permaculture

[Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network <lakinroe@silcom.com>]

Santa Barbara Permaculture Network's
Permaculture Around the World Series

Child Soldiers of Liberia, Transformation through Permaculture
with Warren Brush

Saturday, October 4, 7-9pm 2008
Fundraiser Donation $10
Santa Barbara Central Library, Faulkner Gallery

        Please join Santa Barbara Permaculture Network as it 
launches its new series Permaculture Around the World by hosting a 
talk with Warren Brush of Quail Springs Learning Oasis and 
Permaculture Farm as he talks about his journey and work in Liberia, 
West Africa.

      Invited by the Santa Barbara based non-profit Everyday Gandhis 
( www.everydaygandhis.org), Warren Brush traveled to Liberia to teach 
workshops in Permaculture as a part of a peace building process, with 
vocational training for many former child-soldiers from a brutal 15 
year civil war the country had endured.  After the long civil war, 
the land was injured, but so were its children, now grown to young 
adults.  Caught in the nightmare of war they didn t create, but had 
been conscripted into, many were reluctant to return to their homes 
after the terrible atrocities of war. Could Permaculture help heal 
the land and its people?

Warren Brush made his first journey to Voinjama, Liberia in 2007 to 
teach a Permaculture course to students from a wide variety of 
backgrounds. These included elders of all the local tribes, medicine 
people, ex-combatant youth, trained agriculturists, subsistence 
farmers, men and women, all teaching translated into the local 
language.  Teaching sustainable agriculture techniques, as a part of 
the course, the students participated in a design project for the 
newly created Peace and Permaculture Demonstration Farm.  In March 
2008, the first graduating class of a Permaculture Design Course in 
Liberia's history received their diplomas from an assistant to the 
country's President, H.E. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, noting the 
significance of the event.

Permaculture (PERMAnent agriCULTURE) is the conscious design and 
maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems that have the 
diversity, resilience, and stability of natural ecosystems. It is the 
harmonious integration of landscape with humans in providing shelter, 
water, food, energy and other material and non-material needs in a 
sustainable manner.

Quail Springs is a 450-acre working farm and wilderness center 
focused on modeling and teaching the concepts and practices of 
sustainability. Located in the Cuyama Valley north of Ojai, CA, Quail 
Springs ( www.quailsprings.org) has been incorporating Permaculture 
into all of its land practices on their farm and demonstration 
site.  Permaculture teachers from around the world have taught at 
Quail Springs, and most recently, students from Liberia have attended 
advanced courses there.  The hope is to share the ecological design 
techniques and strategies with both the local communities of 
California and the world.  Currently they are involved in a capital 
campaign to help build a Core Mentoring Center to accommodate this 
work, and join a network of Permaculture Training Centers around the world.

Warren Brush is a certified Permaculture designer, educator, 
storyteller. He is co-founder of Quail Springs Learning Oasis & 
Permaculture Farm, Wilderness Youth Project, Mentoring for Peace, and 
Trees for Children.  He works extensively in Permaculture education 
and sustainability design in North America and in Africa.  Follow 
Warren's work in Africa on his blog at 
<http://web.mac.com/warrenbrush/iWeb/Site/African%20Journeys/African%20Journeys.html>http://web.mac.com/warrenbrush/iWeb/Site/African%20Journeys/African%20Journeys.html 
.


The event takes place at the Santa Barbara Public Library, Faulkner 
Gallery, 40 East Anapamu St, in downtown Santa Barbara, on Saturday, 
October 4, 7-9pm, 2008.  No reservations are required, fundraiser 
donation $10. For more information please call (805) 962-2571, or 
email <mailto:margie@sbpermaculture.org>margie@sbpermaculture.org; 
www.sbpermaculture.org. Sponsored by the Santa Barbara Permaculture 
Network and Everyday Gandhis.


Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
   an educational non-profit since 2000
(805) 962-2571
P.O. Box 92156, Santa Barbara, CA 93190
margie@sbpermaculture.org
<http://www.sbpermaculture.org/>www.sbpermaculture.org