Widening Participation

Anyone who has recently followed the development of the Ghana Permaculture Institute knows: the warm-up phase ended long ago, now the game is in full swing and first milestones have been reached. The finish line is in sight: establishing the first Ecovillage as the core of a West African Permaculture-Network. The Institute, moving surely and steadily forward in the right direction, may now look forward to further ambitious targets which loom on the seemingly far horizon: the Sustainable Development Goals.

by Jillian Hovey 

by Guntra A. Aistara, Central European University

July 4, 2014

Condensed summary of chapter published in Environmental
Anthropology Engaging Ecotopian Imaginaries: Bioregionalism, Permaculture, and Ecovillages for a Sustainable Future, Berghahn Books, 2013.

For this small survey, responses were given by only eight EPT partner countries (ES, GE, FR, BG, SLO, CZ, NL), whose educational activities are conducted in more than 17 countries in Europe and other parts of the world. Spain is exceptional in this case with reaching people in 4 continents through on-line teaching.

By Mihail Kossev 

Permaculture is a design science that is accessible to all. It does not matter whether you have never in your life stepped in a garden or if you have grown up on a fruit farm. There is always something a student will learn from a permaculture course. It is somewhat important to optimize your lesson plan to the skill level of your students, but it is essential that you tailor your workshop to a specific age group. It is common knowledge that you would teach something differently to a child as you would to an adult.

Part of the Widening Participation Series: European Permaculture Teachers Partnership - Friland Ecovillage, Denmark, 29 May 2014. Contributed by Katka Hora, Czech Republic

A short video with a presentation of the skype conference can be found below

AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER or BACK TO THE COMPUTER?

During the EPT meeting in Friland ecovillage in Denmark, we held a session on widening participation as an open space session with six tables / stations and different ways to reach out to people.

Mihail Kossev at Friland, Denmark on 29 May 2014 during the European Permaculture Teachers Partnership meeting, on the 'Money-Free Permaculture Design Certificate course'.

In this session, we reflected on the growing group of refugees coming to Europe as a possible target group for permaculture activities.

 Why are refugees important?
Refugees are a growing group due to ecological, social, political issues and climate change.

When designing a Permaculture course we have to consider many aspects, one of the most crucial being "Widening Participation".

The main consideration is our target market. Different target groups will require a differently formatted course. Mentally and physically challenged students may need different approaches and the use of different pedagogies. People also learn in different ways, some prefer self-directed learning, others need a  driven group.

STRATEGY: Free Open Workshops

During the 6th EPT meeting in Friland (Denmark) we had a work session on the topic of widening participation, exploring strategies to reach different target groups in permaculture education.

Below is a summary of the work done under the strategy “Free open workshops”.

Our guiding questions were: