permaculture

["Chuck Learned" <clearned@bminet.com>]

> > antonr@webmail.co.za wrote:
>> >My question is this: How do you educate a rural
> > community
> > >who believe in cattle and goat raising and a bit of
> > primary
> > >agriculture - mielies (Corn, I believe to most of
> > you) to

Climbing out of lurk: I don't know how serious you are about doing something 
about what you have written, however if you are; I would suggest you contact 
an organization I used to be involved with. The Institute of Cultural 
Affairs (ICA). I worked with the ICA in the 80's and was most impressed with 
their community development/human development tools/models. At one point 
when I was working in Kenya with many of the same dynamics you describe they 
were working with several hundred villages. We would go into a village by 
invitation under the blessing of the chief and its leaders, two facilitators 
from other villages who had been trained by the ICA were among the staff who 
worked with the village. Initially we came in for a solid two weeks and 
worked with the whole village to have them articulate their hopes and dreams 
in a brainstorm fashion, then the obsticles to their vision, then proposals 
were generated to overcome them and then specific goals were set to 
implement the proposals. The goals and objectives were plotted on a five 
year timeline, then a one month timeline was created and with specific 
people signed up to work on specific tasks. All the while this was happening 
we had the historians in the community weaving a historical story of their 
past, bringing it to the present and then extending the story into the 
future. Songs of the past and present were articulated and new songs created 
to honor their new and exciting journey together into the future. Symbols 
were created that honored their stories and embodied their vision. So they 
had Song, Story, Symbol and a well thought out plan to bring about change. 
Then they began their work and we circulated around every two weeks to 
further train the leaders in these methods so they could use them to bring 
forward their vision. We also asked them for two young leaders who would 
like to come and work with other villages in this manner for a period of two 
years.  This model worked: Schools for children and adults were created, 
community wells were dug, roads were improved, health care centers were 
created, small businesses and markets were created that honored the skills 
of the people. Trees were planted, health care workers circulated among the 
homes educating the women about self protection and self care. The people 
sang at their meetings, danced and celebrated their victories. I highly 
reccomend their methods. I believe they are based out of Chicago.
Good luck in defining your future actions.
Chuck Learned