Developing an Academy for Permaculture

This post will be updated

The vision is to create an on-going, open-ended training and volunteering program for permaculture. This vision includes developing a parallel relationship with our project partners in East Africa as well as working as locally as we can here in the Welsh borders through local farms, community food growing and habitat restoration projects. In the longer term we would love to be able to exchange students between the U.K. and E.A. and this kind of information sharing is something that project investor Arkleton Trust very much believe in.

An unintended network of permaculture students, graduates, teachers, practitioners and sites has evolved in the process of running courses over many years, whilst participating in the development of many emergent and new projects at the same time. Something which has become apparent is that we are all learning constantly, and we all contribute this learning in different ways, be they students, teachers, mentors, volunteers, novices and experts it is clear we all contribute in our own way, the Academy is an attempt to bring these processes together to facilitate much more effective learning and sharing for permaculture. We believe the timing for this could not be more important with a rising need for a more robust local food economy and a need to restore and enhance much of the biodiversity which has been eroded by more aggressive farming practices.

S39 Academy is a network rather than a place, but through partnership we plan to open training and demonstration centers in 2 locations this year, at Treflach farm Shropshire and Homa Bay Kenya. This post will focus on UK side of this partnership but our horizons certainly broadened when S39  ran their first permacutlure training in Uganda in 2016 and we have since realised that East Africa is incredibly fertile ground for the spread of permaculture and colleagues there could become global exemplars rapidly at the rate they are progressing.

Certainly we all need to learn from each other, and we need to support each other to create the opportunities we need and our vision for the Academy of Permaculture is one of peer-peer mentoring, tutoring and support.