Introduction to Permaculture
Residential Workshop
Where: TIEEDI Forest Garden.
When: 7-9th April 2017
Cost: Rs. 7000/- (30% discount for residents of Darjeeling district)
Chief Facilitator: Deev Datta
Profile: Deev is a Permaculture Instructor who also specializes as an experiential learning instructor. Having worked at Permaculture projects in various farms across India, Thailand, USA, Taiwan and Nepal, he has extensive knowledge and experience of practical application of the principles of Permaculture. He has been teaching and practicing Permaculture since the last 4 years.
Assistant Facilitators: Utsow Pradhan, Aashna Behl and Rebekka Diestelkamp.
Profile: Utsow and Aashna have been practising permaculture since the last one year and are the founders of TIEEDI Forest Garden. Rebekka has been a strong advocate of the principles of Permaculture since the last two years and has also interned as the farm steward at a remote Himalayan farm for one year.
All facilitators are PDC certified – an internationally recognised certification for permaculture practitioners.
Objective of the Workshop
It’s primary objective would be to introduce the participants to the wonderful world of Permaculture and to encourage them to apply the principles in their day-to-day lives.
Workshop Flow
This residential workshop will be a healthy mix of theoretical discussions of the ethics and principles of Permaculture and hands-on practical work on a permaculture forest garden. The participants would also be shown a selected documentary every evening that would be the topic of discussion over dinner. Did we mention that dinner on all days would be served as a campfire meal in the farm? 🙂
Stay Arrangements
Since this is an intensive residential workshop all participants would be staying close to the venue. They will be housed in clean, hygienic and comfortable home-stays with welcoming families in 8 Mile, Darjeeling. It would be a shared accommodation with two participants per room. All meals would be cooked and served at the TIEEDI forest garden and would constitute healthy and nutritious Indian/Nepali meals with vegetables sourced from TIEEDI and other organic farms nearby.
Topics Covered
- The Permaculture Ethics and Principles
- Observation skills building / Site analysis for both urban and rural environments
- Design methods – including a group design project, and how to apply these techniques to your situation / any situation
- Composting of organic waste to create great soil
- Practical examples of permaculture
- Forest gardening basics
- Plant walk – forest garden tour, plant identification, polyculture and guild examples
- No tillage, minimum tillage, and minimum/no irrigation techniques
- Ecologically friendly building design examples
- River pollution – it’s impact and steps that can be taken to revive a river.
- Grey and Black water harvesting technique