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Permaculture in Nyumbani Village, the Birth of PRI Kenya, and a New Course With Warren Brush

Nyumbani Village, which is a program of the Children of God Relief Institute (COGRI) caring for both HIV infected and affected children, aims to establish a self-sustaining, community-based residential village serving children orphaned as a result of HIV/AIDS. This is being achieved through providing a family like settling where the orphans are under stewardship of destitute elderly grandparents in a family like structure and are provided with adequate social support, high quality clinical nursing and counseling, and both educational support and vocational training.

Nyumbani Village was founded in the year 2004, by the late Fr D`Agastino. The village stands on 1000 acres of land in the driest part of Eastern Kenya which receives rainfall of less than 500mm per annum. Currently there are 781 orphans and 76 grandparents with a full capacity of 1000 orphans and 100 grandparents and staff. To feed this population and generate enough income in this extreme dryland climate is a daunting task.

Nicholas Syano and Joseph Ntunyoi have worked hard using their experience in organic agriculture and agroforestry for the last few years to establish a resilient crop system that would be able to feed the entire Nyumbani Village and hopefully also produce surplus and generate some extra income. In December 2010 a full Permaculture Design Course was held at Nyumbani with Warren Brush from Quail Springs in California. The course enabled Nicholas and Joseph to add a permaculture perspective to their existing agriculture expertise, whilst also getting extensive input from the other course participants. As part of the practicals at the course, banana circles were established to deal with the existing greywater problem. Banana circles with gravel/sand/charcoal filters were established at every house in the village so that when the children wash or take a bath, the water goes through the filter and into the banana circle where it feeds bananas, sweet potatoes, paw paw etc. In this way the waste of water in a dryland landscape is addressed whilst at the same time helping to grow even more nutritious food. An overall permaculture design for Nyumbani Village was also produced at the course and is slowly being implemented. Other permaculture features at Nyumbani Village currently in place include food forests, sand dams and solar powered shallow wells and a biogas digester.

In May 2011 Nyumbani Village hosted another PDC with John Sheffy. Nicholas Syano and Joseph Ntunyoi were co- facilitators of the course. During this course an aquaponics system was added to the growing permaculture design. As the fish are fed they produce ammonium gas. This water is pumped to the growing vegetables where the ammonia is broken down by bacteria in the soil to nitrates, which feeds the plants and cleans the water before it goes back to the tanks.

Nyumbani Village is part of a growing movement in Kenya that is discovering permaculture. Having had a few dedicated permaculture projects dotted around the country for the last few years, there is now a renewed surge of interest in permaculture practices. As a result of the PDC with Warren Brush at Nyumbani, the Permaculture Research Institute of Kenya (PRI Kenya) has been set up, with Nicholas Syano and Joseph Ntunyoi as key people on the board. PRI Kenya has just recently got its registration as an NGO. It aims to promote permaculture education across Kenya and to act as a platform for the growing permaculture movement in Kenya and East Africa.

Between December 5-11 we will be running yet another Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course here in Nyumbani Village, Kenya. This course will also be facilitated by Warren Brush (see Warren’s author profile here).

Please click here for more details on the course (200kb PDF).

For more information about Nyumbani Village please visit: www.nyumbani.org.

5 Comments

  1. Hi there,
    great article but might i suggest an addition of a link “share with a friend”. On a pc its fine to copy and paste but not when surfing on the go. Will definitely get my friend out there to pay a visit and hopefully get inspired to join the movement.

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