Subject: [permaculture] New Format Permaculture Designers Course

From: Skye <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 03 Apr 1999 22:08:41 -0600

New Format Permaculture Course

The 72 hour, two-week residential format for the Permaculture Design
Certificate course developed in Australia under a regime of generous
social and employment condition contracts. It suited Australian work and
lifestyle patterns.

But it does not work well outside those conditions.  USA, Germany and
England have all had to develop different formats. Here in Mexico, we
are finding the same experience.

It is very difficult for Mexican people to have two weeks to attend a
course. Financially and socially difficult.

To make it easier for people to get their Design Certificate, we are now
offering a new format.

The first module is an eight-day (in Mexico a "week" is often spoken of
as "ocho dias" -eight days) intensive, residential course. During this
part the basic theory and technologies of Permaculture will be covered,
using practical and creative teaching methods. The second phase involves
the students returning home and undertaking the design component of the
course from their own home base, and for a project that is directly
relevant to them and their lives. In this time they will be supported
through correspondence or email with the course teacher/tutor. This
design work must be submitted for assessment prior to the issuing of the
certificate.

This format is more affordable, the design project is more directly
relevant to the participantsand I believe the standard of work on the
designs will be higher than normal (it certainly has to be better than
the "substantial attendance" requirement of Australia that assures only
that people attended, not that they actually learnt anything!).

The first course to be offered using this format will be held in the
tropical coffee lands and jungle of Tlapacoyan, Veracruz, Mexico - from
April 24 to May 1. If you are interested in attending this unique PCD
please contact myself directly, or the course convenor Arturo Farias on
[email-masked] for more details.

Other courses using this format are being scheduled now and will be
advertised as dates become firm

NEW FORMAT PCD FOR MEXICO (and USA)
April 24 to May 1
Tlapacoyan, Veracruz, Mexico..

Convenor  Arturo Farias, [email-masked]
Teacher     Skye, [email-masked]
Authorised by the Instituto de Permacultura de Mexico AC
Dates April 24 to May 1
Cost of $650us includes transport from Mexico City, camping
accommodation (on the bands of the Rio Alseseca), all meals, tuition,
handout notes, follow-up design support and final assessment of design
submissions.

The Venue is a Camp in the Filo-Bobos ecological reserve near the town
of Tlapacoyan, Veracruz. The surrounding area is subtropical with 1,500
mm of rain per year. Towards the mountains (1/2 hour away), rainfall
exceeds 2,000 mm and vegetation is tropical gradually changing to cloud
forest and then to temperate pine and oak forest. Towards the coast
there is very little native vegetation, and there are mostly plantations
of citrus, banana and coffee giving way to cattle ranches in the plains.
At the beach, there are mangrove swamps. Terrain near the camp includes
the valley below where two rivers join, steep cliffs and hills. Inland,
terrain becomes steeper and first increasingly wet, and then drier up to
the dessert plains towards Perote. 

Agriculture in the area is primarily banana, coffee and citrus, grown in
a variety of ways. There are examples of polycultures and organic
agriculture. Nearby we have access to banana-coffee organic
polycultures, and a another plantation that is not organic but that
combines fruit trees, coffee, bananas and native plants gradually
blending into a beautiful secondary tropical forest. And a government
experimental station 20 minutes from the camp, there are examples of
legume trees and coffee polycultures, as well as an aquaculture system.

-- 
Skye - Apdo # 391,  Patzcuaro, Michoacan, CP. 61600 México. 
fax  (52) 01 (434) 24743
Profesor y diseñador en Permacultura
Director del Instituto de Permacultura de México A.C.
Talleres de desarrollo humano, planeación participativa y 
economía comunitaria.

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From: Marsha Hanzi <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 05 Apr 1999 07:44:31 -0300

The two-week course is an intense experience, and in one sense it is good to see
the whole process through in one go, but we have observed that the multiplying effect
is small. Making a design is relatively easy.  But working with -  managing -  a
complex system needs a lot more time and follow-up.   I have also come to the
conclusion that it is much more effective to work  with a smaller number of students,
over a period of time, than to give them the two-week immersion course and "set them
loose on the world".  They need  feedback and  opportunitites to raise questions and
even to see the same material in different contexts.    It is a spiral process.   Of
course most people don`t do just Permaculture.  They do other courses, too, in related
subjects, and it is the sum total of this "baggage" which counts...

Marsha

Skye escreveu:

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