, thanks in part to a powerful movement in society and social media.

Through my work on more attention to gender issues in climate policy, I was increasingly asked to provide advice at a national level on integrating gender into climate policy. I held a training course with my colleagues for the Ministry of Environment on the importance of gender and participation, how to address these issues, and co-authored national climate documents.

We are also working towards climate justice at an international level. As it stands now, it is women in poor countries who suffer most from climate change, whereas richer countries are responsible (and wealthy thanks to their unbridled emissions). Poor countries are not given the same opportunity to develop.

'Ecovillage Georgia' life project

In a course on ‘Globalisation’ that I took in Wageningen, we were challenged to examine the most sustainable kinds of human societies. We were asked about a perspective for the future as an alternative to capitalism, which threatens to deplete natural resources, fails to control greenhouse gas emissions and, at the same time, is unable to reduce inequality.

We soon concluded that people feel the consequences of their decisions when they live in interconnected communities with direct control over their lives. I thought it was an interesting idea, and visited some intentional communities in addition to traditional ones. That said, I had not attempt to delve deeper into it until I settled in Georgia. That’s when I realised that I wanted to live here with like-minded people and contribute to Georgia’s sustainable development by setting up sustainable initiatives and trying out solutions.

Several Georgians and people from abroad had the same idea. We formed the 'Ecovillage Georgia' initiative group and held many meetings to come up with a concept and define our values. We talked about it a lot over a long period and looked for land for a long time, five years in total, with the COVID-19 pandemic in between. People joined and left during this time. We learned a lot from each other and with each other.

By the summer of 2023, we finally found a 6.5-hectare piece of land with an old cow shed, fruit trees and a small river at the foot of the high Caucasus Mountains, an area on the far southeastern border of Europe and western Asia. At the time, we had an active group of five brave women, three Georgians and two foreigners, who did everything they could to buy the land for the ecovillage. It cost $150,000, which of course we did not have. The owner wanted the money in November, otherwise, he would sell it to someone else. So we started looking for co-residents and investors to buy the land together. To secure the designated use of the land and simplify the coming and going of residents, we set up a system of loans from the residents to the NGO, which would get ownership of the land. Thanks to an intensive period of recruiting and communicating, we found 18 amazing future residents who co-invested and many invaluable volunteers who work tirelessly for the Ecovillage. We managed to raise the money in the nick of time and bought the land in December 2023.

Since then, smaller groups of residents and volunteers often go there to work and make the terrain habitable. We have meetings every week where we discuss work in progress. Our governance model is sociocracy, another concept that I learned about in Wageningen. It really appeals to me because my studies taught me that decision-making is best done by the people directly affected by it.

It is very inspiring to help create a small society that is sustainable, horizontal, social, fair, tolerant, and free of violence. It is easy to criticise existing systems, but it is a challenge to experiment with methods that do work. Having said that, the agriculture surrounding the ecovillage can hardly be called ‘intensive’. Usually, high-yielding, intensive agriculture is linked to high use of pesticides. In Georgia, pesticide use is high, but agriculture is not intensive and the yields are not high. Click here for an interesting analyis.

There is a lack of information about the correct usage, harmful effects and alternatives. What’s more, international entrepreneurs exert pressure to use pesticides nonetheless. According to our neighbours, the impact on biodiversity is already noticeable and there are also health risks because protective clothing is not used and there is no solution for the waste. We work with farmers and women in the vicinity and hope to inspire them to use permaculture, or elements of it, and organic agriculture.

Political crisis in Georgia affects the civil sector

WECF worked reasonably well together with the Georgian government, as did our ecovillage with the municipality in question. My colleagues in the national women’s movement even managed to introduce gender quotas in parliament, and our opinions on gender in climate politics were taken seriously. Of the Georgian population, 80-85% would like Georgia to become a member of the European Union, and that goal is enshrined in the constitution. One of the main reasons for this is the threat from Russia, which has occupied 20% of Georgia since 2008, following a brief war.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the Georgian government has steadily become less pro-European and more authoritarian. They passed the law on foreign agents which requires NGOs and independent media that get more than 20% of their income from abroad to register as foreign agents. A similar law led to the downfall of civil society and free media in Russia and Belarus. Unfortunately, WECF was then forced to stop our projects there, and our partners now have to live in exile for some of the time because they and their children were threatened due to their work for WECF, among others.

We are expecting a similar state of affairs in Georgia. The governing party has announced it will crack down on critical media and NGOs, and has already started intimidating some fellow organisations. The passing of the law was preceded by protests, which my colleagues took part in every day, and which I myself also attended out of solidarity with the Georgian people whenever I had to be in the capital.

WECF and Ecovillage Georgia also fall under this law and are considered foreign agents. We have to divulge personal details about ourselves and our families when we register, such as religion, sexual orientation and relationship status. Failure to comply results in high fines and ultimately the liquidation of NGOs and civil society organisations (CSOs). Even though we have nothing to hide, we are not prepared to divulge personal details about our families to this regime.

It is sad to now have to figure out how to shut down thriving organisations safely and within the law, and protect ourselves, our families and beneficiaries from government repression. Many colleagues will lose their jobs. At the same time, so much remains to be done in terms of equal rights and sustainable development. We will continue as long as we can and try to mobilise and educate as many women as possible on the importance of voting and the importance of democracy in general.

Having grown up in a democratic country, I have always taken it for granted that organisations and media are allowed to operate freely. From the many Russian migrants and dissidents who have come here from Ukraine, I have heard many personal stories of what an authoritarian regime and one-sided reporting can do to people, ranging from critical students being given poor grades in school, the break-up of families due to political disputes, an older generation that does not use VPNs and only hears one side of the story, and not being able to freely express what one thinks, through to imprisonment and repression.

Fortunately, there are elections here in October, and hopefully, this government will then be ousted and the law overturned. We will have to work hard to be able to hold fair elections. Even though I’m not allowed to vote, I will try to do my bit as an election observer.

Hobbies and plans for the future

My husband keeps chickens and is a horticulturalist. I enjoy helping him and growing some vegetables myself. For the rest, I like swimming or doing standup paddleboarding on the sea or a lake and, when I have time, I like to camp in the wonderful mountains here, together with our two beautiful girls aged 7 and 10, who love travelling as much as I do.

My involvement in Ecovillage Georgia is on a voluntary basis. During the last summer holidays, I facilitated a self-organised summer school in Poti, for my children and children of Russian and Ukrainian migrants, because they have three months of summer holidays and do not go to school at all during that period. It was a great success thanks to the close involvement and participation of parents, children and supervisors.

Georgia is a beautiful and interesting country with lovely and passionate people, and, after so many years, I can finally speak the language at a level that means I can chat along with the other mothers during the kids’ school trip. I would love to stay in Georgia and eventually live in the ecovillage with like-minded people. I am keen to contribute to the protection of biodiversity, to promote organic agriculture and test alternative forms of living together. Through WECF as well, we want to empower even more women and girls in the future and contribute to equitable climate policies. However, the future is uncertain for us because of the political crisis. We are hopeful and will continue as long as we can.

Ties with Wageningen

I often think back to Wageningen; I am definitely a Wageninger. Unfortunately, I have little contact with other Wageningers; so far, I haven’t come across any WUR alumni here. I love reminiscing about my time there, and I apply the insights and knowledge I gained there to my work each and every day. I believe that my time in Droevendaal and the ‘Globalisation’ course sowed the seeds to co-found an ecovillage.