Information Transfer: Spreading the Permaculture Message

Since becoming part of the Permaculture movement, I've been grappling with the basic questions that we all confront upon completing a design course: What do I do now? How do I help spread the message?

Organizing Permaculture design courses is one strategy, and the most visible within the Permaculture community. But there is a much more basic need, I believe, and that is to focus on the transfer of Permaculture knowledge in any and every way possible. Frankly, most people in the United States cannot muster the time needed to complete the orthodox, two-week intensive model, and even setting up courses that run on weekends only, still leaves out so many of us who are dealing with family or work obligations. The upcoming course at the New York Open Center, taught by Claudia Joseph, will be run on a series of Saturdays starting in July 2007, which will probably enable many others to take the course who would normally not be able to devote entire weekends to learning Permaculture design, but even this format will exclude so many others who simply lack the time and energy.

One of the basic motivations for creating Tristate Food Not Lawns was to help bridge the gap between those who have the time/money/energy to complete a course, and those who merely have the desire and will to gather in some basic Permaculture techniques. Our strategy is simple: workshops and "Permablitzes."

Workshops generally deal with single topics, such as composting, natural building, water systems, etc., and provide a compact, hands-on experience. We need to arrange as many of these experiences as possible, focusing especially on keeping the cost low and the number of workshops as great as possible. We probably need to think in terms of repeating workshops as well, perhaps a series that will allow for numerous opportunities to take and repeat courses.

Permablitzes are another fantastic opportunity. All that is needed is a property (and a willing owner, naturally!), a design team, and a gang of volunteers to implement the design. All stages of this process should be open to anyone who desires to be involved, and this includes bringing in non-PDC graduates to help out in design work. The one thing we all learn in Permaculture is that designing in a group brings together unique and wonderful ideas that would not be possible if trying to design alone, and I feel that there is no reason why non-PDC grads cannot make a strong contribution. The day of the blitz is also a wonderful learning experience, both for veterans and novices, for there are always plenty of surprises, and answering the numerous questions (such as "why exactly are you digging a trench in the back yard?") is a quick and easy way of spreading the theory.

We have already completed our first "blitz", and there are more on the way, and we are in the planning stages for other workshops and seminars. Please keep visiting this site for updates.