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  • From: Dennis Argall <dennisargall@bigpond.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] Indonesian village
  • Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 12:17:28 +1100

LL earlier copied to this list an inquiry I made at SANET (where I have been involved before over the years) for people who may be interested in a project related to a village in Indonesia.

And LL encouraged me to enrol here.

I am in southeast Australia, and here is some of the permaculture we practice at home:
http://aplaceof.info/04/041108springgarden.htm
and here is recent work in community building in our home village:
http://aplaceof.info/tomerong/index.htm
We also have a local permaculture group, meetings and working bees.
.......I mention all that as background - important to be seen to be doing something in our backyard before trying to do stuff elsewhere.

I was a bit mysterious about the Indonesia project in writing to SANET because SANET seemed to have a plague or armchair activists scratching fleas and howling at the time, and I didn't want this delicately-starting-up little project in Indonesia to have to cope with such!

But it's clear to me, having looked at the mail in this group for a couple of week,s that this is a mutually supportive place where I can seek support more openly. :-)

SO...

I have recently begun to be involved with this organisation:
http://www.nabuur.com/modules/freepage/article.php?articleid=5
- which is the sort of organisation that could only be set up with Dutch and Swedish aid funding and with an advisory board including a Dutch crown prince, three former environment ministers, a national hero songwriter, a wildlife photographer, an ex-chairman of Heineken and an ex-chair of a chemical company. It's a young organisation, lots of spirit, still finding its way. The notion is of building communities of virtual neighbours around villages in very difficult situations in the third world to help them help themselves.

I have just taken on facilitation of this newly established 'village' in Java, with issues of rice production and debt
http://www.nabuur.com/modules/villages_welcome/index.php?villageid=74

I am concerned that while seeking to do things for a particular small village, we adopt approaches which have value more widely as a model and example, not just indulge in some very local sectional charitability.

There is a good summary of the situation here:
http://www.nabuur.com/modules/villages_forum/viewtopic.php? villageid=74&topic_id=1054&post_id=7991&order=0&viewmode=flat&pid=7972&f orum=281#forumpost7991

See the local representative's comment at the end of his review, about doing things for this Christian village in Moslem Java: "11. I would also like to underline that any positive results, knowhow will be passed on to surrounding communities, regardless of their belief. Hopefully resulting in a prospering regional situation."

We are making a good and swift start on the subject of rice (see the Sismanto paper downloadable from web site, and local reps action after reading it) and regarding general objectives, but I think we are going to need, in time, a good supportive community of people with holistic attitudes, with personal awareness and experience in sustainable living and community building. Just the sort of folks who subscribe here! :-)

I am aware that some people have trouble navigating that web site, let me know if you have comments or exaspirations in that!

best wishes

Dennis
www.aplaceof.info





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