Course Outline for Six Weekend PDC
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Our work is focused on assisting some of the highest poverty and most oppressed areas on the planet, which are also very culturally rich with much to offer. We focus on projects that regenerate degraded lands and devastated economies so these communities can become self-sufficient and experience resilient abundance. Our methods are focused on connecting resources and knowledge and putting them in the hands of the people at grass roots level so they can create their own destinies within their own cultural context.
We offer our courses and services for free to individuals from those impoverished areas and also bring resources into those environments to assist in the process of regeneration.
We invite students from outside those communities to participate, and charge them rates comparable to similar courses in order to help fund our work in those areas. We feel this is a better way to do it than grant monies, where possible, as it gives us more freedom to remain maximally flexible and responsive to the needs and resources of the communities.
This is in particular to the depressed areas in Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota and Haiti, post earthquake.
You can make a tax-deductible donation in one of two ways:
Send a check made payable to:
“Permaculture Haiti Fund” or “Pine Ridge OLCERI Fund” in the memo and mail it to 8201
SW 99 Court,
Miami, FL 33173
Or right here online…
AND/OR Purchase Books and Products. Portions of the proceeds allows us to reach out to communities such as these.
Books-Products
Pine Ridge – Donate Now…
Haiti – Donate Now…
Miami Earth ‘n Us
Florida Earth Ship PDC
Tuskegee
Pine Ridge PDC
These photos are from the Permaculture Design Course that was held at the Pine Ridge Lakota Indian Reservation in August, 2009.
Pine Ridge reflections
Writing from the rez – the course is starting to wrap up with students going off into their own world, working on their design projects. I’ve been working with OLCERI (Oglala Lakota Cultural and Economic Revitalization Initiative) for several years and helped raise funding for their initial projects, but this is the first partnership for Permaculture Guild and OLCERI.
The course was held on an 8000 acre cattle ranch on the rez, run by Bryan Deans. Bryan also heads a youth organization called Running Strong, which gives Lakota youth experience training and riding horses on the ranch and gaining other traditional skills.
Some of the students who arrived early for the course helped raise the tipis that dot his pasture amidst horses and a round pole shade shelter.
Bryan has many projects ongoing – homemade wind generators, veggie oil biodiesal, straw bale retrofit of flimsy homes, super efficient heating stoves using “waste” fuels to counteract the sometimes brutally cold winds that sweep the rez, and a plan to provide food for the rez on tribal common lands, a return to the wildcraft gathering ways of the Lakota. Bryan’s ranch is an ideal place for permaculture design – so many resources yet so much damage. Illegal overgrazing by a white rancher on tribal lands has created huge erosion and water catchment problems which permaculture is well-qualified to solve.
Our expert guest permaculture instructor, Warren Brush, has communicated many ideas about how to regenerate rangeland, not only to catch water, but to again grow the tall prairie grasses that have been unable to find a foothold in the denuded landscape. He has shared knowledge about intensive raising of grass fed cattle and other animals, as well as integrating multiple systems such as aquaculture (fish and water plants), food forests and more. This is big country, with lots of potential.
The students are learning about Lakota ways and perspectives as they absorb knowledge about weather, natural patterns in landscapes and in communities, living soil and water, and the transactions of trees and how all of these relate to designing for abundance in human systems. They are also getting practical hands on knowledge – how to create a 21 day compost pile, how to do a cold frame graywater system, how to make energy efficient stoves.
Bryan’s vision is large – he wants to regenerate all 2 million acres of the reservation, he wants to use straw bale to retrofit the very energy inefficient housing that dots the rez, for warmth in winter and coolness in summer, he wants to create food forests all over the rez to feed his people and he wants to create a sustainability school where anyone can come to learn about how to live a truly sustainable life. There are others on the rez who also share large visions – how appropriate for the Lakota to lead the way in teaching sustainable practices.
The Permaculture Guild wants to back up this vision, and in conjunction with OLCERI, we are planning a series of courses on regenerative practices at the rez next year. One aspect of the program will be a youth component, where youth programs at Pine Ridge will team up with Permaculture Guild to create an apprenticeship program for youth on and off the rez. Skills will include natural building, cattle cutting and herding, native wildcraft and herbs, permaculture design, wilderness survival and tracking, etc. Career mentoring will be included as a part of this program as well.
Other workshops will include straw bale and super adobe building, water systems, wind turbines, biodiesel production and of course, permaculture design. Warren Brush has agreed to return next year to bring his wisdom and expertise on permaculture design to a new group of PDC students in September. More news soon!
Pine Ridge – Donate Now…
AND/OR Purchase Books and Products. Portions of the proceeds allows us to reach out to communities such as these.
Books-Products