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Permaculture Design Course at Nyumbani Village - Kenya

Mon, 27 Dec 2010 02:33:00 -0600

Concentric Rings of Change –

The Power of a Single African Permaculture Design Course

By Warren Brush of True Nature Design and Quail Springs Permaculture

Over 700 children, orphaned by the scourge of HIV in East Africa, live here at Nyumbani Village. Nyumbani Village was founded in 2006 by the late Father Angelo D’Agostino with a dream of offering orphaned children love, guidance, and a sustainable existence.

In just four short years, Nyumbani Village, located in the heart of the Akamba traditional tribal area, has become, with the help of local and international partners, an important and successful model for the care of orphaned children and elders. It has developed an impressive infrastructure that includes site-built housing using mud, cement and tin for nearly 800 people, ecological toilet composting systems, rainwater harvesting, food security, long term natural capital systems, vocational education in woodworking, sewing, metal work, and agriculture.

Two years ago I was contacted by Joseph Ntunyoi, Director of the Nyumbani Village Sustainability Department, and asked to teach the first Permaculture Design Certification Course (PDC) at the village with the goal of inspiring and advancing stable, resilient and sustainable systems of human settlement in Kenya. As my bumpy ride up a rutted red dirt road ended just through the entrance to Nyumbani Village on a warm day in early December 2010, the dream of bringing permaculture to this extraordinary place finally came to fruition.

I was welcomed with open arms by the staff, interns from around the world, visiting consultants, supporters, and especially by the elders and children. When the elders address you they say, “Wasja,” which means “How are you my child?” and you answer back with a deep sigh that sounds like, “Aaaaahhhhhhh” which means, “I am well Grandmother/Grandfather”. In this place where so many people have lost family and have seen so much pain and death, there exists a humility and underlying hope that speaks to the language of unconditional love, and years of good and fruitful work.

Our Nyumbani Village Permaculture Design Course attracted a powerful and diverse group of students. From villagers and local Kenyans, to those from as far away as Uganda, Liberia, India, Germany, and America, people came with the goal of bringing useful knowledge and skills back to their communities.

The combination of their varied backgrounds and visions brought an invaluable depth of understanding and experience to our course. This diverse group of people, their unique constituencies, and their commitment to generating concentric rings of positive change into the heart of the world is the focus of this article.

In my many travels and courses around the world that I have been teaching, it is the diversity of the participants who are drawn to permaculture design certification course that bring the PDC a foundational layer of learning for all of us. This occurs through the differing viewpoints and experiences that each person brings and shares. As an instructor, I have learned to call upon this diversity to expand to the edges the subjects I am teaching and to draw the entire class deeper into the subject matter by shifting their focus from patterns to details and back again through the voices of the students.

I would like to highlight a few of these visionary souls for you to grasp the importance of this work and how permaculture is a crucial weft in the basket of regenerative living around the globe. It is through these individuals (and many others who I did not highlight in this article) and their community connections that a single PDC in Kenya has a significant impact around the world. Let me highlight a few of these extraordinary individuals who were a part of the course:

Mohamad A. Mohamad is a young man who was born and raised in the biggest slum in East Africa. He has been a keystone in the formation of an organization called Youth and Farm Self Help Group. This group is based out of and works in the very heart of the slums of his birth, located in the Kibera District of Nairobi, Kenya. He has inspired many other young men and youth to tend, plant, nurture, and harvest their future rather than steal for it. Several years ago, these young folks took over an old dumpsite and have converted it into a productive farm where they both eat and sell their produce and have made a micro-business out of creating a simple toilet and bathing facility. He has been working for ten years on this crucial endeavor and has been a model for peaceful and ethical action during times of violence and upheaval. During the 2008 election when violence threatened his community he inspired others by living his ethics which beautifully coincide with the Permaculture Ethics: Care of the Earth, Care of the People and only taking a Fair Share. Their success can be seen at these two links: http://greendreams.edublogs.org/2009/08/03/kibera-youth-reform-organic-farm-one-year-later/ http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=101078

You can email Mohamad at mohagiro@yahoo.com. This group is in need of a laptop computer, digital camera and an external hardrive to be able to share their important and innovative work with the world to help them raise additional funds to buy another piece of land for farming. If you are inspired to donate one or all of these items, please contact me at w@quailsprings.org as I will be seeing Mohamad when I return to Kenya in March of 2011 to help with their permaculture design for the dump site.

Nath, who was named by his spiritual community in India, is a young man in his twenties from Germany. He is one of those young people who give hope to those of us who are older than him (and younger too) that the future is going to be held and guided in a beautiful way by these old souls in young bodies. He runs a youth organization called AYUDH Amrita Yuva Dharma Dhara, a Sanskrit term which can freely be translated as “the youth which perpetuates the wheel of Dharma(Righteousness).”
In Sanskrit “Ayudh” also means Peace. AYUDH’s activities in India include providing food and medical aid to the poor and needy, offering free eye-treatment camps, cleaning hospital compounds, planting trees and conducting antidrug, -alcohol and -tobacco campaigns throughout the country. They work with thousands of youth and have recently expanded into working with European youth. He carries a big dose of inspiration that manifests in positive action and attitude. Learn more about the organization he runs: http://www.ayudh.eu/

Rupal Shah is a born Kenyan of Indian decent. She is a dynamic woman who is passionate about helping people and the earth and is an important part of the management team that has developed the Amrita Children’s Center which within just a few short months will be housing, educating and loving over 100 orphaned children. This home is part of a greater organization guided by Amma, the hugging saint, under her umbrella, “Embracing the World”. To learn more please see: http://www.ammakenya.org/

Gai Cullen is a born Kenyan of British decent and is a real mover and shaker in Kenya and beyond. Through her successful businesses, philanthropic endeavors and the development of conservation trusts she is creating, rehabilitating and preserving vital habitat for Kenya’s myriad wildlife populations. During our day off in the middle of the PDC, we went out in her small plane and spotted a white cheetah, the only one in existence, among the many other animals that have a permanent home because of her efforts. Her work is a legacy that will allow for wildlife to be a part of Kenya’s future for generations to come. Permaculture will be a formidable part of their restoration efforts on a broad-acre scale.

Stephany Salaita is a vital community resource to her Maasai community. As a young woman in a patriarchal tribe, she is one of the very few women who has made it to school and persevered on through college. With her education she could have gone into the city and acquired a well paid job, yet she chose to return to her community to be a coordinator for a youth group called RETO. They work with young woman who have been raped to offer medical and psychological support services, as well as working to prosecute offenders. They have education programs to combat FGM (female genital mutilation), and have tree-planting programs to reforest their region to help with rebuilding their badly damaged ecological systems. She is a dynamic individual who is committed to her tribe and will certainly be a key teacher in permaculture in her community over the coming years.

David Okware organizes and coordinates a large farmer cooperative of over 8,720 farmers in the Kinguru District of Uganda. They work to support this large network of farmers by helping with technology transfer, advisory services, marketing, addressing issues of land degradation, HIV, and climate change, as well as offering enterprise trainings. If David’s design project during the course is an indicator of what is to come from him, he will certainly be a formidable permaculture designer and teacher in the not so distant future in his homeland of Uganda.

Hawa Kamara is quickly becoming a leader in her Mandingo tribal community in northern Liberia by being one of the few women who have learned to both read and write. Hawa works with everyday gandhis, a peacemaking NGO in Liberia, to reach out to those in her community who were deeply affected by their recently ended civil war. She will touch many lives with her understandings and application of Permaculture.

Faith Musyimi is a dynamic Kenyan woman who has helped to develop SASOL, an organization that addresses the issues of water scarcity, food security, poverty and education in her tribal community. One of their key outreach programs is their sand dam projects that revivify the watersheds by slowing the water and trapping the silt which enhances their ground water recharge of the area wells. They teach and demonstrate broad-acre tree planting, terracing, community capacity building, and the development of leadership skills in the youth and young adults. They also have an international mentoring program where they pair local students with European students to share knowledge. Faith will be a positive change-maker in her community using the permaculture design skills she learned during this course.

People from all over the world come to Nyumbani Village not only to share their gifts but to gather for their own spirits a sense of what is possible. One visiting Kenyan dignitary shared with the residents and course participants the possibility of reducing their need to cut down the forests by cooking with solar cookers. Her name is Faustine Odaba and she is known in East Africa as “Solar Mama.” She teaches people how to live with real-time sunlight to meet their daily needs. Her organization, NAREWAMA (Natural Resources and Waste Management Alliance), promotes and encourages the use of renewable energy and environmental conservation. She is considered by many to

be a pioneer in teaching people how to turn waste into profit through re-purposing plastics into woven hats, capes, bags, etc., and converting human waste into fertilizer for growing food. For more information about her work please email her: narewama@gmail.com]

Concentric Rings of Positive Impacts

On the last day of the course after the students received their certificates, we spent some time developing a mind map of where each student was going to demonstrate their newly acquired skills and understandings of permaculture. I was completely humbled by the inimitable pathways in which the deep learning that occurred in this PDC is about to make its way out into the world. It was wonderfully clear that many of the students attending this PDC will each individually touch thousands of lives with Permaculture who will in-turn touch thousands more. David Okware alone will be able to begin to develop demonstration sites and education programs in Uganda that will soon introduce nearly 9,000 farmers and their families to Permaculture.

David’s strategy, which I consider the best strategy, is to begin by setting up a demonstration site on his own farm to show the people the ethics and principles in action and the appropriate local methodologies to apply permaculture. In this way, they see first hand the economic, ecologic and social capital that is developed and yielded in a well-designed Permaculture system. Each student in this PDC has committed to developing a demonstration example of what they have learned in this course and I can only extrapolate from this that many thousands of lives will be touched in the near future by these individuals and what they have learned and how they will apply it.

The success of developing a broad concentric ring of influence with a single PDC has been to create a course environment that welcomes and inspires change-makers and leaders to attend and participate together in the learning process. We have found that there are key understandings to create a course with a powerful concentric ring of change in the world. They include:

· Choosing a site for the PDC that has a solid and positive reputation for honoring social and ecological issues and remains in good standing in the community in which it dwells

· Involve reputable teachers both locally and internationally

· Have a well designed curriculum with a healthy mixture of lecture, discussion and practicum

· Ensure that your course registration process is professional and responsive

· Involve your former students in the marketing and include registered students in sharing about the upcoming course

· Use testimonials in the advertising from previous courses

· Arrange for scholarships for key-community organizers who are low-income to be able to attend

· Write stories about the potential of the course and use them like a press release

· Answer all inquiries from potential students with questions that lead to dialogue of who they are, what their connections are, and what their motivation is for wanting to know about the course. Involve this information in developing further marketing outreach

· Seek sponsorships to underwrite the course costs and involve those connections in helping with marketing

· If at all possible, make the course an international one. This lends itself to the broad application of the curriculum and the synergy that can be created by having different perspectives from different locales, socio-economic standing, tribes, educational backgrounds, etc.

In this manner, we were able to create a leverage point for the permaculture teachings and their application to reach far and wide into the fabric of myriad constituencies, cultures and bioregions with very little overall energy expenditure. I realized that the very design of this course was working with the principle of making the “most amount of change with the least amount of energy input.” A well designed and strategically attended Permaculture Design Course is a keystone in creating a worldwide network of the local application of the ethics and principles of permaculture. Let’s each of us support the growing of our capacity as an international grassroots campaign by supporting a strong PDC teacher network and certification process so that millions upon millions of PDC graduates in the future will be the fruit of our efforts now.

I will be returning to Kenya in March of 2011 to teach another Permaculture Design Course at Badilishi Ecovillage. If you or someone you know may be interested in attending this international course, please send an inquiry to info@quailsprings.org. I am also working on raising the funds to underwrite the expenses of the course and several design consultancies around Kenya and have received a generous matching grant. Every penny up to $9,000 that is donated will be matched by a private foundation to cover course costs and my travel expenses so the course fees paid by higher income international students can go directly to supporting local student scholarship funds. Please consider making a donation to this campaign by going to the following link: http://truenatuedesign.chipin.com/permaculture-in-kenya-and-uganda

Or make a tax-deductible donation through Quail Springs 501c3 non-profit organization by clicking here and designating the funds to Permaculture in Africa: https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=12781

In Growing Peace,

Warren Brush

P.S. I want to offer a special gratitude for everyday gandhis and the Tomchin Family Foundation for supporting these highly effective efforts that are touching thousands of lives in East Africa and for their continued belief in bringing peace to the world through permaculture education and demonstration.

Warren Brush is a certified Permaculture designer and teacher as well as a mentor and storyteller. He has worked for over 20 years in inspiring people of all ages to discover, nurture and express their inherent gifts while living in a sustainable manner. He is co-founder of Quail Springs Learning Oasis & Permaculture Farm, Wilderness Youth Project, Mentoring for Peace, Trees for Children and his Permaculture design company, True Nature Design. He works extensively in Permaculture education and sustainable systems design in North America and in Africa. He can be reached through email at w@quailsprings.org or by calling his office at 805-886-7239.

www.quailsprings.org

www.treesforchildren.org

www.permaculturedesign.us

Permaculture Courses Coming Up in Rural Kenya

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 10:37:00 -0500

Kenya Permaculture Design Courses with Warren Brush
December 6-19, 2010 (Nyumbani Village)
March 4-18, 2011 (Badilisha EcoVillage)

You can help support the teaching of aPermaculture Design Certification Course in Kenya at Nyumbani Village in December of 2010 and in Badilisha EcoVillage in March of 2011.

Make a donation today on ChipIn (http://truenatuedesign.chipin.com/permaculture-for-kenya). Or register to take your Permaculture Design Course in rural Kenya by emailing info@quailsprings.org. Learn how to design for stability, resilience, and abundance in a village in Kenya that is dedicated to sustainability and community health.
Nyumbani Village, in the Kitui District 2-hours from Nairobi, is home to hundreds of elders and children who were orphaned by family members who have died of HIV/AIDS. Badilisha EcoVillage, on Rusinga Island in Lake Victoria, operates orphan feeding programs, local scholarship funds, women's empowerment and family adoption programs. These courses will be facilitated by Warren Brush, the co-founder of Quail Springs Permaculture Farm and True Nature Design, with local teachers. Details are on the flyer at (http://quailsprings.org/KenyaPDCs.pdf)

Please donate today, or sign up to attend a course, to help these important courses flourish! Thank you kindly.

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More on Nyumbani Village and Badilisha EcoVillage:

Nyumbani Village's vision is creating a self-sustaining community to serve orphans and elders who have been left behind by the lost generation of the HIV pandemic. The Village provides a family-like setting for orphaned children under the stewardship of elderly adults and seeks to ensure that the children receive love, sustenance, health-care, holistic education and culture transfer, aiming at their physical, psychosocial and spiritual development, and, at the same time, providing holistic care and support for the grandparents in their later years. Through group homes and community services, the Village seeks to harness the energy of youth and the maturity of elders to create new blended families that foster healing, hope and opportunity. The village also seeks to ensure that the residents in the surrounding communities reach a certain level of self-reliance through the Village sustainability program.Nyumbani Village stands on one thousand acres of land donated by the Kitui District County Council. The Village is located 3 hours East of Nairobi. The site is within the poorest division in the Kitui District and has a high incidence of HIV and a high number of HIV orphans. When complete, the Village will accommodate approximately 1000 orphans and 100 grandparents living in 100 dwelling units each with a grandparent and 8 - 10 children.

Badilisha EcoVillage has been organized to make a valuable contribution to the social, economic, emotional, mental, spiritual and physical health of Rusinga Island, Kenya. It is our vision to achieve this through the following departments:

EARTH CARE: Establish and maintain a community in and from which Earth Care and environmental conservation will be supported in all thinkable aspects. Grow food on basis of perm culture, to establish a resource centre, to organize research and outreach programs and develop ecotourism. Promote new and cutting edge technology to improve the living conditions within the community.

SCHOOL POOL: Is a collection of support for local schools to be empowered to create change. Badilisha will work in partnership with schools to assist with resources, student and teacher scholarships, feeding programs for orphans and funding for projects that improve the educational environment.

FAMILY SPONSORSHIP: Create a sponsor network around the world to enable families to become productive and active members of the community. Families will be supported with aid to create income, pay school fees, improve food production and shelter until they become self-sufficient and self-reliant.HIV/AIDS: Generate actions towards reduction of the pandemic HIV/AIDS, and to restore self-confidence in people who suffer from this.

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About Warren Brush, Permaculture Designer and Educator
Warren Brush is a Permaculture Designer and Educator working mostly in North America and Africa, founder of True Nature Design, and co-founder of Quail Springs Learning Oasis and Permaculture Farm and Trees for Children. For more than 20 years, Warren has helped empower thousands of people in their discovery of sustainable living and respect for land and communities. He teaches courses including: Permaculture Certification, Rainwater Harvesting Systems, Ferro-Cement Tank Building, Compost Toilet Systems, Greywater Solutions, Water for Every Farm, Drought Proofing, Cultural Mentoring, Introduction to Permaculture Systems, Corporation Sole Formation, Various Origins Skills, Food Forestry, among other offerings.

Learn more about the organizations directed by Warren: Quail Springs Learning Oasis and Permaculture Farm, www.quailsprings.org, a 450-acre arid land Permaculture demonstration and educational center located in the southern California mountains. True Nature Design, www.permaculturedesign.us, is Warren's Permaculture design and education company.

Learn more about organizations and projects co-founded by Warren: Trees for Children, www.treesforchildren.org, is an organization that teaches youth how to plant trees in ways that contribute to their community's resilience and stability. It also raises funds for tree planting projects. Mentoring for Peace, www.mentoring4peace.com, is a research project that is discovering the nature of how to mentor our children to be peacemakers with broad concentric rings of influence. Wilderness Youth Project, www.wyp.org, a youth centered organization that mentors youth in learning nature observation and origins skills.

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Please make a donation today to support Permaculture education in Kenya at ChipIn (http://truenatuedesign.chipin.com/permaculture-for-kenya)
Contact to register to take your Permaculture Design Course in rural Kenya: Kolmi Majumdar, email info@quailsprings.org or phone 805-886-7239.

Permaculture and the Western Syndrome

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 03:26:00 -0600

Presenting their designs as a part of our Permaculture Design Course in 2008 in Liberia

For tens of thousands of years intact peoples from around the world have been intricately woven into the fabric of the landscape that nourishes them. Culture itself has sprung from the land through the people’s relationship with all that sustains them. This is not as esoteric as it sounds…Imagine a group of people who live in a particular watershed with a distinct mix and availability of flora and fauna, weather patterns, sun angles, sound resonance, distance to other bio-regions, etc. Everyday necessity would be provided for by these and other more subtle structures and influences that would provide unique implements for survival, foods, hunting practices, shelters, musical instruments, honoring practices, ceremonies and stories. These peoples have known the origins stories of all that give them life, this in turn became the foundation of true, intact culture where the land would express itself very tangibly through the people

Then came, what one of my elders have called, the Western Syndrome. For thousands of years there has been a syndrome (We call it a SYNDROME because the definition of the word describes it perfectly; syn·drome n, a group of things or events that form a recognizable pattern, especially of something undesirable) that has moved around the earth consuming intact cultures by replacing our rooted stories with distant tales and a commerce that carries no responsibility for the land that sustains it. And now, the story of broken-hearted people who have no origins place who move continually west to flee their oppressors only to find they have become the oppressor themselves of the intact peoples they encounter in their flight. This story has repeated itself in untold ways for millennia and it runs deep in most of our blood and bone as it plays itself out in our daily lives and worldviews around the world. This syndrome is not just carried or transmitted by one particular grouping of people defined by race, creed, or color but has affected and been purported by us all and continues to do so.

In my Permaculture education and design work in the West African country of Liberia, I have found myself often in a face-off with the Western Syndrome in its quest to cull life from communities to gain a profit, mostly for large western corporations. I soon found that one of my roles as a permaculture educator coming from the so-called “developed” world was to dispel the myth that the “western world” only leads to a glorious future. In Liberia, many of the people, young and old, will adopt nearly anything “western” as a personal sign of status and progressiveness. Where I was first confronted with the reality of this is when I went to visit one of the student’s midwifery clinic, which was close to where I was facilitating a permaculture design course.

When I arrived at the clinic, which was well made of mud bricks and palm thatching, there were women, some pregnant, others with babies and children all about on benches, playing, sitting next to a cooking fire, and others were weaving baskets as they they shared stories, laughed and tended to the little ones. One particular woman was walking about with a spray can pumping away to keep the spray mist constant on all the leaves of the plants that were all about. My curiosity hoped it was a compost tea she was using to fertigate the plants, yet my intuition knew differently, so I went to see what the magic concoction was that was so necessary to spray around this clinic for women and children. It was DDT. I was shocked. As I read the label on the can she was re-supplying her sprayer with, it only had the warning, “fatal if swallowed” and the name of an American Chemical Company. My heart sank in the dark reality of standing face to face with the Western Syndrome.

I asked the woman who was spraying the DDT what her reasons for spraying were and if she knew about the repercussions of using this biocide. She replied, “We have to use it to kill the bugger-bug which destroys our crops. They have got so bad since the war that we have no choice but to use most of the few dollars we make to buy this chemical or we lose our food.” She also shared that she knew it would make her sick if she drank the chemical, but nothing else.

Later that day in our Permaculture Design class, consisting of 25 students, some of whom were respected elders in their community others who were barely adults and all who are from a wide range of backgrounds in education, traditions, tribes, languages, and beliefs, I asked them, “who is this bugger-bug.” It was as if I had incited the devil itself as the translator shared in the common tribal language my question. Everyone stirred, some even grew fiery red in the face as they explained how the losses of their crops from this little beast could mean the difference between life and death for whole families and communities. They also shared how they were told that they should spray to kill mosquitoes that bring them malaria. When I asked them about the DDT they used, they spoke to it as a type of savior, yet a costly one for people who on average make $2 a day for 8-10 hours of hard labor. None of them knew anything of the long-term travesties that are caused by this chemical and why it is illegal to use in most “western” countries in the world including the country of origin of the one found at the midwifery clinic, the USA.

I spent some time gathering some information about DDT to better inform them and myself of the chronic effects of this toxic substance. I shared the gamut of research that detailed how DDT is an endocrine disruptor and has other chronic effects on the nervous system, kidneys, liver, the reproductive and immune system, it is a carcinogen that contributes to cancer and is one of the nine persistent organic pollutants, which more importantly for the midwifery clinic, accumulates most intensively in mammals in the mother’s milk. Needless to say, they were horrified.

When everyone began to settle down a bit, one elder asked the very important and relevant question, “So what else can we do about the Bugger-Bug if we don’t use DDT?” I certainly did not have the answers, as often I don’t when it comes to regional knowledge of place. So in full Permaculture style, I replied, “Let’s go ask the Bugger-Bug?” So right then and there, with very quizzical looks abounding, we all got up from our makeshift classroom and went out into the adjoining landscape to ask the bugger-bug what can we do to survive together.

We all walked together into a recently cleared area of rainforest where the debris had been burned-off and the land was laid bare and exposed other than where there were patches of mono-cropped maize and cassava. The bugger-bug abounded busily gathering leaf material from the crops and bringing it back to their growing mound in the middle of the clear-cut. We found that their mounds were rich in detritus and bird manures and seedlings of the native forest were sprouting all around it. Their growing mound looked like a miniature forest mountain rich in diversity and nutrient.

We then left the middle of the clear-cut and went to the edge of this mono-cropped farm where the forest and the maize intermingled and to everyone’s surprise, the bugger-bug was significantly less prevalent and the damage to the crop was minimal. In-fact, anywhere we went that had diversity of plant species with a mulch layer on the ground there was minimal damage by the bugger-bug.

We finally ventured deeper into the forest to observe how the bugger-lived there in a natural setting and found that they were so diminished in numbers within the forest that we had a difficult time finding any damage at all from them on the understory plants. They seemed to only be feasting on the leaf drop from the canopy trees and had significantly less numbers than in the clear-cut areas.

In true detective fashion we then assembled our observations and clues that we gathered and low and behold, a story of a true forest stewardship emerged. Our little bugger-bug was a “keystone” pioneer in the forest regeneration process. It seemed that this termite would live peacefully in the forest until the time where a complete devastation of the forest occurred, then it would spring into action to assist the forest in rebuilding its structure. Its numbers would increase and then they would search out plants, especially unhealthy stands of plants, to begin its soil building mound-raising process. As their mounds grew from their efficient gathering, they would soon be the highest point in the landscape where birds of all sorts would perch. Thanks to the birds, their mounds were seeded with myriad types of plant life and from there, the forest would regenerate outward in concentric ring-like patterns.

The spell of the bugger-bug had been broken. We excitedly went back into class where we applied our new learning into the design of a food growing system that incorporated diversity in both annuals and perennials, layering in both space and time, and deep mulching that is most analogous to the structure of a natural forest. We then began building our demonstration farm using these practices learned from our bugger-bug teacher. One elder shared with me while pointing to their 150-foot high ancestral tree, “I will give thanks to these little bugs for I know without them we would not have our forests.”

At the very root of Permaculture is the knowing that we must live in integrity with the world which sustains us. The Western Syndrome cunningly distorts our ability to take responsibility for our lives through the many faces of globalization and often leaves us barren of integrity whether we are aware of it or not. The bugger-bug story illustrates that with our work as Permaculture teachers and designers, we have a duty to honestly read the pattern languages around us and incorporate them into the conscious design of how we live in support of that which gives life.

Warren Brushis a certified Permaculture designer and educator as well as a mentor and storyteller. He has worked for over 20 years in inspiring people of all ages to discover, nurture and express their inherent gifts while living in a sustainable manner. He is co-founder of Quail Springs Learning Oasis & Permaculture Farm (a few of their offerings include: Permaculture Design Certification courses for Youth called Sustainable Vocations, PDC for Adults and Sustainable Aid Courses among many other offerings), Wilderness Youth Project, Mentoring for Peace, and Trees for Children. He works extensively in Permaculture education and sustainable systems design in North America and in Africa through his design firm, True Nature Design. He can be reached through email at w@quailsprings.org or by calling his office at 805-886-7239.

www.quailsprings.org

www.sustainablevocations.org

www.mentoring4peace.com

www.treesforchildren.org

www.truenaturedesign.net

Rainwater Harvesting as a Vocational Training

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 05:52:00 -0600

Building Ferro-Cement Rainwater Harvest Tanks as Vocational Training

Some of the twenty participants of a Rainwater Harvest Ferro-Cement Tank building workshop in Voinjama, Liberia, West Africa working with me on the steel framework
Sunday, November 23, 2008

Rainwater may be the only reliable and healthful source of water for most of us around the world as pollution, toxicity, disease, and its scarcity plague our water supplies not only in the "2/3rds world" but, increasingly in the ecologically impoverished industrial world.
I am here in Northern Liberia with good friend and Permaculture colleague, Paul Swenson, where we have just finished teaching a two-week intensive training for ex-combatants and war affected young and old from many of the local tribes. The people of this region have recently found peace after a brutal civil war that lasted for nearly 14 years and everyday gandhis, a peacebuilding organization, has once again graciously brought us here to weave permaculture within the fabric of their work. The training was intensive both physically and mentally as we made a 1,250 gallon ferro-cement rainwater harvest storage tank from design to a finished and functional tank.

Mixing cement plaster of one part cement to three parts sifted sand using gauge boxes, shovels and sweat Notice the trellis structure we installed on earlier trips to cool the house during the hot dry season

We also designed and built rainwater harvesting bio-
swales as part of a larger on-the-ground exercise in designing a two acre farm. We learned together how to work with water and understand its many uses and functions. We practically looked at how to slow water's traverse down the face of the landscape by spreading it widely through out the land and then sinking it into the ground using contour swales, mulch and appropriate plantings when the 100 plus inches of rain occur in the wet season to assuage the lack of water that follows in the dry season.

This is our hand-drawn Permaculture Design for the adjacent property to where we built the tank and is owned by the peacebuilding group everyday gandhis. It is a two acre property that will be a local demonstration site of Permaculture in action

During the wet season, Cholera is a life threatening reality that flows with the effluent that enters the water stream with daily downpours. Up until now, the United Nations has been putting millions of dollars into early warning and treatment of cholera and pittance toward rainwater harvest systems. It is ironical that when the cleanest water available to us is in abundance many die and suffer from lack of healthy drinking water. This design flaw is easily ameliorated by the sensible design of simple rainwater harvest systems coupled with compost toilet systems that turn waste into food....not into pollution.
This training gave nearly twenty people the opportunity to learn how to design, site and build a tank that could last up to fifty years in providing for their community's health, well being and stability.

Paul Swenson and Jolla working the rendering process on the inside of the tank

We ran out of time this trip to teach compost toilet building but are hopeful that we will return in the spring to teach another hands-on workshop on how to build a simple thermophyllic system to handle their toilet nutrients so they become useful in their soil building processe, rather than disease in their communities.
We hope our work with everyday gandhis, our sponsoring organization, will continue in providing Permaculturetraining for this region of the world as part of their overall peacebuilding strategy for the region. It is through their generosity and community connection that Permaculture has been able to set its roots in this remote community in Northern Liberia.

Putting on the render coat, Lassana Kamara was our quality control man for this process of the tank construction

Both Paul and I extend our gratitude to the people of Voinjama, Liberia for their incredible kindness, graciousness and willingness to embrace Permaculture while teaching us so much about culture and community. Water is life and we hope that our work in helping to store this precious resource in your community has honored your traditions and magnanimous hospitality. Thank you!
In Growing Peace,
Warren Brush
w@quailsprings.org

1st Permaculture Certification Course in Liberia's History

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 05:35:00 -0600

Permaculture Design Course In Liberia...A Resounding Success

The first graduates of a Permaculture Design Course in Liberia's history. This momentous moment was attended by a representative of the President of Liberia to mark the occasion
Friday, March 21, 2008

This past Wednesday, March 19th, 2008, we celebrated the first graduating class of a Permaculture Design Course in Liberia's history. Liberia had been in the throws of a brutal civil war since the late 80's when the Permaculture movement was making its way around the world and was unable to get into Liberia until now, four years after the cease fire and peace building ensued.
We had 19 official graduates of the course which took nearly a month to complete as we had to translate into the local Lorma language. Their were six other attendees who completed 3/4 of the course and who will complete it at a later date which will bring the graduating class to a total of 25. Many of the graduates shared how this was a historical moment for Liberia as Permaculture is seeding new ways of agriculture and living into their part of the world and deeply into their world-views.
As we were well into the course presentation and participation...the rain-forests surrounding us was being clear-cut and burned to ashes, choking the air and blocking the sun with a thick layer of smoke. All of this...for an agricultural practice that was introduced to them sometime ago by western influences. At one point in the course, an elder was talking about why they felt they had to "slash and burn" as he referred to this form of agriculture as traditional. I quickly reminded him that this was a conventional practice and not a traditional one. He quizzically looked to the sky and said, "You know, you are right. My ancestors did not do this to our forests. I stand corrected!"

Students share their designs as part of receiving their Permaculture Design Certification.

We went on to weave the understandings of Permaculture and their own traditional values into the fabric of their applied understanding in a learning journey that crossed many western-adopted cultural boundaries. By the end of the course, the students had created beautiful designs for a demonstration farm, spoke eloquently and cohesively about sustainable agriculture and habitation to other farmers, local radio and an international film-making team (who is working on a film about Permaculture and Liberia as a form of peacemaking.) They all vowed to integrate PC into their farms and villages over the coming rainy season.
We have identified six individuals from the course who we hope to find funding for to come to the USA for our Permaculture Design Course with Geoff Lawton at Quail Springs this summer to gain further training. I will then return to Liberia later this year to offer an intensive Train the Trainer course for those six, in hopes that they will become the lead trainers for PC in their country. I will also offer several workshops for general audiences around the country about sustainable rice farming systems, which is the "national staple food" of Liberia. If you have pictures, research, anecdotes about on the ground systems of sustainable rice growing, I would appreciate you sharing with me for this developing presentation (send to my email address below). I will give all contributors and other interested PC teachers a copy of the presentation once I finish it.
The next layer of teaching will be done in co-partnership with these developing Liberian PC teachers and myself. With requests coming in from all over the country for PDC workshops to be integrated into other regions, we are working diligently to train locals to be the instructors who take it nationwide. I have been interviewed twice this trip and once last trip on UNMIL radio which is widely listened to through-out Liberia which has sparked this countrywide interest in Permaculture. I also did a 1/2 hour interview on a radio station that serves the local population of the state I was in (called Lofa County). We also made a visit yesterday with the Vice President of Liberia, the Honorable Joseph Boakai, at his offices in Monrovia to share our successes on this journey. Permaculture is being welcomed on all levels through-out the country.

Two children in the remote, Bazzie Village, smiling through the walls of their traditional cooking house

During this visit to the northern most areas of Liberia, I had the wonderful fortune to be invited into several remote villages and farms to meet the people and to see their amazing day-to-day lives. I saw both beauty and pain yet in everyone's eyes their was a resilience and appreciation for life that sparkled through. I had many special moments with the kids and the elders as we attempted to bridge our communication through body language, expression and sometimes varying degrees of english.... I was blessed with open arms, smiles and the ultimate sign of welcoming, adoption by the village and a promise I could return anytime and call their home my home.....
I must continue to offer my deepest and most sincere gratitudes for the people of Everyday Gandhis, for the groundwork they have laid over the past four years here in Liberia and for the immense vision of peace and for the integrity in which they move and learn in fulfilling their vision. Without them, Permaculture would have taken a lot longer to find its roots in this country.
I also send gratitude to the people of Liberia for their ability to embrace peace and exude it uniquely in their daily lives. I have learned so much from them and will carry their grace back to America.
-Warren Brush
Monrovia, Liberia

Healing and Sports

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 05:24:00 -0600

Amputees Play Soccer in the Healing Process

An amazing afternoon of watching the Monrovia Amputee Soccer players amazing abilities on the field.
March, 2008

Today was full of meetings at the US Embassy in the morning with USAID and witnessing the human spirit and body triumph over adversity in the afternoon.
We began our day going to the US Embassy for meetings with the folks at USAID to share about our project. They were very receptive to the work that EGP and the Permaculture movement are weaving into the fabric of Liberia. It was a wonderful meeting in that it allowed us to share openly about the deep work that is being done to bring peace to this region of the world.
In the afternoon, we went to watch a soccer practice of the Liberian Amputee National Team. It was amazing to see the triumph of spirit and body as these young men volleyed on the field and in my heart at the same time. None of these young men, all of whom were former child soldiers in the brutal civil war that plagued this country for over 15 years. They all have their story of how they lost a limb (or in some cases two of them).
One young man's story was of how he kidnapped and forced to become a fighter who spent years deep in the interior in unfathomable jungle warfare. He said things got so destitute that when the monthly supply helicopter was anticipated to come he shot himself in the leg to be carried away with the injured. It just so happened that that particular helicopter did not show for another month and he developed gangrene in his leg which later had to be amputated. He tried to kill himself in the hospital which failed and he knew that God wanted him to be alive. He is now a father of two children and carries a unique and deep smile...
The soccer game was brutal in its competition and in the skill level, endurance and capacity to extend the body to its limits. These guys never complained of having lost their childhoods or their limbs to a fruitless war. They never portrayed themselves as victims...only as survivors. We have a lot to learn from these folks who have lived through so much and yet do not move through life with the entitlement mentality that so many people in the west exude. If anyone is interested in supporting their league here, please email me with an amount you can donate and I will pass on the money directly to their team captain while I am here. Donate Now!
I will be heading "up-country" in the morning and this will be my last blog for the next two weeks. Please send us your prayers that our journey will bring life to the places we touch. I send my blessings home to all who are supporting this important journey.

In Gratitude,
Warren Brush
Monday, March 3, 2008

Rain in the Dry Season in Liberia

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 05:01:00 -0600

Welcomed by the Rain in Liberia

A girl selling cooked corn on the side of the road in Monrovia, Liberia.
March, 2008

We arrived yesterday evening to Monrovia after driving down a newly paved 30-mile road from the Airport to town. This may seem like an ordinary feat, yet when I was here back in December, there had been no repairs to any roads for a great many years. This journey took over an hour just two and a half months ago. I was asking myself the question of how they pulled it together so quickly when I passed a billboard showing the Liberian President, Ellen Sirleaf with US President, George Bush. They had worked diligently with Chinese funding to get the road paved before he came last month.
Later in the evening the clouds arrived from their journeys to bring a lightning and thunder display that was muted only by the torrential rains. It happens that March is traditionally the driest month of the year which made this rain even more appreciated as a welcoming blessing for our journey. It gave Monrovia a sparkle this morning and the smell of cleansed tropical air.
I spent much of the day preparing my presentations for the remainder of the Permaculture Design Course that I will begin teaching up in the north of the country later this week. The locals say, "We are going up-country," and everyone knows what that means as the road to Voinjama is notorious and beautiful and can talk days to travel the 180 miles or it can take a mere 10 hours if all the luck of the Gods are with you.

This picture is of one of my travel companions named AJ (Anthony Johnson) who is an extraordinary man from Santa Barbara who is part filmmaker, part peacemaker, part jester and an all around wealthy spirit. Here is a picture of him with a percussion master showing him how to make a rhythm with these simple rattles made with seeds and small gourds which are connected with a six inch string. There is a particular way that you move with them to make a distinctly unique rhythm that combines concentric motion and energy with your own movement to bring to life its sounds.
I attempted to visit the EGP team leader's (Sawo) home and family late in the afternoon when traffic came to a complete halt and we did not budge for over an hour. We came to find out that a person had drowned in the river and the bridge over the river was closed for a spell. We sat there watching thousands of people walk by in their Sunday best clothing full of color and grace. The picture above of the girl selling the corn I took while we were waiting.
I will remind everyone that I will not be able to write blog entries after Tuesday night as there is no internet access "up-country," at this point. EGP is considering opening a Voinjama internet cafe that could help students there access libraries of information and also be a part of an early warning system communication center for any escalating conflict, if it ever would occur. We will see...
That's it for today friends. I send my blessing to all of you and I send blessings ahead down the road in front of us all that we may all be able to walk down the wondrous road of gratitude and vision.

In Peace,
Warren
Sunday, March 2, 2008

Peacemaking and Permaculture

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 06:24:00 -0600

In Ghana With The Founder of WANEP

Rice and clothing drying together in the sun in Voinjama, Liberia in December 2007

My first day in Ghana was filled with the intensity of tropical heat, adventure in the city of Accra, and heartfelt conversations around the dinner table with the West African Peacemaker, Emmanuel Bobande, who is the co-founder of the West African Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP). This highly recognized and effective organization has been innovating the processes of peace-building in Africa for the past ten years. It has set a new and never-before-seen bar for peacemakers worldwide to understand, nurture and organize for peace in conflicted regions. One of their many accomplishment is that they have developed an early warning system when conflict is approaching so that the peacemaking process can be engaged, nurtured and the space created for dialogue to ensue.
Emmanuel shared a diversity of success stories about their unique approach to peacemaking here in West Africa. We went on to discuss the common denominators that weave between Peacemaking and Permaculture. There were many...

* For the people to heal, the land must also heal, as does our relationship with her
* We must design and nurture to life as many beneficial relationships between elements in a system
* When you have an outlook that spans many generations your inputs and feedback into the system have a more holistic and sustainable foundation
* With multi-generational localized food stability comes social and cultural stability
* The condolence process is like the compost process, we must break down our grief into its most basic elements to grow a never before seen garden with its nutrients
* Traditional understandings must be listened to and honored
*Mutual Interdependence trumps self-reliance and "freedom"
I am off to Monrovia, Liberia tomorrow to begin the next leg of the journey. I offer my blessings and humble awe to all those people in the world who stand in the power of peace in the face of conflict.

In Gratitude,
Warren Brush
Saturday, March 1, 2008