Organization: Quail Springs Permaculture
Registration deadline: 13 Apr 2018
Starting date: 29 Apr 2018
Ending date: 12 May 2018
This course equips people working in international development and grassroots projects with the perspectives and skills needed to engage with communities in partnership to incorporate elements into the design of communities, smallholder farms and land with household agricultural production that are holistic, appropriate, strategic, effective, diverse, as well as ecologically and economically sound.
Topics include farmer-managed natural regeneration, agroecology, drought-flood cycle mitigation, monitoring and evaluation, dryland strategies, overview of USAID Permagarden and Resilience Design approach, hydrological stabilization, crop enhancement, food security, waste to resource design, and much more!t
Instructors for this course include Warren Brush and Thomas Cole, who co-wrote the TOPS USAID manual on Resilience Design for Smallholder Farms. PDF available here. This course includes the 72-hr Permaculture Design Certification through the Permaculture Research Institute.
What is Permaculture?
Permaculture is a design science utilizing an innovative systems-approach to consciously design landscapes, human settlements and smallholder farming systems that integrate functional diversity and biological fertility by mimicking natural eco-systems. Diverse and fertile systems act resilient in the face of shocks.
Who is this course for?
This course is designed for people who work with Non-Government Organizations (NGO’s), Government Organizations, or are Community Organizers. The teaching is directly relevant for international development practitioners, including the technical teams from agency Headquarters and field teams engaged in implementation.
What is the applicability?
People working in international development will benefit from the years of experience of our teaching team in applying permaculture around the globe. We have tailored the entire permaculture certification curriculum to better equip the people who work in international situations where people live in non-westernized conditions. The Quail Springs Learning site is ideal for the immersion of these teachings in an off the grid, nutrient cycling, dry land, water conscious community, where we work with the surrounding natural resources to provide for our shelter, water, food, and energy. Participants learn:
- Tools to integrate sustainable systems design into existing projects
- A systems analysis design protocol for holistic pattern recognition
- To design stable and resilient food, shelter, water and waste cycling systems for health and resilience in all of your projects
- To create an ethics and principle based training program within your organization that honors local customs, traditional knowledge and ecological conditions
The course has an emphasis on hands-on projects including a practical design project that is site and context specific and integrates all of the different elements of a thorough Permaculture Design.
"My learning journey at Quail Springs helped to nurture my presence of mind to be a better and more active listener – a vital trait for the international development professional. The coursework was incredibly pertinent to my work in Uganda and without a doubt made me more aware, more compassionate, and more focused in my role as a project manager and human being."
– Grant Buhr, Project Focus, PDC graduate
How to register:
Register online at: http://www.quailsprings.org/programs/permaculture/pdcid/ Email jenya@quailsprings.org with any additional questions.
