[Scpg] THUR Dec 9/Permaculture Around the World Series/From the Mara Soil Film Showing/TANZANIA

Sun Dec 5 07:09:36 PST 2010

Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
  Permaculture Around the World Series
"From the Mara Soil" film screening
Permaculture & Abundant Living in Rural East Africa
Tanzania
[]

Thursday, Dec 9, 7pm-9pm 2010, Donation $5
Santa Barbara Central Library, Faulkner Gallery
      Join Santa Barbara Permaculture Network as it continues its 
Permaculture Around the World series, highlighting the path of 
Permaculture  around the globe, this time in Tanzania, East Africa.

         What if global hunger, poverty and disease could be solved 
with the natural and abundant resources already at our 
disposal?  From the Mara Soil, a stunning film directed by Steve 
Schrenzel, transports you to a community in rural Tanzania trying to 
answer this question with a novel approach to solving humanity's 
greatest challenges---with simple, natural, and affordable solutions, 
many inspired by Permaculture.

         The Mara region of Tanzania is one of the poorest in 
Africa.  Nestled between beautiful Lake Victoria and the famous 
Serengeti Plain, it is home to approximately 1.3 million residents, 
with a per capita income for most households of less than fifty cents 
per day.  As one community member states in the opening of the 
film  "In Tanzania, we don't have war, we don't have dictator, we 
only have poverty".  This abject poverty creates untold stresses and 
challenges for both the people and the environment.

         Global Resource Alliance (GRA) based in Ojai, CA, is an 
organization dedicated to bringing hope, joy and abundance to the 
world's most impoverished regions, and has a Center located in 
Musoma, a small city in the Mara region of Tanzania.  Their work 
includes assistance to AIDS orphans, malaria prevention, primary rock 
water resource development, alternative energy strategies, solar 
cooking, micro-finance, and currently a permaculture focus on nearby 
Kinesi, a village of 5000 on the banks of Lake Victoria, where the 
film takes place.

         Attending the "Permaculture & Sustainable Aid for the 21st 
Century" three day conference hosted by Santa Barbara Permaculture 
Network in 2006 with permaculture teacher Geoff Lawton from 
Australia, GRA co-founders Lyn Hebenstreit and Tara Blasco were 
inspired to host a Permaculture Design Course (PDC) with Geoff in 
Musoma the following year. This design course resulted in many local 
PDC graduates and a permaculture plot at the Musoma GRA Center, 
already evolving into a lush model for the surrounding area.

         In 2009, members of the Musoma GRA Center traveled to Malawi 
Africa to attend the 9th International Permaculture Convergence 
(IPC9), where wonderful connections with others practicing 
permaculture in Africa took place.  Julious Piti and Alias Mlambo, 
long time permaculturists from the Chikukwa Ecological Land Use 
Community Trust, Chimanimani district Zimbabwe, were hired to assist 
with the design of Kinesi Village.  Being aware that Tanzania is in 
the center of Africa, the hope is these positive strategies and 
models will radiate out to the rest of the continent, leaving poverty 
and despair behind.

         Please join Santa Barbara Permaculture Network as we share 
the dedicated and enlightened work of Global Resource Alliance 
co-founders, Lyn Hebenstreit and Tara Blasco.  Film-maker Steve 
Schrenzel will also be in attendance.  Santa Barbara Permaculture 
Network was honored to have visited the GRA Center in Tanzania last 
year on the way to Malawi for the International Permaculture 
Convergence (to read more about this visit go to 
http://www.sbpermaculture.org/talkstory.html).

         The event takes place on Thursday, December 9, 7-9 pm at the 
downtown Santa Barbara Public Library, 40 East Anapamu St, Santa 
Barbara, CA. Donation $5, no reservations needed.  For more 
information visit our website at www.sbpermaculture.org

[]

More Info:

 From the Mara Soil -- Film Trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJMaY8ZanD8

FROM THE MARA SOIL takes you to a stunning but impoverished region in 
Tanzania, where a handful of activists are fighting food scarcity, 
water shortage, disease, health problems, and deforestation by 
teaching their people to use Mother Nature to lift themselves out of poverty.
Produced by Global Resource Alliance.  Directed by Steve Schrenzel.

Global Resource Alliance (GRA) makes a commitment to help reach the 
United Nations Millennium Development goal to reduce by half, the 
number of people suffering from abject poverty, hunger and lack of 
access to clean water and basic sanitation by the year 2015.  To 
learn more: www.globalresourcealliance.org

For more information about International Permaculture Convergences 
(IPC) visit: www.ipcon.org. The next IPC will be in the Middle East 
in Jordan, the Fall of 2011.  The theme will be water.   www.ipcon.org

-end-

Santa Babara Permaculture Network Logo

(805) 962-2571
P.O. Box 92156, Santa Barbara, CA 93190
margie at sbpermaculture.org
www.sbpermaculture.org

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