Rooted in village life. Building the capacity for change to last.
Green Youth Collective is a place-based ecosystem rooted in Hội An, Gò Nổi and the lower Thu Bồn floodplain. We connect organisations, practitioners, working places and long-term partnerships so that climate, circular economy and ecosystem restoration commitments can become locally operated services, roles and everyday practices. This ecosystem was not designed from an organisational chart. It grew from years of living in a place, encountering its vulnerabilities and learning what it takes to keep a good idea working.
Green Youth Collective began with a question:
How might we create a place where young people, families, land and community could learn and grow together sustainably in the changing world?
The answer began with village life.
Part 1 — Who is Green Youth Collective?
We began by looking for a different way to live and learn
Before Green Youth Collective took its present form, our work had already begun in Ho Chi Minh City through organic urban gardening and vocational learning programmes for young people facing difficult circumstances.
Moving to a village near Hội An allowed that work to evolve. We wanted young people to learn practical skills through everyday participation: growing food, caring for land, sharing work, solving problems and living as part of a community.
This became the beginning of an intentional community rooted within a traditional village.
We were not trying to build an alternative community separated from local life. Nor did we assume that village traditions should remain unchanged. We wanted to understand what could happen when people choosing to live with greater ecological and social intention became part of an existing community—with its own knowledge, relationships, livelihoods, memories and tensions.
The village grounded us in place. The intentional community brought questions, experimentation and a shared commitment to learning.
Living between the two taught us an enduring lesson: regeneration is neither a return to the past nor an escape into an ideal world elsewhere. It is the work of helping a real place evolve without losing the relationships that sustain it.
Village life brought vulnerability close
Being based in a village changed how we understood vulnerability.
It was no longer a concept used in a project proposal. It was floodwater interrupting months of work; intense heat and drought weakening plants and farmers; erosion changing the shape of land; unstable livelihoods; and families adapting to economic pressures largely beyond their control.
Environmental and social vulnerability were rarely separate.
Hội An and the wider Điện Bàn–Gò Nổi landscape were changing rapidly. Tourism brought employment, investment and new opportunities, while urbanisation, new patterns of consumption and changing demands placed pressure on agricultural land, traditional livelihoods and village life.
The COVID-19 period made the fragility of tourism-dependent livelihoods especially visible. New materials and products were entering daily life faster than local systems could recover them. Floods, erosion, drought and coastal change continued to affect the wider landscape.
We began to see Hội An, Gò Nổi and their surrounding villages as one connected ecological, cultural and economic system: the heritage town, tourism businesses, village communities, floodplain farms, rivers, coastlines and the flows of food, materials, labour and money between them.
This was where GYC learned what transition means.
Transition is the uncertain period between an existing system that can no longer respond well and a better one that does not yet fully exist. Established livelihoods may be weakening. New opportunities remain uneven. Environmental conditions are changing. Communities must adapt while continuing to live and work.
The garden revealed a much larger system
Our first practical response was simple: build ecological gardens as places for learning, food production, biodiversity and community life.
The gardens soon revealed connections we had not anticipated.
The soil needed organic matter. At the same time, hotels, restaurants and markets were discarding food scraps and landscape materials that could potentially return to farms and gardens.
That observation changed the direction of our work.
Returning suitable organic materials to land required far more than composting knowledge. Businesses had to separate materials correctly. Staff needed guidance. Collection had to be reliable. Processing required space, equipment, appropriate technologies and trained operators. Farms needed safe and useful outputs. Someone had to coordinate the relationships and finance the work.
Then the rainy season arrived.
Gardening became more difficult, but the flow of discarded materials from tourism continued. We began working with other overlooked resources: recovering used hotel soap through Soap for Hope, repurposing discarded linen through Linens for Life, and experimenting with locally available materials and lower-waste alternatives.
Each activity looked different. Yet each began with the same question:
What local value, knowledge or relationship has been overlooked—and how might it be brought back into use?
These experiments also taught us a harder lesson.
A good environmental idea does not operate itself.
Materials must be separated and moved. People need skills, equipment and safe working conditions. Products need users and markets. Businesses need dependable services. Communities need meaningful roles and fair value. Public institutions, funders and technical partners need to understand what they are responsible for and how their contributions fit together.
GYC gradually became more than a youth or gardening initiative. Its role emerged through the work itself: seeing connections, initiating practical responses, bringing different actors together and helping new local systems take shape.
Part 2 — How GYC connects the ecosystem
The ecosystem grew because the work needed different capabilities
Green Youth Collective did not begin with a plan to establish several organisations.
The ecosystem developed because no single organisation could—or should—perform every function required by the work.
Community relationships require trust and long-term presence. Environmental services require technical systems and daily operations. Partnerships with businesses and public authorities require contracts, accountability and professional delivery. Tourism requires licensed operations, hospitality capabilities and access to visitors and markets.
The organisations and partners within the ecosystem therefore have distinct identities and responsibilities. They are connected through shared purpose, working places and practical collaboration.
Green Youth Collective — the system steward and community backbone
GYC holds the longer journey that rooted in the place and in local life, than anyone in the ecosystem.
It stays close to communities and places, identifies relationships and capabilities that need to be strengthened, and initiates working models through experimentation, learning and partnership.
GYC connects environmental practice with livelihoods, education, community agency and the wider development of a place. It asks:
- What does this place need?
- Whose knowledge or capability is missing?
- Who decides, who benefits and who carries the risk?
- What must remain after a project or funding cycle ends?
- Can the people involved continue to learn and adapt the work?
GYC does not control or directly operate every part of the ecosystem. Its role is to keep organisations, practitioners, working models and places connected to a shared direction.
REED — building the operational middle
REED (RE.generate E.cological D.iversity) developed when GYC’s experiments needed to become more dependable technical services and accountable operations at the destination level.
Tourism businesses needed professional advice and practical systems. Public actors and development partners needed an implementation organisation. Community practitioners needed access to infrastructure, equipment, material flows and longer-term partnerships.
REED works in this implementation layer.
It connects environmental commitments with the work required to carry them out: waste audits, operational redesign, source separation, collection, organics management, material recovery, enterprise development, capacity building and public–private–community coordination.
Hội An Eco Hub is a principal operating platform within this work. It connects public infrastructure, households, tourism businesses, community workers, farms, reuse and refill partners, technical processes, learners and visitors.
Approach REED for: technical assistance, business sustainability, circular economy and zero-waste services, operational pilots and public–private–community partnerships.
Refillables Đong Đầy — an independent partner working upstream
Refillables Đong Đầy is an independent enterprise and a specialised partner within the ecosystem.
Its work begins before waste is created.
Through reuse, refill and lower-waste product systems, Refillables helps households and businesses change how products are provided, purchased and used. This strengthens the upstream part of the circular economy by reducing dependence on disposable packaging.
The community enterprise is founded by Alison Batchelor and directed by Hanh Vu. Shared leadership and practical integration with Hội An Eco Hub allow its solutions to connect with community practice, tourism operations, education and wider material-flow systems.
Approach Refillables for: reuse and refill systems, packaging prevention and other upstream interventions.
REwild Vietnam — bringing people and economic value into the system
REwild Vietnam is the ecosystem’s licensed travel and hospitality operator.
It creates pathways through which visitors, schools, families, companies and professional groups can enter real working places. Participants can enjoy the landscape and local hospitality while understanding how the place functions, meeting the people caring for it and contributing appropriately to ongoing work.
REwild is responsible for visitor-facing programme design, travel operations, hospitality, safety and market connections. The underlying community, ecological and technical work remains with the relevant practitioners and organisations.
Selected tours and learning programmes are operating. Residency, special-event and village-based hospitality formats can be tailored to particular groups.
Approach REwild for: regenerative tours, educational travel, professional field learning, company programmes, residencies and tailored Travel with Purpose experiences.
Working places — where the relationships become visible
The ecosystem is grounded in physical places:
- Hội An Medicinal Garden in Triêm Tây connects useful and climate-adapted plants, local knowledge, biodiversity, everyday well-being and practical learning.
- Hội An Eco Hub in Cẩm Kim connects source separation, material recovery, organics management, reuse and refill, public infrastructure, community roles, tourism businesses and education.
- REwild Land Restoration Farm in Cẩm Phú–Gò Nổi brings together active land stewardship and monitoring with trials in floodplain restoration, riparian vegetation, closed-loop farming, agroecology, learning and village-based hospitality.
These are working environments embedded deeply in local, daily life. Ideas are tested under real ecological, social and operational conditions—and adjusted when those conditions change.
Part 3 — What are community-led regenerative systems?
Community-led means more than community participation
For GYC, community-led means creating the conditions for local people to gain progressively more meaningful roles—as paid practitioners, operators, producers, educators, entrepreneurs, decision-makers and long-term stewards.
It does not mean leaving communities to solve institutional and market failures by themselves.
Other actors must carry their responsibilities:
- Public institutions provide policy, coordination, infrastructure and appropriate public finance.
- Businesses influence purchasing, product design, working conditions and material flows.
- Technical partners contribute research, methods and appropriate technologies.
- Funders provide patient resources for experimentation and capability building.
- Tourism and education partners can direct attention, learning and economic value towards local knowledge and long-term stewardship.
Participation alone does not demonstrate community agency. The more important questions are who makes decisions, who is paid, who carries risk, whose knowledge shapes the work and who can continue adapting it over time.
Regeneration is a direction—and a discipline
Regeneration asks whether the work strengthens the capacity of people and ecosystems to renew themselves as conditions change.
This may involve healthier soil, more diverse vegetation and recovering ecological functions. It may also involve stronger relationships, practical skills, viable local livelihoods, better cooperation and greater confidence in responding to change.
The work must therefore be tested continuously:
- Does it strengthen ecological processes?
- Does it build local capability and agency?
- Does it distribute value, responsibility and risk fairly?
- Can the people involved maintain and adapt it?
- What evidence shows that change is occurring?
Regeneration must be demonstrated, not declared.
A nursery creates enabling infrastructure. Planting is an intervention. Land under active care demonstrates stewardship. Evidence of ecological restoration requires longer-term observation of soil, water, vegetation, biodiversity and the people responsible for maintaining the site.
A system is more than the sum of its activities
Waste, farming, education, tourism and climate resilience are often managed as separate sectors. In daily life, they already affect one another.
Tourism purchasing determines what materials enter a destination. Separation and collection determine whether those materials remain useful. Organic resources affect soil and farming. Livelihoods influence whether people can remain stewards of land. Education affects whether the next generation can understand and improve these processes. Public policy and finance determine which options become viable.
GYC and its partners are developing five connected Working Models around these relationships:
- Circular Tourism and Zero Waste
- Floodplain Agro-ecosystem Restoration
- Closed-loop Farming and Agroecology
- Community Schools for Regeneration
- Regenerative Tourism and Travel with Purpose
Each model addresses a different part of the ecological, cultural and economic system that sustains Hội An and its connected floodplain communities.
The story now has operating form
What began with a garden and a question has grown into a place-based ecosystem with distinct organisations, physical infrastructure, working models and long-term stewardship.
Today:
- Five Working Models connect materials, food, soil, water, land, learning, tourism and livelihoods.
- Three working places make these relationships visible and testable.
- Approximately 60,000 m² across Hội An and Gò Nổi are under active stewardship and monitoring. This is a land-care boundary, rather than a claim that the whole area has already been restored.
- In 2025, GYC was selected as Vietnam’s first GLFx local restoration chapter.
- In 2026, Hội An Ward assigned REED to operate a public facility as Hội An Eco Hub, connected with a municipal source-separation plan covering 1,222 households and small businesses.
These are signs of local capacity taking shape. The work continues to evolve through practice, evidence and partnership.