permaculture

[Dennis Argall <dennisargall@bigpond.com>]

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