Silvia Balado, SSA representative to ENA Council
NEXT DATES:
From 1st to 10th August 2003
From 3th to 12th October 2003
From 5th to 14th December 2003
In this program participants lives and share on a daily basis the Permaculture systems that we are developing in the site. Students will learn Permaculture principles through hands on experience. Especially addressed to students that are looking for practical skills on sustainability that college can not offer. Also for people that want to acquire experience to start a sustainable project in their region. Plenty of opportunities to see and participate in permaculture living systems in different development stages, and you may be actively involved in this process and work.
Some of the topics the program cover: Permaculture principles and ethics Forest Garden - Windbreaks - Greenhouse - Seed saving - Ponds - Natural building - Appropriate technologies - Grey water systems/ dry compost toilets Wind energy systems - Natural cooking - Group dynamics - and more...
Organized activities: 4hs per day - Hands on learning in different Permaculture areas 1,30hs per day - Theory (research, presentations, exchange circles, videos) 2hs per day - Community work collaboration (cook, cleaning, maintenance).
Cost for foreign participants us$250.
Fees include accommodation and vegetarian meals.
Schollarships for local participants.
A) Permaculture Design Course
Dates: from 24 October to 7th November 2003
Description: This is a 14 day international Design Course with certificate.
Though tuition will be in Spanish & English, the foreign participants will also have the opportunity to practice Spanish on a daily basis, and to experience the social and cultural context as well. Topics includes, PC principles, patterns and cycles of nature, climate, soils, cultivated ecosystem, energy, water, appropriate technologies, developing settlements, natural building, design strategies, ecovillage design, alternative economies and more...
Lecture, discussion, hands-on practice, and design certificate requirements with mentored small group design projects.
Instructors: Keith Johnson & Peter Bane, from Earthaven, Gustavo Ramirez from Gaia Argentina, and some guests.
Cost: us$750, includes course tuition and notes, food and accommodation
B) Advance Course on Ecovillage Design
Dates: from 9th to 14th November 2003
Description: this program will expose participants to the full range of issues involved in creating sustainable human settlements.
Topics include, village principles, land selection criteria, vision and design, creating community glue, making and keeping agreements, budget estimates, management, size of groups and how they affect relationships, economy and dynamics, shaping the landscape, meeting infrastructure needs, sacred sites and spirituality, testing renewal and enduring through time.
Includes Ecovillage Design Practicum, that is a hands-on design exercise which includes field work.
Instructors: Peter Bane, from Earthaven, Gustavo Ramirez from Gaia Argentina, and some guests.
Cost: us$400, includes course tuition and notes, food and accommodation
THE SITE
Gaia Ecovillage Project, is located in Navarro 110km. southwest of Buenos Aires City, on the Argentine pampas. Built as a milk-processing plant 50 years ago, Gaia has been extensively rehabilitated as a Living and Learning Center, with sleeping facilities, classrooms, library, community kitchen, greenhouse, etc. Power at Gaia is generated by wind turbines, and good examples of reforestation, forest garden, natural building, appropriate technology, waste water treatment, composting toilets, solar showers, solar ovens and several sustainable systems in different stage of development may be seen at the site. All of this in the context of a small pioneer community in evolving process. Gaia hosts the regional office of ENA (Ecovillage Network of the Americas), and the Argentine Permaculture Institute (IAP), as a space for experimenting, implementing and teaching Permaculture systems. They offer courses in Permaculture, Sacred Dances, Aromatherapy, Community living and more. It offers an updated library covering a wide range of topics based on sustainability, as well as interesting videos (most in english).
FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT
Asociación GAIA - Argentine Permaculture Institute
eMail: gaia@gaia.org.ar
Postal Address:
Almafuerte 1732 - (1650) San Martin - Buenos Aires -
Argentina
Asociacion GAIA - http://www.gaia.org.ar
Phone (+54-2272) 492072
Fax (+54-11) 47522197
ARGENTINEAN PERMACULTURE INSTITUTE
Invites you to a great opportunity of intensive Permaculture training in Latin America
Permaculture Design Course
From 24th October to 7th November 2003
Permaculture Advanced course on Ecovillage Design
From 9th to 14th November 2003
By Peter Bane and Keith Johnson (US) & Gustavo Ramirez (Argentina)
Introduction
Permaculture is the design of human-centered environments - towns, homes, gardens, and farms - to work with, not against Nature. We can create neighborhoods and villages that harvest energy from the wind and sun, capture and store rainwater, produce food for their inhabitants, and build soil and clean their own wastes while existing in harmony with the wildness of the landscape around them. Permaculture principles can also be applied to the design of social and economic systems that will support restoration of the earth and nurture self-reliant communities.
This revolutionary and holistic design system is based on the integration of widespread grassroots research, the wisdom of traditional peoples, and modern ecological science. Originated with the work of Australians David Holmgren and Bill Mollison, Permaculture is now taught and practiced by thousands of men and women in over 60 countries.
These courses bring together experienced designers from Northern and Southern ecovillages to share the challenges and the success of their projects
Peter Bane took his initial training in Permaculture design with Max Lindegger and Lea Harrison in 1990, and has gone on to teach over 25 design courses, most recently in Chile, Colorado, Michigan, and North Carolina. For over ten years he has published The Permaculture Activist, North America's leading journal of permaculture design. As editor, author, and journalist, he has reported on Permaculture systems from Nepal to Scandanavia, and his writing has been published in more than a dozen journals and books in Britain, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and the United States, including Planet Drum, Katuah Journal, Permaculture International Journal, Communities Magazine, Eco-Farm and Garden, The Villager, The Overstory Book, and others. A consultant to Slippery Rock University (Pennsylvania) in the design of its graduate program in sustainable systems, and a charter faculty member of the Ecovillage Training Center in Tennessee, Peter is presently a board member of Culture's Edge, an educational non-profit sponsoring programs in sustainable living in the Southern Appalachian Mountains. He has pioneered new course formats in Permaculture education and received the International Permaculture Community Service Award in 1994. Since that time he has been a member of Earthaven Ecovillage in western North Carolina. He joined the community's founding group seven years ago, has served as its Firekeeper (president) and Waterbearer (treasurer), and has played a leading role in developing the village Land Use Plan. Recently he built a timber-frame and clay-straw cottage for himself from local and salvaged materials. A native of Illinois, Peter has lived in all regions of the United States, as well as in Hawaii, Ireland, and Mexico.
Gustavo Ramirez - since his youth art, oriental spirituality and nature have fascinated him. Graduated as a veterinarian in 1983, since then he has participated in several wildlife projects. He got interested in the health of the planet as a whole and started working towards the protection of two wild areas near Buenos Aires City. Whilst working there he created and developed an environmental education program based on the deep connection with nature. He is founder member of Gaia Association. He has lived in Gaia Ecovillage project for five years, and has played a leading role in the general design of the site. He recently built, together with his wife, their cob cottage with local materials. With Permaculture he found the synthesis of many areas in which he has been working separately, which has opened new paths in his work with nature. He took his initial training in Permaculture design with Max Lindegger in 1996, and has gone on to teach Permaculture Design Course in Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Chile. He has created and coordinates Instituto Argentino de Permacultura. He is an active member of RAPEL (Latin-American Permaculture support network) and has made presentations in 1st Latin-American Congress in Argentina. He is also an active member since the creation of GEN (Global Ecovillage Network) and ENA (Ecovillage Network of Americas) One of his main interests at the moment is the adaptation of Permaculture systems to the Latin-American reality, and the inclusion of art, native flora, and popular knowledge to his designs.
Permaculture Design Course
From 24th October to 7th November 2003
Cultivate Practical Skills for Growing your own Food and Medicine, Building your own earth-friendly House, and helping Restore your Community to vital sustainability
The course curriculum will cover the 72-hour requirement for Permaculture design training and participants who complete the course will receive a certificate authorizing them to use the term in pursuit of a livelihood.
Subjects include:
Ethics and Principles
Observation, Pattern & Design
Ecosystems, Climate & Biogeography
Forests, Soils, and Water
Earthworks
The Design of the Home
Natural Building Systems
Energy and Waste Treatment
Appropriate Technology
Gardens and Food Storage
Plants, Animals, and Aquaculture
Design of Towns and Villages
Economic and Financial Systems
Broadscale Agriculture and Land Managment.
Tools for the Designer
Creating a Livelihood
Permaculture Advance course on Ecovillage Design
From 9th to 14th November 2003
Learn the template for creating new ecological communities. We will explore physical and social technologies, the challenges and pitfalls, group dynamics, financial and legal aspects of creating or recreating human communities for the 21st century.
How do we design our way through the crisis of global civilization? Human-scale, fully featured communities are pioneering a setting for the creation of new, more fully human beings. The social experiments of intentional communities grow out of a centuries-old impulse towards a more peaceful and rewarding way of life. Now they are being wed to a growing ecological awareness and sophisticated technologies for living lightly on the earth in the creation of "ecovillages," new or reinhabited settlements capable of meeting the life cycle needs of their residents while restoring the earth around them.
This 6-day program will expose participants to the full range of issues involved in creating sustainable human settlemnents: vision and design, recruitment, creating community glue, making and keeping agreements, governance, finance, economic development, shaping the landscape, meeting infrastructure needs, testing and renewal, and enduring through time.
THE SITE
This course will be held at Gaia Ecovillage Project, in Navarro 110km. southwest of Buenos Aires on the Argentine pampa. Built as a milk-processing plant 50 years ago, Gaia has been extensively rehabilitated as a Living and Learning Center, with sleeping facilities, classrooms, library, community kitchen, greenhouse, etc. Power at Gaia is generated by wind turbines, and good examples of reforestation, forest garden, natural building, appropriate technology, waste water treatment, composting toilets, solar showers, solar ovens and several sustainable systems in different stage of development may be seen at the site. And all of this in the context of a small pioneer community in evolving process.
Gaia hosts the regional office of the Ecovillage Network of the Americas, and the Argentinean Permaculture Institute (IAP), as a space for experimenting, implementing and teaching Permaculture systems. They offer courses in Permaculture, Sacred Dances, Aromatherapy, Community living and more. It offers an updated library covering a wide range of topics based on sustainability, as well as interesting videos. IAP organized the 1st Latin American Permaculture Congress with great success on march 2000.
A lively mix of South and North Americans promises to make this a special event. Instruction will be in Spanish and English with translation. Dormitory accommodations are simple but comfortable, and participants will enjoy delicious vegetarian meals.
Courses Fees & Registration
Those people wishing to attend need to submit the completed application form. Due to limited spaces, they need to send a deposit of 50% of the fees to confirm. There is a 10% discount for those who attend both courses. Donations are welcome to subside others participants from Latin America that ask for financial support.
The total cost includes tuition, notes, lodging and meals
Permaculture Design Course: US$750
Advance course on Ecovillage Design: US$400 - Participants should have basic Permaculture knowledge as a pre-requisite to the Ecovillage Design Advance course.
FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
Asociacion GAIA - http://www.gaia.org.ar - Email: gaia@gaia.org.ar
Postal address: Almafuerte 1732 - San Martin – (1650) Buenos Aires - Argentina
Phone: (+54-2272) 492072 - Fax: (+54-11) 47522197