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Establishing a Permaculture Center in Macedonia – Your Support is Welcome!

This article is not just a call for a support, it is also a message of gratitude to all of you who shared your stories on this website and gave us inspiration to move forward and aim towards the creation of a more human world.

Before I get to the main point of this article, I would like to tell you about our beginnings. It all started when a bunch of friends who share a common vision for a world in which humans live in harmony with nature decided to get together and make their vision come to life. We formally joined an organization called The Green Ark. It was exactly five years ago when we decided that we wanted to do something more, to transform our revolt into organized action which would be useful for our community. However, our beginnings were not all that glamorous. Back then, our knowledge of the permaculture ethics and principles came solely from reading books and watching videos like The Global Gardener series, Establishing a Food Forest, etc. And since none of us had taken a Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course, we were a bit apprehensive, but very excited at the same time, when we embarked on our first project – to start an urban garden.

Even though we had never done anything like this before, we knew that it was going to turn out amazing, since we all put our heart and soul into the project and were doing something we love. What we had to do was establish an urban garden based on the principles we saw it these permaculture movies. Since all the green public areas in our city were created by the principles of the contemporary style, with huge grasslands, our project aimed to demonstrate a sustainable way to make use of urban areas. Since the location of the garden was a dump yard, we had a lot of work in front of us. It took us weeks just to clean and prepare the site for what was to become our first Eco-Park.

Everything was going well and according to plan: we made three herb spirals, two big raised beds; we even started a small food forest! But, only a year after beginning our hard work, with all the effort and love we put into this project, we received horrible news. The local government, the same government that approved this project in the first place, had a change of heart and decided to destroy everything we made and worked hard for in order to build something else on the site. There was nothing we could do but watch a year-long project that we’d put our hearts into being demolished, right in front of us.

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