Outline proposal

Your name:  Steven Jones

Your organisation

• Sector39  (Wales UK)
• EUPO  (Eastern Uganda Permaculture Org)
• RWP (Rwanda Women’s Permaculture)
• Permaculture Association Britain 

Were you sent the Call for Submissions by a farming organisation? If so, which organisation, and can you let us know the name of your contact there? *

Andrew Goldring Permaculture Assoc Britain

Please give us your proposal

This is a session that you would like to run at the conference

Format of proposal *

Overview – series of short presentations

Summary – Voices from permaculture front line

Possible session title *

Permaculture capacity building East Africa, career pathways for future leaders

Possible speakers
(please include the country they will be speaking from and the language they will present in). *

1. Steven Jones, Wales (English)
2. Godfrey Opolot (English)
3. Paul Odiwour Ogola, Kenya ( English)
4. Rose Nibagwire., Rwanda  (Kinyarwanda/ French)
5. Stella Amuge, Uganda (English)
6. Rogers Wasibi, Uganda (English)
7. Helen Ajo    (English)

We will pre-record contributions from Africa team members

Do you have a chair or a facilitator in mind? *

chaired by Andrew Goldring

Tell us about the session and why it would be interesting and relevant to a global audience or to an audience in your time zone. (100 words) *

Although based in Wales, S39 offers a 30-year perspective on permaculture in Africa. This session draws on that experience to look towards rapid capacity building, whilst creating career pathways for practitioners. We are calling this the S39 Academy of Permaculture, the idea is to accelerate an ecological succession via the empowerment of pioneering people. 

• Many African nations have a young population, (Uganda median 15)
• Populations in Uganda, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Congo to double
• Significant shortage of elders, educators, mentors 
• Need to train trainers creating career pathways forward
• Permaculture must underpin food and livelihood security with habitat protection and restoration
• Potential interest base is vast and collectively could have global influence, Africa can lead the world away from dystopia.

Ask: Can we create a Permaculture seed fund for enterprise? 

 Please provide more detail about your proposed session, including what you envisage the session would cover. *

1. Some opening statements, context and history:
   A series of 4 PDC’s in 2016-2018 delivered through Wales/Uganda partnership produced 200  permaculture graduates across mainly Uganda, also Kenya/ Rwanda, and South Sudan. The Alumni represent an unintended network which has since become active and effective, this is already causing far reaching impacts. What have we learned, how can we build on this?
2. PermoAfrica Centre 
   (Paul Odiwour Ogola, permaculture farmer, trainer, entrepreneur, pioneer. Kenya)
   Paul, a 2016 S39 PDC graduate has since connected together 48 villages in his region, training members through his own permaculture hub and outreach work. The region is without running water and a strong possibility exists to unify the villages and their permaculture inspired common vision via a community borehole. This will give them a high level of food security and economic autonomy establishing Homa Bay district as a valuable case study. 
3. Lessons from refugees. 
   (Steven Jones, S39 Director and lead tutor) In 2018 S39 won a bid to lead on a 7 month food and livelihood training program, which we delivered via a peer to peer learning model, supported by an outreach facilitation team – action learning support, drawn from the best of the PDC graduates so far.
   This experience allowed S39 an opportunity to employ our own trainees and then explore how the ideas replicate, via peer to peer learning, within a vast refugee settlement. 
4. Project evaluation
   (Stella Amuge, Student intern @S39 in project evaluation, Makarere, Uganda) Stella has recently joined the team as an intern and is completing her degree in project evaluation in Kampala currently. She brings a fresh perspective and voice to the project, and she is helping us learn our lessons and better understand and communicate the outcomes and future potentials.
5. Academy of Permaculture 
   (Steven Jones, voices from pioneers and regional training demonstration hubs) 
   Contributions from:
   Rose Nibagwire – Women’s Permaculture Rwanda
   Ali Tebandeke – Butambala regional training hub
6. Small farmers and global cooperation
   (Wasibi Rogers, Mt Elgon Coffee & Honey Co-op, Uganda) Rogers coordinates and trains 700 farming families in the mountainous Mt Elgon region, under-planting re-afforested slopes with coffee and honey giving plants. Regenerating degraded lands and communities with high value crops.
7. Proposal for a permaculture credit union
   (Steven Jones) Help us launch an enterprise seed fund, so we can invest in pioneers. A stakeholder managed savings and investment schemes. We need £28K now to launch a series of first generation permaculture enterprises. With seed money we can start a permaculture credit union in the heart of a population explosion, in a land where nearly everyone is a farmer or one step away from a subsistence culture. Africa is fertile ground for permaculture!
8. Closing comments
   (Andy Goldring)