Permaculture Design Certification 2016
We use the word "sustainability" a lot in our city, but is that truly enough? How do we do go beyond this to Regeneration? What would it mean to build a city that is Regenerative? How do we create more space for people to empower themselves in their communities?
Permaculture is a design methodology and a growing global movement that's about answering those questions, by analyzing how natural systems work and re-designing our human systems to function more like ecosystems. Permaculture is about fostering the relationships between people and place, creating social and ecological justice in our cities and our neighbourhoods.
Permaculture encompasses many skills and techniques: organic gardening, composting, green building, greywater filtration and recycling, animal husbandry, food preservation, alternative energy, environmental remediation, popular education, nonhierarchical organizing, nonviolent communication, alternative healthcare, and many other strategies that let us meet our needs as individuals in a way that benefits our larger community and the earth.
What is Permaculture?
The Nettles' Guild Permaculture Design Course focuses on using permaculture as a means of creating not only ecological justice, but also social justice. We do this in a number of ways including:
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Enforcing a mandate to amplify the voices of women, trans, queer and people of colour. All of the instructors and facilitators place their identies within these categories. The main organizers are white cis women, but seek support, mentorship and guidance from other communities. *We would love to chat more about this if you have any concerns or would like to offer support.
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We recognize the abundance of knowledge found in our local communities. Throughout this course you will hear from organizations, local experts, and members of our communities as they share their stories of front line resistance, and the skills and knowledge necessary to build a better world.
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We recognize the inherent grief that arises as you challenge dominant systems and share in the struggles of our communities. For this reason we take the time to offer a healing practice during every gathering. This will include meditation, singing, african dancing in the garden and many, many check-ins!
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The time will be divided between collaborative lecture style in the classroom and practical hands-on experimentation in the garden. We will visiting a number of different permaculture sites within the city and creating regenerative landscape features for our community partners.