How Does Your Community Finance Yourself? -- Reply to Marion Le Failler

xidai

On June 6, 2013, we received a message from Marion Mlf on Facebook，who is doing a study on the finance of eco-villages. Here I publish the answers to her questions. Share with people who has the same questions and interests to know about the finance part of our community.

----- Original Message -----

From: Marion Le Failler <marionle****@gmail.com>

To: lifechanyuan@sina.cn

Subject: Doing a study about your eco-village

Date: 2013-06-07 04:47

Hello Tongxin,

As I said on Facebook, I am doing a study on the financial aspect of eco-villages and I would like to ask you some questions.

As you don’t have Skype, could you please answer to this questionnaire by e-mail? It will be very helpful for me. Please, answer with more details the questions in the red color.

QUESTIONNAIRE

     1)      Why did you create/choose to live in an eco-village? For how long have you lived / have you been living there? What is your role in the eco-village?

2)      How many people live in the eco-village?

3)      What are the main objectives of your eco-village? How old is it?

4)      Where did the money for the first investment come from and what was its amount?

5)      Actually, is the eco-village financially sustainable? Is it an objective?

6)      How much new money is involved per months? Where does it come from?

***

If the money is borrowed and has to be paid back, ask questions 7 to 9. If not, then go directly to question 10

7)      What is/will be implemented to be financially sustainable or to pay back the loan?

8)      Over what time period will you pay back the loan?

9)      What are the risks due to financial constraints?

***

10)     If answered question 7 to 9, don’t answer ( What is/will be implemented to generate revenue? )

11)     Is there an organization helping to administrate the eco village, like a consultancy for the financial or agricultural issues for example?

12)    What are the limits of the concept of eco-village/problems faced?

13)   The eco-villages are still a small and quite unknown trend, how do you see its future? Do you try to publicize/ expand your way of life?  Can urbanization be reversed to “ruralization”?  Or Is it a possible alternative to capitalism?

Thank you so much for your time and help !!

Marion

Re: Doing a study about your eco-village
"lifechanyuan" <lifechanyuan@sina.cn>发送给Marion Le Failler2013年6月7日(星期五) 下午20:16

Hello Marion,

    First I want to say that what I'm answering here is mainly the financial part of our community, actually we're not only an ecological community but also a spiritual-oriented community which has a profound theory system of a common values followed by all residents. It's in the “800 Values for New Era Human Being”. On such a theory basis we have created a unique life mode which we confidently believe is different from any other communities around the world. For example we implement Paradise management in our community which means no management is the best management. There is no leader or supervisor, no laws, rules, statutes or dharmas, we have no office and don't have meeting except a weekly life meeting on every Friday night. We don't have personal properties, there is no marriage and traditional family in our home, all resources are shared by the whole community. Thus every member is the host of our community.

As for the financial part, we don't manage it in a traditional way. Basically we have certain residents who're responsible for recording the main incomes and expenses of each branch, the only members who deal with money are our three purchasers of each branch. The main income of us is the donation from chanyuan celestials. We make the donation records public every month on our internal website which can be seen by all chanyuan celestials including all residents of the community. In our home each member is responsible for his job wholeheartedly, since we don't have personal properties and money is not used among us, the financial management is quite simple and clear. Please understand that I introduce all this because I want to provide some new angles on this topic.

Here comes the answers:

1)      Why did you create/choose to live in an eco-village? For how long have you lived / have you been living there? What is your role in the eco-village?

I love the life style of it. Such a new lifestyle cares more about nature and change the way of limitless demanding to mother earth. It's good for nature, for the healthy changing and growing of people's body and heart. It costs much less but shares much more among people and establishes a close, friendly and sustainable relationship with nature. In our community the core values is revere the Greatest Creator, revere LIFE and revere nature. We think it is the wrong lifestyle causing today's earth crisis, it not only destroyed the natural resources but also people's spiritual and soul. And the latter is more severe and urgent to be changed. I lived in the Second Home since Aug 2010, I'm working on the English website of our community. Welcome to visit www.newoasisforlife.org .

2)      How many people live in the eco-village?

Presently we have about 150 permanent residents in three branches including some elders and 13 children.

3)      What are the main objectives of your eco-village? How old is it?

Our main objectives is to establish a community where people and people, people and nature, people and society co-exist harmoniously. We plan to establish 256 branches all over the world and contact with similar communities to support and study from each other. We hope one day the earth will change into a big harmonious family where wars, conflicts, troubles, worries disappeared,and everybody can live and enjoy a sustainable and happy, free life on the earth. In terms of the theory, our founder Mr. Xuefeng started preparation since 2002, and the community was established in April 2009 which has existed for more than 4 years.

4)      Where did the money for the first investment come from and what was its amount?

It's from the donation of the founder Xuefeng and some chanyuan celestials. The first fund is about 350,000 RMB.

5)      Actually, is the eco-village financially sustainable? Is it an objective?

For the last 2 years our financial budget is relatively limited because we established two new branches in two years. A lot of money were used on the new constructions. However we didn't have a tight problem on finance because we grow vegetables, fruit trees, chickens and ducks ourselves. Our vegetables are too much to be eaten up, and more than 6000 fruit trees in three branches provide fresh fruits. Every day we collect more than 300 duck and chicken eggs. Although we have tight budget this year, we believe it's a temporary issue because we have strong faith in the Greatest Creator, we're diligent and hard-working, we also have some economic plans to increase the income of the community, what we are thinking is to do our best and leave the result to the Greatest Creator. Our four years’ experience has proved that we are always taken care by the Greatest Creator and our road is becoming wider and brighter.

6)      How much new money is involved per months? Where does it come from?         

The mainly income of us is from chanyuan celestial's donation. We have about 1000 chanyuan celestials and 150 of them are now living in the community. It varies each month, and it's opened online on our internal website.

10)     If answered question 7 to 9, don’t answer ( What is/will be implemented to generate revenue? )

11)     Is there an organization helping to administrate the eco village, like a consultancy for the financial or agricultural issues for example?

No.

12)    What are the limits of the concept of eco-village/problems faced?

For us, the main limits are from the outer environment of society. For example the local government, the family of our residents, the traditional thinking on this new life mode, and those people who are doubting and refusing to understand such a new thing-- a brand new life mode is born on earth. The power from traditional thinking and consciousness is huge. But this will not change us. We believe the crisis of soul is the core crisis on this planet, once the crisis of soul is solved, all crises will be solved on earth.

13)   The eco-villages are still a small and quite unknown trend, how do you see its future? Do you try to publicize/ expand your way of life?  Can urbanization be reversed to “ruralization”?  Or Is it a possible alternative to capitalism?

I think in recent years the community lifestyle has become an obvious trend on earth because more and more people are paying attention to community life. Not only eco-villages, there are co-houses, spiritual communities, religion communities etc. People travel around and experience the community life, trying to know about it and see if it's a sustainable new way for a more happy and pleasant life. For example we have received many friends from all over the world to visit us, such as France, India, USA, Germany, Belgium and Switzerland etc. They like this new lifestyle, the people and our natural environment. They were impressed and we stillkeep a nice and friendly relationship with each other.As we know there are more than 600 formed eco-villages in the world and we believe in the coming future, once these communities make alliance with each other, study and support from each other, spread the advantages of this new lifestyle, it will attract more and more people to join us. It has huge potential to become the new choice of people's life on earth. Although it may take a long time to achieve and become reality, we believe it's a trend of development of human civilization. When will such a future come? It's not sure, we'll try our best to do our work and everything is achieved by the Greatest Creator.

Above is my answer to your questions, hope it will help on your study. Yes we'd like to read your paper when you finish. And I want to put this letter on our English website, because one of our values is everything can be open to the public.  I think you wouldn’tmind it, would you?

Best Regards，

Tongxin

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