European Permaculture Network – Harmony & Synergy

17/07/201918/07/2019

The Swiss Permaculture Academy is born!

It is with great pleasure that we inform you of the birth of the Swiss Permaculture Academy!

According to Barbara Garofoli “it was a great co-creation process where everyone gave their best for a common goal. There has been so much cooperation, attention, sensitivity and commitment from everyone, so touching.”

A special thanks to Massimo Candela and Elisabetta Dallavalle, both presidents of the Accademia Italiana di Permacultura and the Ellipse group, who repeatedly supported Barbara Garofoli from a distance and helped to “untangle” some knots in Switzerland and to clear the way. A special thanks to Elena Parmiggiani who came directely from Italy to support the birth of the Swiss Permaculture Academy.

As a diploma-holder of the AIP – Accademia Italiana di Permacultura – Barbara Garofoli organized in 2013 the first PDC in french-speaking side of Switzerland and since then accompanied a group of students in their Action Learning Pathway.

In 2016 the first diplomas were delivered in French Switzerland by the AIP and on 2018 the Swiss Permaculture Academy was born, in collaboration with the AIP and the Permaculture Association of the Italian Switzerland.

Working in connection with the AIP is a great example of simmetry, a complimentary criteria during the accreditation but so important to built cooperation, partnership support and sharing.

At the moment in Switzerland are 21 diploma holders and more than 70 students involved in the Active Learning Pathway .

To support students the Academy offers an Action Learning Manual as well as a list of tutors with a description of each diploma-holder.

The objectif of the ASP is to be a reference for the permaculture movement in Switzerland, supporting students in their active learning pathway and working in collaboration with other permaculture experiences around the world.

The ASP engages to co-create a structure interconnected with all the permaculture institutions in Europe and representing the different visions of all the actors involved in the permaculture movement in Switzerland.

Official documents are available in French, Italian, German and English, about PDC curriculum and criteria as well as Accreditation criteria for the diploma of Applied Permaculture Design.

For further information you may contact : secretariat [at] permacultura [dot] ch

10/07/2019

Spanish National Permaculture

This last May, some 80 permaculture designers and fans gathered under the full moon in the region of Albacete in Southern Spain. For four days we shared knowledge and practical information, as is typical for Permaculture convergences, but we also collaborated on the design of the national organization Permaculture Íbera and together dreamt it into the next phases. Several dynamics were used to slow down, be present, reflect, observe and then interact. New workgroups (anillos = rings) such as Finance and Legalities and Education were suggested to be added to the previous sociocratic setup by the pilot group, middle ring or core group, which has been working (voluntary) towards a solid structure for 5 years now already. Willing participants positioned themselves in their working area of choice, and as we write/read, these new action groups are committing to sharing time and experiences in search of practical solutions to regenerate our landscapes and to up resilience through reinforcing connections across the bioregions of the Spanish country.

Photos of the event are here and if you read Spanish, a lovely write up was made by Igor, one of the event’s kitchen coordination group and fervid Permaculture Designer himself.

10/07/201910/07/2019

Search for niche innovations in Europe in the field of food and agriculture

Dear European Permaculture-Network,

We from NAHhaft together with our project partners Friends of the Earth Europe and Nyéléni Europe and Central Asia would be grateful for your support. This would involve reaching out to people from a variety of sustainable niche initiatives in the agriculture and food systems of Europe, and increasing awareness of these initiatives.

The research project aims at finding a plurality of food and agriculture related niche innovations that are not yet or barely known in Germany. By means of their Europe-wide promotion, impulses for a sustainable adaptation of the niches in many regions across Europe should be set. In addition, the diversity of niches is meant to unleash synergy effects on a sustainable transformation of these food systems.

We are currently in in the research phase. In order to reach as many initiatives as possible, it would be of great support to the project, if you could pass on the document in attachment to your members and associate networks or if you could upload it to your homepage and social media platforms.

Additional project related information can be found here:

https://www.ernaehrungswandel.org/fileadmin/Website/NEuropa/NEuropa_Flyer.pdf

If you have suggestions in this regard, please write them to us: helen.engelhardt [at] nahhaft [dot] de

You are invited to visit our homepage, if you are interested in getting to know more about our work at NAHhaft: https://www.nahhaft.de

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Best regards

NAHhaft–

Helen Engelhardt

Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin

12/05/201911/06/2019

Alfred Decker courses

“Training Permaculture Teachers” (TPT). Rosemary Morrow developed TPT in order to have a multiplier effect in the development of permaculture, with the intention to develop the course in the different European languages by teachers from those countries. The following TPT courses in Europe 2019 are facilitated by Alfred Decker and local teachers:

– Sweden @ Kosters Trädgårdar, November 5-12, with Cathrine Dolleris and Helena Von Bothmer. This course is available to PDC holders from any country who want to teach participatory learning methods from Rosemary Morrow’s experience and from the “Permaculture Educators Course”. Read More… (or we could put the link to the announcement on the EuPN site: https://permaculture-network.eu/events/training-permaculture-teachers-course/)

– Portugal @ Vale de Lama, October 26-November 1, with Hugo Oliveira and Patricia Pereira

LAND Centres in Europe

LAND Centres are steadily emerging across Europe, as well as seeds being sown for their later emergence. IPEN, which is acting as an EuPN Education Work Group, is keen to assist this as one of our six priorities is:

Supporting the development of permaculture demonstration and education projects and the iLAND Network to connect them and share lessons, education resources and good practice;

LAND centre “Træstubben” in Copenhagen, Denmark. Photo: Felix Becker

We also want to help national associations establish their own national LAND Centres systems. We see LAND Centres as important for building the educational infrastructure within countries, including having a potential role in teacher training and development, development of education resources in the relevant language and as hubs for local, regional and national networking and collaboration.

IPEN has recently launched its new website, and within that there are a set of iLAND pages which we really encourage you to look at. These set out the criteria for LAND centres, provide useful resources on good practice from established learning and demonstration projects, and an initial application system. We already have a number of initial applications in from Europe and around the world, and will shortly start to engage with them to form an iLAND pilot network of 10-12 centres which we will work with more closely, whilst the wider iLAND network grows and learns from the pilot network.

If the EUPN Erasmus+ ReLeaP application to establish a ‘regenerative leadership programme’ is successful there will be resources and outputs from that programme to support the development of LAND Centres in Europe, although even without it, it is clear that LAND Centres are here to stay, are growing steadily, and will play an important part in the development of the permaculture movement in EuPN member countries, and across Europe as a whole, which will help inspire a wider spread around the world.

We encourage national associations and academies to sign up to IPEN’s newsletter so that we can keep you informed of iLAND Network developments and related permaculture education issues.