[Scpg] Permaculture Design Course In Liberia - a Resounding Success

[Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network]

Permaculture Design Course In Liberia - a Resounding Success
http://permaculture.org.au/2008/06/21/permaculture-design-course-in-liberia-a-resounding-success/

Posted in Aid Projects, Courses/Workshops, News 
by Warren Brush on the June 21st, 2008

by Warren Brush, Co-Founder of Quail Springs 
Learning Oasis www.quailsprings.org


Back in March we celebrated the first graduating 
class of a Permaculture Design Course in 
Liberia’s history. Liberia had been in the throws 
of a brutal civil war since the late 80’s when 
the Permaculture movement was making its way 
around the world and was unable to get into 
Liberia until now, four years after the cease fire and peace building ensued.

We had 19 official graduates of the course which 
took nearly a month to complete as we had to 
translate into the local Lorma language. There 
were six other attendees who completed 3/4 of the 
course and who will complete it at a later date 
which will bring the graduating class to a total 
of 25. Many of the graduates shared how this was 
a historical moment for Liberia as Permaculture 
is seeding new ways of agriculture and living 
into their part of the world and deeply into their world-views.


As we were well into the course presentation and 
participation
the rain-forests surrounding us was 
being clear-cut and burned to ashes, choking the 
air and blocking the sun with a thick layer of 
smoke. All of this
for an agricultural practice 
that was introduced to them sometime ago by 
western influences. At one point in the course, 
an elder was talking about why they felt they had 
to “slash and burn” as he referred to this form 
of agriculture as traditional. I quickly reminded 
him that this was a conventional practice and not 
a traditional one. He quizzically looked to the 
sky and said, “You know, you are right. My 
ancestors did not do this to our forests. I stand corrected!”

We went on to weave the understandings of 
Permaculture and their own traditional values 
into the fabric of their applied understanding in 
a learning journey that crossed many 
western-adopted cultural boundaries. By the end 
of the course, the students had created beautiful 
designs for a demonstration farm, spoke 
eloquently and cohesively about sustainable 
agriculture and habitation to other farmers, 
local radio and an international film-making team 
(who is working on a film about Permaculture and 
Liberia as a form of peacemaking.) They all vowed 
to integrate PC into their farms and villages over the coming rainy season.




We have identified six individuals from the 
course who we hope to find funding for to come to 
the USA for our Permaculture Design Course with 
Geoff Lawton at Quail Springs this summer to gain 
further training. I will then return to Liberia 
later this year to offer an intensive Train the 
Trainer course for those six, in hopes that they 
will become the lead trainers for PC in their 
country. I will also offer several workshops for 
general audiences around the country about 
sustainable rice farming systems, which is the 
“national staple food” of Liberia. If you have 
pictures, research, anecdotes about on the ground 
systems of sustainable rice growing, I would 
appreciate you sharing with me for this 
developing presentation (send to my email address 
below). I will give all contributors and other 
interested PC teachers a copy of the presentation once I finish it.

The next layer of teaching will be done in 
co-partnership with these developing Liberian PC 
teachers and myself. With requests coming in from 
all over the country for PDC workshops to be 
integrated into other regions, we are working 
diligently to train locals to be the instructors 
who take it nationwide. I have been interviewed 
twice this trip and once last trip on UNMIL radio 
which is widely listened to through-out Liberia 
which has sparked this countrywide interest in 
Permaculture. I also did a 1/2 hour interview on 
a radio station that serves the local population 
of the state I was in (called Lofa County). We 
also made a visit yesterday with the Vice 
President of Liberia, the Honorable Joseph 
Boakai, at his offices in Monrovia to share our 
successes on this journey. Permaculture is being 
welcomed on all levels through-out the country.



During this visit to the northern most areas of 
Liberia, I had the wonderful fortune to be 
invited into several remote villages and farms to 
meet the people and to see their amazing 
day-to-day lives. I saw both beauty and pain yet 
in everyone’s eyes their was a resilience and 
appreciation for life that sparkled through. I 
had many special moments with the kids and the 
elders as we attempted to bridge our 
communication through body language, expression 
and sometimes varying degrees of english
. I was 
blessed with open arms, smiles and the ultimate 
sign of welcoming, adoption by the village and a 
promise I could return anytime and call their home my home
..

I must continue to offer my deepest and most 
sincere gratitudes for the people of Everyday 
Gandhis, for the groundwork they have laid over 
the past four years here in Liberia and for the 
immense vision of peace and for the integrity in 
which they move and learn in fulfilling their 
vision. Without them, Permaculture would have 
taken a lot longer to find its roots in this country.

I also send gratitude to the people of Liberia 
for their ability to embrace peace and exude it 
uniquely in their daily lives. I have learned so 
much from them and will carry their grace back to America.