Remember when I wondered why I hadn’t gone to Colombia? Well I decided to go to Bogotá after all – I will be spending a month, beginning tomorrow, in the eco-neighbourhood project in the neighbourhoods in the east of Bogotá en Los Cerros Oriantales. (After which I will come back to Santo Domingo).
I want to visit with them and learn how they managed to keep going with an eco-neighbourhood project after the original government impulse was not there. There was a city promoted Ecobarrios project that began in 2002. It did not go on for very long. But the residents of the communities around the eastern mountains, Manantial, Triángulo Bajo, Triángulo Alto and Corinto who more and more were faced with threats to their homes from a growing city took up this project and the ethos of it and built up their own movement. I am especially interested as you can imagine with how things are going with the eco-barrios project in Santo Domingo to find out how they were able to take up the original impetus and build it up after the government support ended. I am also interested in how they actualise the three pillars on which they have built their ecobarrios- eco-humano, eco-ambiental and eco-nomico (social, ecological/environmental & economic).
Read more about the project here (in Spanish).
