Call for volunteers from Portugal and Spain for two months this Spring
6 February 2019
Permaculture Design Course at the Lavrio Refugee Camp in Attica, Greece
15 May 2019
The course run from the 30th of March to the 16th of April and took place at One Happy Family, a day centre for refugees close to Mytilene town, in collaboration with the Low Tech Lab Greece. The group was really diverse and consisted of refugees, international development workers and local teachers-farmers that are involved in grass root initiatives on the island.
People from Afghanistan, Yemen, Uzbekistan, Togo, Congo, Cameroon, Greece, Italy, Australia and France came together to learn, share and work on the redesign of temporary human settlements, in terms of both visible and invisible structures. The teaching team consisted of Rosemary Morrow, Fotini Georgousi and Franscesca Simonetti.
The lessons were held in English and were translated simultaneously in Arabic, Farsi and French. Our aim as a teaching team was to give the participants a thorough understanding of the Permaculture ethics and principles and at the same time to facilitate the development of participants’ skills in designing and implementing different techniques for the management of natural resources and the rearrangement of human activity, in order to meet a wide range of basic daily needs in food, water, energy and housing in a regenerative way.
The course consisted of diverse learner centred activities, that introduced the group to creative problem solving and promoted team work considering cultural differences and individual learning styles. Combining theory and practice we all worked on creative interactions and positive feedback loops that could influence camps’ everyday life and benefit both the communities as well as their surrounding ecosystems.
