Land-based project belonging to Escanda Collective in Asturias (Northern Spain)

[office at tlio.demon.co.uk]

From: escanda-info at gmx.net
To: spaces at nadir.org
Subject: [Spaces] Escanda: introduction and first meeting

*** please send to people who could be interested ***

A group of people from different countries have come together to set up internationalist spaces for learning, exchange and experimentation on organic farming, sustainable forestry, renewable energies, telecommunications, social relations, economics, politics, languages, etc. These spaces are intended to help us to strengthen our, and other people's, abilities to cooperate and self-organise, in order to create long term alternatives that reduce our dependency on both the market and the state. Our final aim is to take control of our lives through our own initiatives and creativity, while sharing our skills and experiences. We also want to continue doing anticapitalist and non-hierarchical political work, based on the belief that positive social-change comes from grassroots struggle against all forms of oppression and from the self-organised emancipation of all sectors of society.

A local foundation in Asturias (Northern Spain) has made a beautiful piece of land available to Escanda, as it is sympathetic to our goals. We have just started a one-year trial period with this foundation, and if things go well, we hope to get long-term access to more land and buildings. We don't conceive this place as our base to escape away from society and isolate ourselves in closed harmonious communities. Rather, we see them as spaces for interaction and cooperation between a diverse and fluid web of people, networks and movements from all over the world, where local and global networks of grassroots struggle can share experiences and skills, exchange ideas and create new dynamics of solidarity and resistance.

We are currently preparing the activities which will take place in 2003, which is our one-year trial period. We are still in the process of planning this year, but it may include (in order of likelihood):
- an international seminar on alternative media in Easter vacations;
- a viability study on community-controlled renewable energy generation;=
- on-going actions against the Prestige disaster and other aspects of the oil economy
- an summer packed of international events: a meeting on the conflict in the Middle East and other conflicts in the Mediterranean, a gathering of tech-freaks (alternative media and free software), an intensive gender seminar for activists, and a seminar/meeting on the new wars;

NOTE: we had a meeting recently and all these are happening, though the war=
 seminar may move somewhere else.

- on-going opportunities to learn organic horticulture, as well as short intensive courses on permaculture, ecological waste management, chesnut forests, etc.
- rebuilding houses
- language exchanges and courses

If people are interested to visit, or participate in the project, please get in touch. We are interested in new people getting involved, but due to limits of space and other factors, we can not promise that this will always be possible. Please contact us at least one week beforehand, to avoid arriving at an inconvenient moment. 

In case you were wondering, our name (Escanda) stands for "Espacio Social Colectivo para la Autogestión, la Diversidad y la Autonomia" (Collective Social Space for Self-Organisation, Diversity and Autonomy), but it is also the name of a local cereal - for more information go to www.escanda.org