ESPACE BIO GAIA, a project for the 2020s!

In the lower part of the old town of Idanha-a-Nova, a property of around 7,000 m2, abandoned for some fifteen years, partially in ruins, covered with wild weeds, brambles and overgrown vegetation, was waiting for a civic awakening that would turn it into a living space for the needs of the Idanhaise community.

As of 2019, we have expressed our desire to turn this derelict site into a living space that can be used to meet the needs of the local community.

In December 2020, with the support of Dr Jean-Pierre Willem and the humanitarian association Médecins Aux Pieds Nus, we acquired this property to turn it into a project that would benefit everyone, here and abroad.

For several months now, we've been digging out truckloads of brush, branches and waste/detritus of various kinds from this property to discover marvelous terraces capable of becoming an ecological living space to host practical demonstrations, useful environmental solutions for well-being, autonomy and intergenerational knowledge sharing.

A space for encounters and initiatives to promote the physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual well-being of each individual, while respecting traditions, cultures, techniques and spiritualities... that are forgotten or neglected today due to the omnipresent societal futility that enjoys the useless.

A place for sharing knowledge, where arts and crafts, culture and agriculture are finally recognized as the riches of time, values that help human beings grow in all their dimensions.

A space where each person can find a "refuge" to meditate, to unite with both the nourishing earth and the sky that illuminates our hearts.

The space, adjacent to the Roman road in this district of the old town of Idanha-a-Nova, is located on one of the Pilgrim's Way to Santiago de Compostela, ... and could become a haven of calm, of peace, for a break for pilgrims passing through and journeying along the road of their lives... from the toils of daily life and the labors of the earth, to the light that illuminates minds, inflames hearts.

Can this space become - in line with the wishes expressed by the WHO since the 1980s - a protected place where everyone, Westerner or not, can be offered health and wellness services that respect their education, philosophy, beliefs and culture, without dogmatism or medical fanaticism, and with the greatest possible therapeutic rigor?

...The kind of globalism we want is not that imposed by the political and financial leaders who run the world, but that of respect for differences, fraternity and care for those who suffer. It's for this kind of globalism that we've been making our humanitarian commitments and actions for over 30 years.

The property, already named "ESPACE BIO GAIA" in reference to the Earth, is undergoing a major transformation thanks to the tenacity of a few people who devote a little of their time to it. Their aim: to restore the beauty and harmony that made this property such an exceptional place to live in the past, and to hand it over to the generations of tomorrow.