Contact: Margie Bushman
Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
(805) 962-2571, email:
margie@sbpermaculture.org
Santa Barbara
Permaculture Network
Permaculture Around the World Series
Child Soldiers of Liberia,
Transformation through Permaculture
with Warren Brush
Saturday, October 4, 7-9pm 2008
Fundraiser Donation $10
Santa Barbara Central Library, Faulkner Gallery
Please join Santa Barbara
Permaculture Network as it launches its new series “Permaculture
Around the World” by hosting a talk with Warren Brush of Quail
Springs Learning Oasis and Permaculture Farm as he talks about his
journey and work in Liberia, West Africa.
Invited by the Santa Barbara based
non-profit Everyday Gandhis
(
www.everydaygandhis.org), Warren Brush traveled to Liberia to teach
workshops in Permaculture as a part of a peace building process, with
vocational training for many former child-soldiers from a brutal 15 year
civil war the country had endured. After the long civil war, the
land was injured, but so were its children, now grown to young
adults. Caught in the nightmare of a war they didn’t create, but
had been conscripted into, many were reluctant to return to their homes
after the terrible atrocities of war. Could Permaculture help heal the
land and its people?
Warren Brush made his first journey to Voinjama, Liberia in 2007 to teach
a Permaculture course to students from a wide variety of backgrounds.
These included elders of all the local tribes, medicine people,
ex-combatant youth, trained agriculturists, subsistence farmers, men and
women, all teaching translated into the local language. Teaching
sustainable agriculture and building techniques, as a part of the course,
the students participated in a design project for a newly created Peace
and Permaculture Demonstration Farm. In March 2008, the first
graduating class of a Permaculture Design Course in Liberia’s history
received their diplomas from an assistant to the country's President
H.E.Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, noting the significance of the event.
Permaculture (PERMAnent agriCULTURE) is the conscious design and
maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems that have the
diversity, resilience, and stability of natural ecosystems. It is the
harmonious integration of landscape with humans in providing shelter,
water, food, energy and other material and non-material needs in a
sustainable manner.
Quail Springs is a 450-acre working farm and wilderness center focused on
modeling and teaching the concepts and practices of sustainability.
Located in the Cuyama Valley north of Ojai, CA, Quail Springs
(
www.quailsprings.org) has been incorporating Permaculture into all of
its land practices on their farm and demonstration site since it's
inception. Permaculture teachers from around the world have taught
at Quail Springs, and most recently, students from Liberia have attended
advanced training courses there. The hope is to share ecological
design techniques and strategies with both the local communities of
California and the world. Currently Quail Springs is involved in a
capital campaign to help build a Core Mentoring Center to accommodate
this work, and join a network of Permaculture Training Centers around the
globe.
Warren Brush is a certified Permaculture designer, educator, and
storyteller. He is co-founder of Quail Springs Learning Oasis &
Permaculture Farm, Wilderness Youth Project, Mentoring for Peace, and
Trees for Children. He works extensively in Permaculture education
and sustainability design in North America and in Africa. Follow
Warren's work in Africa on his blog at
http://web.mac.com/warrenbrush/iWeb/Site/African%20Journeys/African%20Journeys.html
.
The event takes place at the Santa Barbara Public Library, Faulkner
Gallery, 40 East Anapamu St, in downtown Santa Barbara, on
Saturday, October 4, 7-9pm, 2008. No reservations are required,
fundraiser donation for Quail Springs work $10. For more information
please call (805) 962-2571, or email
margie@sbpermaculture.org;
www.sbpermaculture.org. Sponsored by the Santa Barbara Permaculture
Network and Everyday Gandhis.
-end-
Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
an educational
non-profit since 2000
(805) 962-2571
P.O. Box 92156, Santa Barbara, CA 93190
margie@sbpermaculture.org
www.sbpermaculture.org
"We are like trees,
we must create new leaves, in new directions, in order to grow." -
Anonymous