The Permafund team has received a positive mid-term progress report from the Kiini Sustainable Initiative based in Nyeri, Kenya. Following their receipt of an AU$2,000 micro grant in 2018, they’ve reported that the overall project is progressing well in terms of accomplishing their objectives and adhering to their February to November 2019 timeline.
In a community where farmland and the environment have been degraded and natural resources like rainwater are being under-utilised, the project has aimed to encourage the wise use of resources to improve community food security and overall productivity.
Students from the Nyeri Farm View Academy learning about compost making
Deforestation, over-cultivation of farmland, loss of topsoil through water and wind erosion, indiscriminate use of insecticides and inorganic fertilisers, loss of biodiversity and pollinators have inspired the Kiini Sustainable Initiative to introduce permaculture education and activities as tools for change.
Through education about permaculture principles the Initiative’s goal is to inspire attitude change and transformative thinking in the community to better use their natural and human resources to: –
harvest water and improve water quality
improve land management practices
reduce erosion
increasing biodiversity and
restore the environment
On site permaculture solutions have included the installation of water tanks on homes to harvest roof run-off for domestic use and irrigation of food crops, construction of a simple water recycling system including grey water collection and terracing to slow erosion allow improvement of the soil.
A simple grey water recycling system
At the Nyeri Farm View Academy children are learning about permaculture through the creation of a kitchen garden assisted by teachers, parents and the community. Other schools in the area are interested in the project which could expand if more funding support becomes available.
Junior students visiting new gardens
The Kiini Sustainable Initiative is optimistic the project will achieve its objectives despite the challenges of drought conditions, the proliferation of pests due to the high temperatures and the slow adoption of permaculture principles among some community members.
Permaculture Australia’s Education Team has designed a survey to ask which permaculture courses people have done, are doing or would like to do in the future.
The survey also asks what other studies you’ve undertaken, other qualifications gained and how permaculture education has influenced your career pathway.
Perhaps you may be interested in gaining more permaculture qualifications as part of your professional development or having your experience in permaculture formally recognised?
Details received will help the Education team identify the demand for different levels of permaculture education and advocate to education providers to meet this demand.
Your contribution will help the Education team build an evidence base to support the growth of permaculture education offerings nationally.
Your responses will only be used for the above purposes and all efforts will be taken to ensure your anonymity.
You are most welcome to forward this survey to colleagues in your networks within Australia.
The survey will take just 10-15 minutes of your valuable time to complete and can be found at this link:
Ross Mars’ Candlelight Farm near Perth, Western Australia has had a healthy uptake of students for Cert III and Diploma of Permaculture courses. The 12-month Diploma course has 4 enrolled students who meet with their lecturers for one weekend a month.
Recently the students and lecturers spent a weekend away from the classroom and took a 2-day field trip into the south west of Western Australia.
The purpose of the field trip was to examine the rural property in Boyup Brook that the students will be doing a design and report for plus to visit two community gardens in Albany to provide them with design ideas and assistance.
On day one, some of the students and lecturers travelled south from Perth in Ross’s ute while other students from the south west made their way to the first meeting point in Boyup Brook. This is teacher Lisa’s field trip report.
“We arrived around midday after a 3-hour trip and proceeded to stretch our legs with a walk around the large water reservoir on the property.
This was followed by an amazing lunch of chicken wings, cooked on the smoker, with an array of salads prepared by the owners of the rural property.
Following lunch, we walked the rest of the property to get a feel for the land, examining the existing vegetation and rocky outcrops and observed water movement across the property.
Students inspecting the property to observe its features
Seated in camping chairs we did some classroom work, interviewing the owners of the property to learn of their hopes and dreams for the development of the land.
Dinner that night was another amazing meal, a slow cooked casserole with meat and seasonal vegetables. The night finished with star gazing around a campfire whilst discussing all the permaculture possibilities for our hosts’ stunning hillside property.
On day two we traveled in convoy from Boyup Brook inland south to Albany to visit the first of the community gardens, the Rainbow Coast Community Garden, where we met with one of the garden founders and had a tour of the grounds.
Next, we went to the Good Life Community garden in Albany and toured the gardens with one of our group, who was a founder.
The Diploma students will have an opportunity to create designs for the undeveloped parts of this community garden. Their design will include an extended chook run and orchard zone.
We then visited a suburban permaculture garden and were amazed at the diversity of both plant and animal species in this modest-sized backyard. Lunch was harvested from the garden. This time fish plus an array of vegetables and edible flowers and we enjoyed another amazing feast.
Fresh from the garden
After lunch we parted company and began the 4.5-hour drive back to Perth.”
The students will be reflecting on their experiences and incorporating their field trip observations into their Diploma assignments. A fun (and delicious) way to learn!
Story by Lisa Passmore of INSPIRED BY NATURE landscape design
For more information please contact the PA Education team. education@permacultureaustralia.org.au
In February 2019 Permafund team member, Jed Walker, travelled to South East Bangladesh, to join Rowe Morrow and Ruth Harvey for their second PDC (the first was for local residents). Quaker Service Australia, working with the Bangladesh Association for Sustainable Development (BASD), financially supported the courses. Jed joined the course at Camp 19 in Cox’s Bazaar refugee camp, hastily built in the jungle where elephants recently roamed.
BASD, longtime advocates of permaculture in Bangladesh, provided generous and comprehensive hospitality, logistics, camp liaison and translation services for the Australian visitors.
Driven from Myanmar and fleeing for their lives into Bangladesh about 1 million Muslim Rohingya have found themselves living in limbo in Cox’s Bazaar, now one of the largest refugee camps in the world.
Signs of resilience are evident everywhere
Before fleeing Myanmar, the Rohingya were farming, living in villages or ethnic ghettos (internment camps) in the towns. The Bangladeshi government have welcomed the refugees, but the arrangement is temporary. There are still reports of violence occurring for those who try to return to Myanmar.
The bamboo and tarp classroom was located on the edge of the camp, overlooking rice paddies and brick works belching smoke. Among the 21 PDC trainees about half were young men plus some young women, older women and male farmers.
During the course Ruth, Jed & Rowe were also mentoring BASD staff to teach the course themselves and thence train the Rohingya students to teach other camp residents. The plan is for 15 of the class graduates to educate a further 100 families in permaculture.
“The class went well as the Bangladesh dialect in the nearby Chittagong region is similar to the Rohingya language. This helped a lot with translation. All students were remarkably positive considering their recent past.” said Jed.
At one stage the oldest man sang a lament about the loss of his land and people. Jed felt the older people had a sadness over them while the younger ones were as bright and cheery as elsewhere, maybe more so.
The teaching team heavily contextualised the course toward local conditions and knowledge. Working among very experienced farmers and forest dwellers the teachers stopped counting when their list of uses of various trees exceeded 50 (most groups run out at around 20).
Some students did a design for the teaching site which already included gardens and a food forest but also bare ground with no topsoil and little water management. Other students did a plan for about a hectare of the camp itself. There is really no room for on the ground gardening around the average camp hut so the strategies for growing food included making gardens in whatever was at hand – sacks, pots, boxes, water bottles or whatever plus hanging gardens were made from coconuts, gourds and plastic bottles filled with plants to hang from eaves.
Gardening in containers and bottle hangers
Jed had brought a bag of mung beans and introduced the idea of eating fresh bean sprouts. The adults were sceptical at first but followed the lead of their adventurous children.
Pumpkin vines were grown on roofs to also give shade. Average maximum temperatures there are within 3 degrees of 30 Celsius all year, with very high humidity in summer.
Coconut hanging garden
The housing was Incredibly dense as it’s for a million people in few square kilometres. More than 120,000 babies had been added to the camp’s population in the past year, Jed was told.
Huts made with plastic & bamboo lattices
“Despite the challenging conditions in the camps with overcrowding and scarce resources, residents in the camps maintain their houses and shops with pride and signs of resilience are evident everywhere” said Jed.
Most huts are plastic with a lattice of bamboo, vulnerable in monsoon rains and cyclone conditions. There are no gutters, so catching rainwater is not practical. The groundwater, delivered by hand pumps, contains iron at toxic levels.
Hand pumps for water
The course included disaster management with cyclones being the main concern reported by the group. They were reluctant to even speak of the circumstances surrounding their flight from Myanmar. “The students enjoyed having something else to think about and asked the old man to stop singing his sad songs” said Jed.
Despite the bleak conditions in the camp the PDC class itself lifted the spirits, with students soaking up the knowledge and making plans for every nook and cranny of the camp. Camp 19 has 50,000 people and there are plans being hatched to exponentially peer-educate every one of them.
For more information please contact the Permafund team permafund@permacultureaustralia.org.au Tax deductible donations to Permafund support this and other worthy projects in Australia and around the world.
Permaculture is about growing food, how we live, the type of houses we build, ways in which we can live more sustainably, working with others in our community and how we deal with water, energy, soil and living things.
Permaculture is seen by many people as providing strategies to enable us to adapt to a challenging future, as it provides the framework to give people hope and empowerment and enable them to develop skills to allow us to rise to the challenges of a changing world. Accredited Permaculture Training (APT) courses are now available for schools and local communities. Certificate I and Certificate II have been developed with VET (Vocational Education and Training) in schools as the focus.
These courses are ideally suited to Year 10-12 students, with Certificate I appropriate for students with special needs and learning difficulties.
The Certificate I and Certificate II courses are very practical and students learn about propagation, pest control, irrigation, construction, soils, organic crops, re-vegetation, plant and animals systems as well as work safety and maintaining the workplace.
Community members who hold a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment can deliver these courses too, so accredited permaculture training is ideal for workers in city farms, organic co-operatives, community gardens and for people involved in the permaculture industry in some way.
School teachers or community members who have done a Permaculture Design Course (PDC) are qualified to deliver Certificate I and Certificate II, but there is also the option of doing the Permaculture Demonstrator Skill Set which involves 4 units from Certificate III to provide some good background knowledge and skills for delivery of permaculture training. These units provide enough background on permaculture ethics, principles and practices and hands-on skills, to enable teachers to plan permaculture projects in their school grounds.
You can register your interest by contacting Skills Strategies International or enroll directly online.
Skills Strategies International is a Perth-based training organisation but students from anywhere in Australia can enroll. The Permaculture Demonstrator Skill Set will typically take 3 to 4 months of part-time online work.
For more information contact Skills Strategies International Ph: (08) 6143 2180
Article by Dr Ross Mars
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