Designing Ecological Habitats - Gaia Education

204 Designing ecological Habitats
headquarters and district level to implement training programmes and
micro-finance schemes according to community interests and needs.
Overall responsibility for the function and management of the village
lies with an Executive Committee of the Sarvodaya society. This committee
oversees the work of other sub-committees. It also deals with maintenance
of inventories, preventive maintenance, repair, and security of buildings
and equipment held centrally. It provides community waste pick-up and
promotes well-maintained residential exteriors. The Executive Committee
is committed to improving residents’ ongoing understanding and knowledge
related to ecovillage goals and objectives, and to promoting positive relations
with the wider world beyond the village. The committee organises activities
such as tree planting and events such as village concerts.
Socialization
Damniyamgama Ecovillage has a large eye-catching Community Centre
which is the venue for Society meetings, seminars, short workshops,
awareness and training programmes, meetings of sub-groups such as the
youth group and mothers’ group and society executive committee meetings.
The Centre, in addition to being an architecturally pleasing building, is
designed for thermal comfort. It hosts the library, information technology
centre, a cooperative bank and a pre-school. Programmes held here attract
participation from a number of villages in the surrounding area. Recently a
cultural centre also was established with dance and music lessons for young
people from Damniyamgama and ten other villages. This was considered
necessary to improve cultural and aesthetic awareness and to build a
mentality that values peace and harmony – both with nature and with the
rest of society.
Community events and socialising regularly occur and are essential in
promoting senses of common ownership and harmony. An example of such
an event at Damniyamgama is the New Year festival, traditionally held in
April. Children, youth and adults actively engage in the activities and this
helps to forge very strong relationships within the community. Another
example is Wesak, which is the religious festival when people make wesak
lanterns to celebrate the Lord Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and passing
away. A competition for wesak lantern-making was held within the village.
Then, on some full moon poya days, the community gets together and
organises alms-giving and perahera festivals (Perahera is a Buddhist festival
consisting of dances and richly-decorated elephants. There are fire-dances,
Kandian dances and various other cultural dances). All of these festive occasions
greatly improve the spiritual attitudes and morale within the community.
Environmental Education
Even the youngest children in kindergarten in Damniyamgama undertake
environmental education programmes. They engage in educational activities