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Permaculture at Rainbow Ridge, Mailisita, Tanzania


The children having fun learning about
how to care for the trees

Greg Knibbs, from Edge 5 Permaculture, has been working with John O’Reilly from Committee Assist, Australia, since 2009 as a casual advisor on its Development Aid Project which started with the implementation at Rainbow Ridge, Mailisita, Tanzania. Greg was instrumental in introducing permaculture in West Africa, Ghana and helping with the birth of the Ghana Permaculture Institute, and also teaching permaculture from 1997 in the Philippines. Greg also helped to set up Permaculture Action Asia, a non-government (NGO), non-profit organization dedicated to spreading permaculture.

The AIDS epidemic has had a devastating effect on families globally. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, there are in excess of 13 million children orphaned by AIDS. Committee Assist aims to teach and develop sustainable methods, knowledge and skills in local communities to better address this epidemic. The focus is working with local communities so they are better able to care for all their children — orphans and abandoned children too.

In February 2011, Greg Knibbs from Edge 5 ran the first 12 Day Permaculture Design Certificate Course onsite at Kili Kids at Rainbow Ridge located in the small village community of Maili Sita, Tanzania (near Moshi). ). It is now a demonstration site and teaching hub from which we share and network locally. Once we have local people trained as Permaculture teachers we will encourage them to run PDC locally and then wherever a request may arise for training within Tanzania. The aim of the PDC was to introduce the local staff and the wider community to the concepts of permaculture. This year, starting on the 14th of January to the 11th February 2012, Greg and John O’Reilly went back to continue on the initial permaculture programme started last January, 2011. The main strategies the staff have implemented over the previous year was to observe the site and complete a concept design, and install the water harvesting systems by installing swales and a diversion bank, as well as continue running the site and looking after the children. Our goals for this current period and into the future are to implement permaculture systems on site at Rainbow Ridge and to finalise the micro design from the original concept design from January 2011.


The children, ready to go water the newly
planted trees on the swales.

The main aim for the next two years is to have the local staff use the strategies and techniques of permaculture and start hands on training for Killi Kid’s children, new staff and the local community in creating sustainable, productive environments.

It’s critical that within 18 months or less we have some local people trained and qualified to transition into becoming the local teachers and trainers to carry on the program at the local level. At this point the permaculture staff would be ideal candidates for becoming teachers.

The goals and aims are to shift community paradigms away from dependency on subsistence farming, towards a sustainable self reliance from well designed and restored permaculture designed landscapes, providing diverse productive systems. Currently we have two wonderful volunteers. Sarah Thomas has been on site for the last few years and does a wonderful job as the manager and Amy McNair recently started and has jumped right in to help with transitioning the farm over to permaculture. It’s in the pipeline that we may be running a PDC plus two weeks of hands-on practicals on site early next year, around late January or early February 2013. Keep an eye on this site for more info on this. The main thing we have implemented on site so far is the completion of food and water audits. We now know how much food we need to grow and the amount of water we need for the site. The earthworks for water management have been completed — mostly the hand digging of a series of swales and two diversion banks to stop some minor erosion that was evident — and we’ve planted over 500 trees, with more currently going in. The trees are a mixture of nitrogen fixers, fodder, firewood, timber and fruit trees.

The development of the food-growing beds and all the micro design for the animal systems, consisting of chickens for meat and eggs, cows, pigs and goats, are underway. We also have started composting and will start to use compost tea. We will also start a seed bank, to share open pollinated seeds with the wider community. There’s a long way to go but we have made a great start. The main aim is to build and add the permaculture skill sets to the local traditional knowhow and knowledge base. Once this is accomplished we can start to expand and teach to the wider community. I believe one of the best strategies for community development and earth restoration is to facilitate local people gaining the skill sets of permaculture design.

4 Comments

  1. What a great report! I love the focus on transitioning the knowledge into a local movement so quickly. Keep up the great work.

  2. give a man a fish he will eat for a day – teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat all day drinking piss

    but this – this is beyond just teaching fishing and i applaud those who give up their time to do it. so. much. respect.

  3. dear greg,

    You are on the right is time to start permaculture in Africa!!!! Gob job!!!
    I have worked in tanzania for 4 years in sustainable development projects and I am now learning permaculture to spend the message among NOGs and Red Cross, organsiations with I am working with as a consultant.

    I am convinced that permaculture can offer a lot and my goalin learning permaculture in Australia is to support projects as yours.
    I would like to know wich donors are funded your project and how I can support a PDC. I would like to support tanzania project. I know very Tanzania .
    I did my PDC in April , then 10 weeks of intership and now traying to get a training on how to teach permaculture.

    Great job caca

    gabrielle

  4. Greg, wow! have been reading a little and love what you are doing… its been 43 years but the picture looks like the Greg Knibbs i new. Keep up the great work.. Good on you!

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